August 26, 2013
It was time to head to our next anchorage in Fulaga. It’s known as the Sandspit because of the long finger of sand that stretches out from a corner of the beach. At high tide the spit is covered with water, but at low tide it emerges and borders one side of the anchorage. Generally cruisers who visit Fulaga make this their first stop after the village anchorage.
The Sandspit was all the way back across the lagoon, not too far from the pass where we first entered this atoll. The first part of the trip was easy; all we had to do was follow our original track. That gave us plenty of opportunity to get a better look at this fantastical alien-planet world with all its mushroom islands.
Once we got close to the pass, it was time to make a right turn and head into new territory. It was beautiful but nervous-making. We had those waypoints that were being passed around, and they helped right up to the point where they went over a small group of islets. It was time to set them aside and keep a very careful bow watch, with me directing Rich to steer around any bommies that looked troublesome.
[Note from the Rich of the future: This was before we had satellite maps from Google and others to use for navigation. What a difference they make. This would be so much easier now. Also, the first Google Earth images of this area were covered by clouds. There are some new, recent ones (Sept. 2015) that are excellent!]
It was a relief when the bommies phased out as we neared the Sandspit. The shallow water that now covered the spit was a brilliant light blue. Beyond it was a long white beach fronting a thick line of palm trees. Mushroom islands were visible in the distance, both to the east and west.
We motored around the spit and into the anchorage, and we soon found ourselves with an unfamiliar problem. We were in a huge area of clear water over sand bottom, averaging about 15 feet deep. We could anchor anywhere, and because of all this choice, we had a hard time picking a spot! There were a handful of boats already here, most of them choosing to anchor near the spit.
We motored by the beach: is any one area more beautiful or interesting than any other? Nope! Did we want to be near the spit, or closer to some mushroom rocks? Did we went to be close to the beach or further out? We needed to make a decision already so finally just dropped our anchor off the beach ahead of us, close enough to the other boats it would be easy to visit (our friends on Bright Angel were already here) yet far enough away to have lots of space.
We had arrived in paradise, as beautiful as our last anchorage but in a different way. Instead of a an area enclosed by green hills and little islands, this was wide open with views of beaches, stretches of colorful water, mushroom rocks, and the outer protective rim of the atoll.
Below is a gallery of photos we took motoring across the lagoon and our arrival at the Sandspit anchorage. (Click to enlarge and scroll.) –Cyndi
Note: Please ignore the Wakaya Island post below! We’re updating the Fiji Information Pages and had to put this in as a post so we could put in info about the island. We’ll write about it in the future, but for now it doesn’t fit in with anything we’re writing about now.
