According to our cruising guide, the “mecca” for yachties is a place called Musket Cove, located on an island called Malolo Lailai just to the south west of Nadi. At the time the guide was written, 1992, it had some of the Continue reading
Today was a busy day. We had a crew of people come to wash and wax Kosmos (yippee!). Eric briefly met with them, then the four of us (Adrienne, Christi, Eric, and John) headed to downtown Nadi (pronounced Nandi). Nadi is a much smaller city that Suva. Most of the buildings are two stories, with the occasional 4 story building. Like Suva, Nadi is clean, with no graffiti of litter about. Suva has some charm, Nadi has none. Except for the Hindu temple, the architecture is utilitarian.
We were up early again. We were going to go on a tour of the Coral Coast of Viti Luvu, which is between Suva and Nadi. We were being picked up from the Sheraton, where Adrienne had just checked in. We had decided to get breakfast at the Sheraton. Regrettably the food was not good and the service was slow, even by South Pacific standards.
For the tour there was another couple with us, Hilary and Russ. We were in a 4 wheel drive SUV (sport utility vehicle) with seating for 7. We left Denaru and went through downtown Nadi. The drive to the coral coast was quite long. The scenery is mostly rolling hills with grass, scattered palms trees, and the occasional cow or horse. There is one area that is a pine tree forest. Pine timber is one of their major exports. There were several farm areas, mostly sugar cane. We saw lots of cut sugar cane ready to be sent off to the factory for processing. Sugar cane is their primary export. Continue reading
Eric and Christi took a taxi over to the hotel where we were meeting Christi’s dad, John. The hotel is at the other end of Denaru, so we got to see more of the island. From what we understand, part of Denaru is natural island, part of it is reclaimed swampland, and part of it is man made land from the swamp dredging. There are several gated communities filled with fancy custom homes on finger cays that all have private docks in their back yard. The taxi driver said the homes range from $750,000 to $3 million Fijian dollars. There is a golf course and a large number of exclusive resorts.
Much to our surprise, when we pulled up at the hotel, John was waiting for us out front. He had made great time getting through customs and baggage.
Eric navigated the pass into the lagoon this morning at 0400. It is a somewhat narrow pass and it was pitch black outside, so he couldn’t see anything other than a reef marker and two small flashing direction markers in the distance. If the direction lights are lined up from top to bottom, then you are supposed to be on course through the narrow channel through the coral. So it was a careful steering job to stay lined up in the moderate seas, which where swaying the boat a bit. Also the charts are not very high resolution, so the whole experience was a bit disconcerting for him. Thankfully radar, depth measurements, lights, and chart all lined up and everything went smoothly.
We pulled into Nadi this morning at 0630, ushered in by a lovely sunrise.
The mainland area looks like Southern California, with rolling, dry mountains. There is quite a bit of construction on the flat land along the shore and virtually no buildings along the mountains. There are several islands dotting the horizon all around the main land. We pulled up in front of the hotel that is the rendezvous point for meeting Christi’s dad, located on an island called Denaru. Like Coronado Island in San Diego, Denaru is right off the coast of Nadi and is connected by a bridge. Our plan was to anchor the boat and take a bus into Lautoka to notify the officials we had arrived. It seemed to us that there was no need to take Kosmos to Lautoka since we had already had an onboard inspection in Suva. Continue reading
