We’ve been in Tonga a few weeks, and enjoying our time here, but cyclone season is approaching and we sailors live with one eye on the weather forecast at all times. With a nice four day weather window approaching we decided it was probably a good idea to move along. Fiji is a four-hundred-mile sail away, and is where we plan to hunker down and ride out the season.
We probably wouldn’t need any more fuel for the trip, but I hate going to sea without full tanks. I like to be able to run if there is a change in the forecast. Getting fuel here in Tonga was a bit of a pain. A fuel truck had to deliver it to us (70 gallons) and unsurprisingly he was three hours late. At least it was duty-free fuel, as we had cleared out of the country and gotten the papers we needed from Customs.
We left the dock and sailed back to our favorite anchorage to spend the night before heading off the next morning.
We left with fifteen knots of breeze directly behind us. We raised the main and tied off the jib for a nice downwind run wing-and-wing.
Putting the islands of the Kingdom of Tonga in the rearview mirror.
We had two beautiful days of sailing like this, without touching the sails. The forecast was correct, though, and on day three the wind quickly faded to zero. Glassy blue sea.
We cut the engine in the afternoon and jumped in to cool off and swim a while. Nothing beats swimming in tens of thousands of feet of water on days like this. Diving down twenty feet you could easily be disoriented by the view. Above is blue with bright sunshine, but below is the same. The sun’s rays seem to be shining up at you from the boundless depths. I love the clarity and endlessness of the ocean out here.
The boobies flew over after a little while, wondering what to make of us. Over and over again they circled just over our heads looking us right in the eyes.
Sailing into Fiji from the east is a little frustrating because we are forced to sail past countless reefs and islands, all Fijian, but we aren’t allowed to stop at them. Customs and Immigration are only located on a couple of different islands, and we wouldn’t hit one of those until we got to our final destination for the season in Savusavu.
The wind filled in a little on our final day and we had a nice sail right up until the final mile when we dropped the sails and motored into the pass.
We arrived a little after five, so the first night we weren’t allowed off the dock. Late the next morning the friendly officials began to arrive. Customs, immigration, and health. They carted off all of our pork—bacon, chops, and sausages. Bummer, because if we’d known we would have had a feast the night before.
First stop after clearing into the country and getting the boat situated in our slip was to go to town and find something to eat. Lunner obviously isn’t the busiest time of day for this restaurant. Fortunately, the lack of customers was not an indication of how good the food was.
Nawi Island is a brand-new marina literally dug right out of the middle of the small island. Supposedly they’ve been built to receive a Cat 5 rating. The dock pylons do appear to be twice as big as any I’ve ever seen anywhere else. Hopefully we won’t be putting the Cat 5 to the test this year. We do feel confident that the surrounding reefs and the curve of the bay will keep us safe from most smaller storms, and as with any Cat 5 we’ll be far away and will just cross our fingers and hope for the best.
Most cruisers head south to New Zealand for cyclone season, which is what we did on our first trip around the world. This time we’ve decided to forego the couple thousand extra miles that entails and to stay further north and visit some of the countries we missed that first time around. Namely, Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea. But for the next couple of months, Savusavu will be Bumfuzzle’s home.
Lots of things to do around the boat in the offseason.
I realized that I never wrote about the Code Zero blowing out on us back on our way to Aitutaki. Conditions weren’t particularly strong, but one of our lines slipped apart in a block and before we knew it the sail was snapping wildly. This sail was on its last legs already, so when it tore, it really tore. Nearly top to bottom. Completely beyond repair.
Here I am removing the torsion furling cable and the rest of the furling hardware from the sail. Later on I looked it up and realized this torsion line costs a few hundred dollars. Glad I hadn’t throw the whole thing overboard in frustration.
The boat will be getting a Code Zero replacement (probably a Code C, actually), new trampolines, and a new sailbag this season. If I had to guess, I’d say that between this stuff and other running rigging, the boat’s upkeep expenses this year will amount to about 5% of the overall value. When we were on the Grand Banks sailors would constantly bring up the cost of our fuel, but I’ll tell you, we never spent anywhere near this much money on trawler maintenance. Just this one sail alone would have easily covered two years of fuel for trawler cruising throughout the Caribbean.
23 Comments on “Tonga to Fiji”
Best article ever! Wonderful job! Good decisions! Great pics!
What does Fiji have against pork??
YEAH! What’s with the piggy prejudice? Love the photos! We’re in Honolulu & today we visited a museum with a wonderful navigational map of the area where you’ll be for awhile. It was fun to follow your adventures on the big board. Even more amazing to think of the Polynesian seafarers who explored these islands with no prior knowledge & much smaller boats. Stay safe & have fun!
Not really sure what the deal was with the pork. Talking to other cruisers there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to what they confiscate. They’re trying to keep their islands disease/invasive species free, so I don’t fault them for it, but it definitely would be nice if there was a definitive list of what not to bring.
African swine fever is running rampant right now. NZ customs wouldn’t even let in spam.
The island marina looks marvelous! Goodonyas!
Nice update. Great photos as always. GB’s forever!
Georgous, GORGEOUS photos! I always wanted to ask if you ever swam in the ocean while in the middle of it. I had decided not. Guess I was wrong. You all are much more brave than I am!
Interesting. It looked like your marina doesn’t have access by land.
Fortunately, we all have our own transport. 😉 The marina runs a shuttle boat over every hour, but most of the time we just take our dinghy. Just a normal day in the life for us cruisers. It’s also a nice security feature.
Over 50 boats were lost to Hurricane Norma in La Paz BCS last week. There are boats pushed ashore all up and down the Malecon and a lot of destroyed docks containing crushed and battered boats. The ones that survived were tied to the pilings, the cleats on the docks did not fare well. We spent the day mopping up water seeping through the walls in our nearby town but here Norma seemed more like a weak tropical storm, winds no more than 40-50. I would never want to be in a cat 5!
Yeah, the amount of damage seemed outsized in relation to the strength of the storm. Brutal. And yes, the cleats always seem to be a weak point, especially in older marina. Undersized and poorly installed cleats are way too common.
Great post, Pat. Could you comment on the other options you considered for cyclone season and what made you choose this one? It looks like a great spot!
The most common option is to sail south to NZ from Tonga, wait six months, then sail back up to Fiji. Lot of miles and expense to end up in the same spot, though it does get you safely outside of any cyclone risk. We’ve already been to NZ, and while it was awesome for us as a couple who could travel the country like backpackers, we didn’t think it would have the same appeal for us as a family of four.
Another option is to sail to northeastern Australia. We considered this, as we do have friends there that we would have enjoyed being with, but again, it’s a lot of miles that we weren’t anxious to do, and it would have meant skipping a lot of the places that we’d like to visit because it would mean sailing back into the wind to see them after cyclone season.
Thought about sailing further north and west into the Salomon Islands or even further, which could have gotten us clear of cyclones, but that would have meant a lot of sailing and not enough time doing the things we’d like to do.
Neiafu, Tonga. After visiting there I feel confident that a boat could be made secure there from all but a direct hit from a large cyclone. I didn’t really consider it, though. While nice for a visit I couldn’t see spending months and months there.
Fiji. There are a number of marinas that will secure a boat for cyclone season by hauling them out and strapping them down to the ground. One even puts the boat in a pit to reduce its exposure to wind. I considered this, but it was expensive, and I didn’t really want the boat out of the water.
We’re running a risk being where we are, but I think it’s a good reward-to-risk ratio. Of course, anything can happen with cyclone season. So we’ll really only know how good the choice was six months from now. Nice thing about being here and being in the water is that we can start our sailing season earlier (say February) and remain close enough to hide out again if a storm does pop up after we leave.
Super helpful, Pat. Thank you for the thorough reply. I completely understand your reasoning here. We may do the same.
When you were in NZ last time, what did you think of the cruising there? We’ll ultimately wind up there ourselves. I’ve visited several times over the past year and got in some daysailing. I’ve truly enjoyed being there and wondering what it would be like to sail there for a year or two before moving on to Australia.
Ha ha, we just left Fiji for NZ to ride out cyclone season. I was wondering what you guys would choose and was secretly hoping we’d meet you in NZ where I could make Nicholas Cage jokes. Maybe next year.
Fiji is awesome. Make sure you visit the southern Lau group islands. Fulanga and Ongea were some of our favorite spots. Just bring mosquito repellent to Fulanga. Taveuni Paradise resort has free moorings for cruisers and a whole tray of cinnamon rolls is $5 from the bakery. It does rain a lot in Savusavu, the dry area is the west side of Vitu Levu near Musket Cove and Vuda.
Anyway, enjoy the time in Fiji. You guys inspired me almost 20 years ago and this year I was finally able to live the boat life with my 3 small kids. It’s a lot of work, some days we talk of just flying home, but we’re still on the boat.
Pat: If you want to see what a Cat 5 will do, look at what Otis did to Acapulco. That storm basically arrived out of nowhere (in terms of intensity) and so almost no time to prepare. We survived Norma in La Paz ok, but we are in the inner basin at Costa Baja. Other marinas and anchored boats did not fare so well. So sad to see all the wrecked vessels and our hearts go out to all those who suffered losses.
Yep, brutal season in Mexico.
Great to read your blog again.
We are headed back to Mexico and will miss you as your neighbors at Paradise. Perhaps you have heard about the hurricane damage at Acapulco and La Paz.
Best wishes,
Jay and Terri
SV Cadenza
Another rough season for a lot of Mexico. Hope you guys had a great season away from the boat. Now, get back to filling those teak bungs. 😉 Hopefully we’ll pull in alongside you again in a couple of years.
Ah, too funny… I only stumbled upon your post because I just started researching options for spending the season in Fiji (next year for us, we still haven’t pried ourselves away from the Tuamotus yet). 😉
I did finally find a list if “cyclone hole” anchorages that might be helpful when you do venture out of the marina… let me know if its helpful.
Any chance you compared prices/benefits between Nawi Island and the circle setup at Vuda Point??
bryan+jen
svKarma
I had gotten a quote from Vuda. I don’t remember the exact number, but I do remember that it was one of those where you think, “Is this in Fijian or USD? Is that per foot!? That’s per month!?” Meanwhile we’re only paying $520/mo USD at Nawi and feel like the boat is every bit as safe. Of course, a direct hit anywhere is going to be big trouble, but I’m comfortable rolling the dice at Nawi. I think I’d have also felt comfortable riding out the season in Neiafu, Tonga.
Yeah, I rather assumed/feared so…
Was actually thinking that running for the mangroves near Denarau looked like a pretty solid plan before I stumbled upon another cruisers post from a few years back where that was their plan, right up until a storm rolled in and they discovered the mangroves closed! Ouch.
Hopefully you won’t even see any storms and therefore wont have anything to report. 😉
Enjoy Fiji!