Hello to everyone and welcome to blog. In our last instalment, we sailed Azimuth along the remote north coast of Vanua Levu, dropping anchor in little‑visited bays and connecting with villagers through music, meals, and shared stories. We helped restore broken solar systems in Salevukoso Village, and experienced the challenges of subsistence life first-hand. That journey closed with the completion of our circumnavigation of Vanua Levu, returning to Savusavu to collect our passports (Phew!).
This time we will tell you about what we have been up to for the past month or so. We ended up staying in Savusavu for about 12 days in total. We picked up a mooring buoy again like our last visit. Its the budget option. Savusavu does have a superb marina, if you can afford it, but we were quite content with the 20 Fijian dollars a night for the mooring buoy (about 7 GBP). After the remoteness of where we had been, it was a little daunting to get back to town life, but we eased ourselves back in to the flow with a trip to the local Chinese restaurant which was very basic but cheap and really good food.
The weather was quite grim. Heavy rain and winds confined us to the boat for a few days, we didn’t really feel like braving the the rain. At some point in those days I stubbed my toe, a pretty common thing to do on a boat, and I thought nothing off it. It ached a bit, but I carried on as normal.
The next evening, we went over to Nadi Marina to meet some old friends on Barbarella, Ralf and Norah. We had seen quite a lot of Ralf in New Zealand in the Bay of Islands whilst we were all waiting for the weather window to depart to Fiji, but we hadn’t seen Norah since we met in Penrhyn in the Cook Islands about 2 years ago. They very kindly invited us to dinner and we had a lovely evening catching up on all the news since then, and reminiscing about our time in Penrhyn.
If you want to know more about Penrhyn you can see our old blogs here:
When we returned to the boat, I noticed that my toe was a bit swollen and was aching more. The next morning it had swollen up like a balloon! However, we had things to do, like getting supplies etc, so I braved on with a trip to town especially as the weather had now finally improved. That was a mistake, and by the end of the trip I was hobbling around. A trip to the yacht club bar was required for beer pain relief!
Still we had managed to get all the supplies we needed and restock up on Kava root for our planned visit out to the Lau Islands to the South East of Savusavu. The next morning we departed to anchor 4 miles further up the coast off the Cousteau resort and waited for what I hoped would be a weather window that would take us the 180 miles South-east to the southern most of the Lau Islands, Fuluga and Olgea.
The weather window didn’t develop as I hoped, and when Barbarella contacted us and said they were headed to Vanua Balavu and the Bay of Islands, I re-examined the weather routing to get us there and it looked great. So we set sail the next morning with a 6am start and headed out. Plenty of other yachts had the same idea and a procession left for various destinations at the same time
It was a lovely sail, about 120 miles in total. However, it was upwind, and what started as a flat calm sea behind the reef, picked up in to short chop that had as bouncy a little. That didnt sit well with Ailsa, and she felt a little green, so I sent her to bed to sleep it off. I actually really enjoyed the sail. My predicted winds came true for once, and sailing at 45 degrees apparent all night and with the wind slowly veering, we sailed in a long arc all the way to Vanua Balavu. I had to shorten sail to slow down for the last couple of hours and time our arrival at the pass through the reef to just as the sun rose.
I got Ailsa up to help me motor through the pass and keep an eye out for the reef. We had a set of waypoints to follow to get through from our trusty No Foreign Land App and they proved to be right on the money, we only saw a minimum of 10 metres as we glided through the narrowest part of the pass and in to calmer waters behind the reef. From here we got our first look at Vanua Balavu and the clusters of small islets and rocks around it as the sun came up. We were immediately struck by the clarity and colour of the sea, dark blues in the deeper water grading to vibrant aquamarines in the shallows, shining like crystal in the early morning sun.
A motor of about an hour and a half in to a strong headwind took us a little further south to the anchorage off the village of Daliconi, where we needed to do our first Sevusevu ceremony with the chief of the village to obtain permission to anchor in the Bay of Islands.
When a visiting yacht anchors in the Bay of Islands, the crew is welcomed ashore at Daliconi village to present a sevusevu. This traditional ceremony involves offering a bundle of yaqona (kava root) to the village chief as a gesture of respect and goodwill. The chief, or a designated elder, responds with words of acceptance, formally granting permission to anchor, explore, and enjoy the surrounding waters. The ritual is simple but deeply symbolic — it acknowledges the authority of the community, establishes a bond of trust, and marks the sailors as guests under the village’s protection.
It was an interesting experience, we felt quite humbled, even though it was something the chief did often, as this is a well visited anchorage, he still blessed us in the traditional way. We also gave a gift of some notebooks for the local school and some money towards the village community fund. Here they have built a concrete road between the school and the village using money solely donated by visiting yachties which is nice to see that we could make a small difference to their community.
I was quite tired by this point though, and annoyingly my toe was starting to hurt even though it had been well rested for a few days, so we didn’t stay long. We headed back to the boat where on the row back we ran in to Ralf from Barbarella who was dinghying in to do his sevusevu as well They took pity on us and kindly towed us back to Azimuth!
Pulling up the hook we took a slow downwind sail up to the Bay of Islands proper and first impressions was wow! We entered the anchorage area near where Barbarella was anchored and as the water shallowed we dropped the hook in our own private cove with a small islet inside in clear aquamarine flat calm water.
Here is a shot Ralf took with his drone. We are the boat anchored on the left of the shot in our cove!
That was me done for the rest of the day! And that night I slept for 10 hours despite the noise at high tide. Even though there are very few waves in the anchorage, at high tide the water laps gently at the limestone rock in the cove that has been undercut by the see and even a gentle lap turns in to a loud slapping noise! Its a small price to pay to be anchored in paradise though.
Ailsa has been swimming everyday religiously!
And every day we get visited by a shoal of fish that like to swim along the surface and slap around. Difficult to capture on camera but I had a go
The next day we set off to explore in earnest in the dinghy. I captured that expedition in the video below including a little footage of our arrival at the island:
A video replaces a thousand words really. This place is very special and unspoilt, and we felt very lucky to be able to explore it.
So what have we been doing since we got here. Not alot really! My toe is still on the mend, and although there are several hikes that I would love to do around the anchorage, so far I have had to put those on hold.
Barbarella invited us over for dinner one night which was a lovely evening.
We have also met some other boats in the anchorage and a few days some boats we haven’t seen since the Bay of Islands in New Zealand have arrived from other parts of the Lau Islands. So we have been busy socialising.
Here’s another taste of the place this time shot from my canoe, and in this one, you get to see some of the underwater world too as well as some forays in to the small caves in the area.
The Bay of Islands is not just beautiful — it’s a geological storybook. Ancient limestone uplift, karst erosion, and sea‑level rise combined to create a maze of islets and lagoons, while centuries of cyclones have left their mark in the sediments.
We have no plans to leave this place yet, but we do have to leave Fiji towards the end of October where we then be heading North to explore some of the remoter parts of the Pacific Islands. However, I feel sure there will be another update on Fiji in the blog before then.
If you go this far thanks for reading. If you like the blogs, please consider purchasing the book … Many thanks to all of you who already have! Link is below
And whilst your still here, I would love feedback on our new YouTube Channel. There are several videos to watch, which feature spoken word extracts from my book put to sailing videos. Let me know what you think? Please like and subscribe and leave comments. The link is below
Sailing Planet Earth – YouTube
Adios Amigos
Dom and Ailsa on Azimuth.