Yadua Bound

0800 position 16-58S 179-03E. Underway for Yadua Island, Fiji

Yesterday afternoon was a whirlwind of action in Savu Savu. Provisioning, getting cash, checking email on the internet, and having a beer at the Copra Shed bar. I even got to have a video chat with Lori who is up in Portland playing with her cousins. She has good internet access there and just helped me with the purchase of a round trip ticket to Hawaii after we finish cruising in the Yasawas. I get to go home for a couple of weeks before Van Diemen departs Fiji for New Caledonia.

Late in the afternoon we dropped our mooring in Savu Savu and powered a couple of miles west to anchor off of the Cousteau Resort. It is a lovely spot and a good anchorage on the point at the end of Savu Savu Bay, but we couldn't really enjoy it due to the weather. It had been raining off and on all day, and by the time we anchored it was raining continuously and lasted all night. It is overcast this morning but fortunately the rain has stopped.

Today will be the longest and most interesting day in our series of daylight sprints toward the Yasawas. We have seventy miles to go to our planned anchorage at Yadua Island. We got underway at 6AM and are currently motor sailing toward Nasonisoni Passage, a mile long, 200 yard wide natural channel through the reef on the southern coast on Vanua Levu. We should be entering the passage in a few minutes. After negotiating the passage we'll skirt the southern coast of Vanua Levu for twenty miles inside its barrier reef and exit the reef just west of the town of Nobuwalu. From there its twenty five miles to the anchorage at Yadua, a four square mile island off of Vanua Levu's west coast. The fishing lines are out, and we are hoping for a spanish mackerel dinner....

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com