This morning the air raid siren briefly went off at 0800. It goes off at regular intervals, almost on the hour, so it probably is a bell of some sort. The officials were to Kosmos at 0900. The customs boat pulled up and five Fijians boarded Kosmos, each with a battery of questions and forms to fill out. The whole process took an hour and the officials were very nice.

Once they left, we moved from the quarantine area to the anchorage in front of the yacht club and got Kosmos situated. 23 hours after arriving in port, we were ready to go to land. We ran a variety of errands checking in with the yacht club, going to an office to obtain duty free fuel request forms, to another office to request a cruising permit, bank, produce market, grocery store, etc. Our errands took us all over downtown, so we saw a lot and got a good feel for the city.

Suva is by far the biggest city we have been to since leaving San Diego. Suva has an eclectic feel to it. There is a wide variety of architectural style, ranging from a catholic church that looks like a castle, to quite a few French style buildings that look like they belong in New Orleans, to modern ones. The streets are bustling and crowded, with lots of cars, buses and people walking around. There are tons of shops, from department stores to mom and pops, selling everything that is normally available in a big city. It is clean, with no graffiti or trash at all. Of course, being a “real” city, there isn’t much greenery around is outside the parks.

The yacht club is in the industrial area, across from the Suva prison. We didn’t go south of the yacht club, but from what we could see, it looked green and lush, probably the beginning of suburbia. Not too far north from the yacht club is an enormous produce market, filled with vendors in small stalls selling a wide variety of produce. It is a better selection than anything we have seen in the rest of the South Pacific, though we never went to the produce market in Tahiti.

Across the street is another market with vendors selling assorted items, with kind of a flea market feel. As you move north, the buildings and quality of stores become nicer and nicer. The farthest north we went was to the government buildings. There is a department store and expensive restaurants within a block or so of them.

Everyone we encountered was incredibly friendly and welcoming. Tons of people all said hi as they passed us in the street. We did run across a couple people that hit us up for money, someone who offered to sell Eric weed, and someone who offered to sell Christi limes or lines. She didn’t stick around long enough for clarification. There were a few people begging on the street, but that is to be expected in a city. While Tonga teaches English in their schools, only Tongan is spoken by the locals, so while language certainly wasn’t a barrier in Tonga, you could tell that sometimes the locals were uncomfortable not speaking in their native tongue. In Fiji, everyone is just as comfortable speaking English as they are in their local languages.

There were absolutely no signs of looming violence no police patrolling the streets, no fliers being discreetly handed out. Everyone just went about their business.

One of the reasons we had wanted to stop in Suva was because we figured in a big city you can get a much better selection of groceries than you can in a small town. Much to our disappointment, the grocery store we went to had limited selection and we couldn’t get half the things on the shopping list. However, we are pleased to report that we were able to stock up on the single most important food item Tim Tams. This was a huge relief. After the scare in Tahaa where there were no Tim Tams, we loaded up in Bora Bora. Thank God, because we couldn’t find Tim Tams in Niue or Tonga. We were down to our last box and desperate for a re-stock. Not only were there a bunch of flavors, they were even on sale. Praise the Lord.