Category Archives: Cruising Guide

Information for other cruising boats. Our experiences finding places to anchor, dealing with officials, provisions, etc.

Passage from Lautoka to Port Vila, Vanuatu

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Much to our dismay, the customs guy contacted us yesterday afternoon to let us know he would be out of the office until 10:00. We needed to check out right at 08:00 if we were going to make it to Port Vila before dark on Monday. This really messed up our plans. Should we leave late in the afternoon and come in on Tuesday morning instead? We have a friend who was already in Port Vila waiting on us, and we hated to make him wait yet another day.

On the dock in Denaru we met another cruiser who was also going to go to Lautoka to check out at the same time we were. He said he would give us a dinghy ride in and out of customs. Without having to deal with the dinghy, we could well be on our way by 10:30. We decided  Continue reading →

From Waya Back to Denaru

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Our walk with Tooey was on Tuesday. On Tuesday night, heavy rain began that continued through the next day. Local custom requires that you tell the chief in person when you are leaving the anchorage. It was raining really hard and we figured the chief would understand if we didn’t trek out in the rain to say goodbye.

We wanted to check out on Thursday morning, so the plan was Continue reading →

Visit to the Chief of Waya Island in Yalobi Village

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Lat 17.20S, Long 177.08 E, In Fiji, once you get outside the cities, most of the land is owned by villages. A village not only owns the land, they also own the water around the land. In this culture, it is of utmost importance to obtain permission to be in their territory. It is considered very bad form to not ask permission to stay. There is a special ritual that is to be followed in order for permission to be granted. The importance of  Continue reading →

Diving in Navadra Bay and Fleeing to Yalobi Bay, Waya Island

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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 →