Shortly after waking up, we looked out and saw a big cruise ship had pulled in. They were shuttling people to the two islands in their tenders. Then we realized that there were more than a dozen people snorkeling behind Kosmos. Boy, we picked an interesting place to anchor!
We decided to go diving first, then to the island. We loaded into our gear and Continue reading
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
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.
We awoke to gray skies, on again off again rain, and winds screaming at 10 27 knots. But, as promised, the water was relatively calm. It is probably rocky in some other anchorages, and rough in the ocean. Needless to say, it was a lazy day. We spent the majority of the day reading and playing “name that tune”. There are some hilarious quotes from the game, including “This is that girl band, Hansen!” and “I don’t recognize this song. Oh wait”¦ wasn’t this our first dance at our wedding?” The crew of Far Niente, Eric and Gisela, had arrived in the anchorage the day before, so in the evening we went over to their boat and hung out with them.
Yesterday the sun came out. We were thrilled to see the sun after more than a week of gloomy days in a row. We went snorkeling in Point Maurell bay. The snorkeling wasn’t all that spectacular since a lot of the coral has died, but we still saw some cool stuff. There are a few pretty coral formations, and a lot of mauve coral that almost looks like antlers. There is a plant that tends to grow near the mauve coral that is light brown and fuzzy looking. Continue reading
Today we woke up to gray skies. The weather forecast was for 11 foot seas at 8 second intervals and 25 knots of wind. We were supposed to go whale watching and we were wondering if it was such a good plan. We had been told that the whales head out of Vava’u when the weather is bad, returning when it is better. We also have been told the whales leave during the full moon.
Tonga and Niue both are visited every winter by humpback whales that come here to mate and bear their young. Both countries allow you to swim with the whales when you go with a licensed professional whale watch company. Both Niue and Tonga strictly prohibit boaters from chasing after the whales themselves. In Niue it is easy to control the boaters since there are so few visitors, but much harder here in Tonga. Since we haven’t had any luck seeing whales on our own, we decided to go out with the professionals. We would have done it in Niue, but they weren’t seeing any whales while we were there.
Our whale watch boat picked us up from Kosmos. We headed through the maze of islands towards the sea. Here we are leaving Neiafu harbor. You can see all the big commercial buildings along the waterfront in the background.
