Category: Uncategorized

September 8, 2015

Things are starting to look better here at the “Black Lagoon” (aka Blue Lagoon).

First, we took an outing and found some actual blue. It’s across the bay at Tavewa Island, about a three quarter mile dinghy ride from our boat. Beautiful water and a spectacular beach! See for yourselves…

Later, we had dinner in the restaurant at the resort. Nice. It seems that the bright white lighting is just for the sports bar-like atmosphere at the cruiser’s bar and restaurant. The resort restaurant, where we ate dinner, is really pretty. The food was good – steak, fish, desert and a bottle of wine ran $170 Fiji.

Here’s what the restaurant looks like…

Cyndi’s post about this is coming up next. -Rich

 

September 7, 2015

Well, we’re anchored in the famous Blue Lagoon in the Yasawas, but really? Blue Lagoon?

OK, OK, so I used Photoshop to help make my point, but it is dark, deep water. Not like the clear, blue water we were anchored in yesterday…

Cyndi tells me that this is called the Blue Lagoon because this is where it was filmed. Makes sense. It isn’t for the water color. She held out hope that in the sun, the water would be a more beautiful blue. Sorry Cyndi.

Also, the Sloppy Johns $30 iPad cruising guide says this is a good anchorage, with 8 to 12 meters (26 to 40 feet) of sand to anchor in. Not!  We’re as close to the beach and surrounding reef as our scope will allow and we’re in 40 feet. Most of the bay is 55′ to 70′ deep, and with 11 boats here now, there’s not enough swing room to allow proper scope (even 5:1 would require 275 feet of scope, assuming you find 55′ deep water!). It’s also exposed from a good chunk of the compass to the west and north ocean swells with a good, long fetch to the south. I guess I just don’t get the popularity of this place.

I bitched about this before here, but it might be useful as that post contains a map that shows where all this stuff is. The truly blue lagoon picture was taken off the Oarsman’s Lodge at the top of the map. -Rich

P.S. I almost forgot. At night you’re treated to the worst lighting ever on shore…

September 7, 2015

It’s overcast and we’re getting 17 amps from our new solar panels! The addition of the Sunpower 327 watt panel (and bimini) has been life-changing. I thought we’d have to run the engine today, but as of 10:30 AM, we’re at 87% charged (from about 60% when we woke up).

I’m also loving the new Victron 100/30 solar controllers.

Here’s a link to our previous post on the subject. -Rich

September 6, 2015

We’re anchored in front of the Blue Lagoon Resort and the Oarsman’s Bay Lodge at the south end of Nacula Island, Yasawas, Fiji. The water is clear and inviting. We have snorkeled every day we’ve been here and it’s very nice. See for yourselves… (click to enlarge or scroll through the images).

Here’s where we’re talking about…

September 5, 2015

Here are some pictures from around our anchorage here off Nacula Island, Fiji and in front of the Blue Lagoon Resort and the Oarsman’s Bay Lodge (not to be confused with the Blue Lagoon – more on that in a minute).

Click on any picture to enlarge.

It seems there’s a bit of confusion over exactly what the “Blue Lagoon” here in Fiji actually is. Most people anchor in a deep, crowded and not terribly attractive bay off of Nanuya Island in front of the Nanuya Island Resort (see map below). That’s where we first anchored, amongst 12 other boats who were all short-scoped in the 50 to 60 foot deep, black water (Black Lagoon?). Thirty minutes later, we moved on to bluer pastures. (Yea, there is some blue in the distance that you can kind of see from the anchorage, but you can also see a huge construction project and hear the melodic song of chain saws!)

The following is a fully functional Google Map (Thank you Google!). Zoom and pan as you wish.

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There are three boats in our bay now and probably room for one or maybe two more. There’s another nice looking area, at least on Google satellite images, just north of here. It’s a little exposed to north and west swells and we’re rolling a bit. (If you anchor in the Black Lagoon, you are protected from almost all directions.)

We went ashore to the Oarsman’s Bay Lodge last night for their lovo and it was very nice. We plan to spend more time ashore, including a meal or two at the Blue Lagoon Resort.

There’s a dive shop here and we hope to go out with them for a few dives in the coming days. We’ll report.

Paradise found! This is the Fiji I was hoping to find this year on the West side. It’s easily as pretty as some of the places we visited on the East side. -Rich