Weathering the Storm

0800 position 17-16S 177-07E. At anchor in Nalauwaki Bay, Waya Island, Fiji

The southern Yasawas lie twenty five miles north west of Fiji's largest island, Viti Levu, a high circular island fifty miles wide. Viti Levu has a significant impact on the weather in the Yasawas. When the trade winds are blowing out of the south east, the usual direction, the southern Yasawas and the Mamanuka Islands, which are even closer to Viti Levu, are in the lee of the large island and light thermal conditions prevail there. When the winds shift to the south or north of east though, Viti Levu no longer blocks the winds and the Yasawas and Mamanucas are fully exposed. The winds in the smaller islands are sometimes even greater than the prevailing wind in these conditions if they happen to lie in the corridor where the wind accelerates around ends of Viti Levu. Typically this area of strongest winds lies very close to the edge of the lee. A prevailing wind shift of just a few degrees in these transition areas can change the wind strength from dead calm to thirty knots or more or vice versa.

The strong winds we experienced the night before last had died off early yesterday morning, and we weren't sure if it was a drop in the prevailing winds or if the winds had shifted a bit putting us into the lee of Viti Levu. It didn't matter, we wanted to take advantage of the calm conditions to jump the nine miles to our anchorage at Waya Island where we planned to hide from the strong south westerly winds expected last night. So we got an early start and powered south winding our way through the most picturesque islands we've seen so far in the Yasawas. We passed four small high islands each with a resort on a white sand beach. An hour and a half later we arrived at Nalauwaki Bay, a deep bay facing north on Waya Island.

It looked like six other cruising boats had come to the same conclusion we had about the upcoming weather and the best place to hide from it, because we found them at anchor in the bay when we arrived. They were nicely spread out though and it was a large anchorage so we were able to find a good spot away from the others to drop the hook.

Waya Island is the highest island in the Yasawas with peaks more than 1,200 feet high. We were studying the peaks with the binoculars after anchoring and Eric said, "Hey, somebody put a piece of wood in the shape of a horse on the top of that mountain!" A few minutes later the horse shape was gone. Much discussion and inspection of the mountains through the binoculars ensued until consensus determined that herds of wild goats were moving around on the tops of the peaks. They provided entertainment for the crew throughout the afternoon.

A strong south westerly wind filled in just before sunset as forecast and blew pretty hard all night. By this morning the wind had shifted back to east of south, and is expected to keep backing and dropping over the next few days. We'll probably stay here another day to let the weather continue to settle before moving to our next anchorage.

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