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.
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. Continue reading
