October 2015 – Page 3

Octopus Resort Snorkel (Waya Island, Fiji)

October 22, 2015

We spent yesterday and last night at Octopus Resort on Waya Island. This was some of the very best snorkeling we’ve had on Fiji’s West side. See for yourselves…

The best snorkeling we found was right off the beach, just south of the restaurant and down to the last bure (cottage). The hard corals are wonderful and there’s a pretty good variety of fish, including some big ones. They don’t seem too afraid of people – mostly just going about their business as we watched them.

Our routes into the bay can be found on our Fiji Cruising Info pages. Our anchor waypoint was 17 16.5610 S, 177 06.2560 E. -Rich

Octopus Resort (Waya Island, Fiji)

October 21, 2015

It’s been suggested that the crew of Legacy might like resorts a little too much, but we feel that some resorts are as unique and special to a place as any historic monument or village. Plus, they often have the best locations.

Octopus Resort is just such a place. It’s located on the west side of majestic Waya Island, nestled at the foot of grassy hills on a beautiful long stretch of beach. It’s the sister resort to one of our favorite places: the Blue Lagoon Resort to the north on Nacula Island.

The water here may not be as blue, but the snorkeling is some of the best in Fiji. Otherwise both places share the same attributes: restaurants with a sand floors, wonderful multi-course dinners, festive bars, mountain hikes, beautiful beaches, nice water for swimming, and lots of daily activities listed on a giant chalkboard in the dining room.

Octopus is not the easiest place for a yacht to visit. There’s a gap in the outer reef and the ever-present westerly swells roll right in here. Not only do you want to avoid strong trades in this anchorage (the mountainous interior can exacerbate those winds and send them blasting into the anchorage), you want a calm swell, too. But it’s worth the wait. It took us all season, but finally we got to visit. As you can see from the photos above, we enjoyed it very much. (Click to enlarge and scroll through photos.)

Our routes into the bay can be found on our Fiji Cruising Info pages. Our anchor waypoint was 17 16.5610 S, 177 06.2560 E. –Cyndi

Visiting Wilson (Monuriki Island, Fiji)

October 20, 2015

We just dropped anchor at Monuriki, otherwise known as “Tom Hanks Island” because Castaway was filmed here.

Monuriki Island, Fiji (Tom Hanks Island). Click for larger version.

Below, a gallery of photos from our time at Monuriki Island. Click to enlarge and scroll through photos.

This may not be the best anchorage in the world, but it is so worth the effort. The views of steep, tropical islands on all sides are spectacular. The bottom is also a bit steep. We dropped our hook in 75 feet and hung back into less than 20 feet of water in yesterday’s light northerlies. -Rich

Note from Cyndi: What I loved most about this anchorage was the feeling of being surrounded by islands and the view of our spectacular neighbor, Monu island (featured in some of the photos above). It was also a thrill to look for spots we might recognize on Monuriki from the movie Castaway (such as “Help Me” spelled out in rocks). The snorkeling here was pretty but not special, but it felt great to spend this very hot afternoon swimming in the water. We’d highly recommend coming here to anyone (Castaway fan or not), but we’d also caution that it’s a fair weather anchorage.

Below is our route from Vuda. The last waypoint is where our anchor is lying.
monuriki 1