Two At Sea

A while back…

July – November, 2015

There is more to Malolo Lailai island than Musket Cove. It’s nearly 2 miles long and about a quarter-mile wide, and one of the fun things to do here is taking a walk to see the rest of the island.

It’s an easy walk over to Dick’s Place (the restaurant and pool), and from there less than a quarter mile to the next resort down the beach, the Plantation Island Resort.  It must cater to families since there were enough children to fill an elementary school.  While it’s not as nice as Musket Cove’s resort, the beach is narrower with more coral rubble, it does have a nice pool.

In stark contrast to the Plantation Resort was the adults-only Lomani Island Resort just beyond it. While the Plantation was pretty hyperactive, the Lomani was completely quiet. Too quiet. No one was even out by the pool, and while it was a nice enough place, the energy there just felt dead.

After checking out the other resorts, it was an easy walk through a coconut plantation to the other side of the island. After finding a path through some scrub, I found myself on a long, narrow beach that was windswept and totally deserted; I felt like Tom Hanks in Castaway. It didn’t look like anyone ever comes out here.

After walking down the beach, I headed in and found myself on a golf course. I’d describe it as dry, desolate, and windswept.  After walking for a surprisingly long time, I was relieved to see a familiar landmark, the small airstrip I’d crossed earlier in my walk. I followed it back to the other side of the island and soon was back at Musket Cove. (Below, a few photos from my walk. Click to enlarge and scroll.)

One very nifty and popular feature of Malolo Lailai is the sandspit just offshore. It’s under water at high tide, but at low tide emerges a long bar of sand that’s fun to visit. You can walk along the bar and look for shells, snorkel and swim off the beach, and walk out into a huge area of water only inches deep. We only felt the need to go out there once, but some people like it so much they anchor their boats off the spit instead of staying on a mooring or in the anchorage.

Click to enlarge or scroll in any of the galleries above.–Cyndi

July 7 – 13, 2015

This post is about the Musket Cove Resort and its array of offerings for tourists and cruisers alike. Aside from the moorings, there’s a dock where boats can tie up. It’s more expensive, but it would be a huge advantage on those evenings when it’s too windy to come in from the moorings. The other side of this walkway dock is the area for tying up dinghies.

From there, you can take the ramp over to the island bar (MCYC Bar), or walk down the dock to the main office (where you pay for your mooring and join their yacht club). Beyond that is the resort’s main building (housing the reception area for their guests), a market with a pretty good selection of stuff, and the Marina Coffee Cove with its waterside deck and well-shaded verandah. This cafe has very nice pizzas, salads, rotisserie chickens, bakery goods, coffee drinks, and lots of great specials.

Across the way is the laundry room with washers and driers, plus bathrooms with showers for the use of the cruisers. If you walk further inland, you can see their small circular island lined with little villas that I think are time share units.

The pool and main restaurant, Dick’s Place, are down along the main beach, a short and pleasant walk. Cruisers are allowed to enjoy the pool and can book dinner at the restaurant. You can enjoy lunch here, too, but sunset and evening are the best times to be there.

As far as activities, land tourists and cruisers alike can book any number of outings. We ended up making use of the dive shop, going diving at a neat place called the Pinnacle. It features a long swim-through at the base of the pinnacle, then there are lots of tropical fish to discover as you spiral back up and around the pinnacle. Especially lion fish. I have never seen so many lion fish on a dive.

Their most popular dive by far is called Supermarkets, where they feed any number of large sharks. When signing up for our dive, I had to convince them that I did not need to experience this supermarket for sharks. Being surrounded by large carnivores being fed tuna snacks would make me nervous. What if they get tired of fish and start eyeing the meat display? I’ll take the beautiful pinnacle packed with a huge variety of fish any day.

As you can see from our posts, Musket Cove really grew on us. It may not be our favorite place in Fiji, but there’s a lot to like about it. If we get back to the west side, we’ll definitely spend some more time here.

The photo gallery below shows the bar island, the boat and dinghy dock, Musket Cove’s central area, and the pool at Dick’s Place. Click to enlarge and scroll.

July 7 – 13, 2015

It didn’t take long for us to discover that there is something really special about Musket Cove. It’s not the things people usually talk about (the bar, the grills, the poolside restaurant, the cafe, the social scene). It is, in fact, the evenings: no place does sunset better than Musket Cove. I don’t know if it’s the way it’s angled to the sun, the light haze from burning sugarcane on the main island, or some other factor, but as the sun starts to head for the horizon, the place just becomes magical.

One of our favorite ways to spend an evening here is to go ashore to the island bar, order a drink, and sit somewhere in the area outside it (I especially like the fire pit) to enjoy the warm air and beautiful evening light.

Then it’s time to take a walk along the palm-lined path that runs between the beach and the resort’s bungalows. At this point the evening often takes on a golden hue, and there is just something about walking on this soft sand path lined with large palm trees that brings out the contented sighs, a feeling that moments don’t get much better than this.

Soon, we arrive at Dick’s Place, the resort’s poolside restaurant. We sit outside on the deck that surrounds the pool and enjoy a drink while we enjoy the surroundings. It doesn’t matter at this point if the tide is high or low–it’s beautiful either way. The oranges, yellows and pink hues of the setting sun make a spectacular backdrop behind the large palm trees along the beach, spaced widely enough so there’s a clear view of the bay in the distance.

As the night deepens, candles are lit at the tables, and it’s time to order dinner. The food here happens to be pretty terrific, and while it’s not cheap, it does make for a special evening out. –Cyndi (Click to enlarge/scroll in galleries above and below)

July 7 – 13, 2015

Musket Cove is so popular that some cruisers like to base themselves there for the season, which ended up creating some issues this season. The main problem lies in the fact that there are only 25 or so moorings, which aren’t nearly enough. The leftover free area is an anchorage, but it’s deep. When you have a lot of boats in a deep anchorage, it’s inevitable that most of them don’t put out the proper amount of scope (anchor chain), which makes things unsafe for everyone.

The other issue is that this area is prone to having windy afternoons. Those at the moorings will have a rather wet dinghy ride to and fro. Those further out in the anchorage will often get soaked. The moorings do cost money, but if you’re on one you’ll have a much shorter ride ashore, and you can feel confident about leaving your boat unattended when those winds get going. Naturally most people would much prefer a mooring.

It seems the powers that be got the idea that it might be nice to allow some cruisers to rent particular moorings for the season. As far as I understand, this meant that while the renters were here; they got the mooring, but when they went off cruising to other places, Musket Cove could go ahead and rent the mooring out until they came back.

This seems like a workable idea in theory, but there’s a major fly in this ointment. Namely, it’s that people generally don’t know exactly when they’re coming back. It depends on the weather, and a two-week trip can quickly turn into a 2-day trip, or vice versa. No one wants to come back and to find a boat on their mooring, either because the owners might be ashore or worse, just won’t move (some cruisers behave very badly when it comes to vacating a spot). It’s easier just to attach a buoy with your name on it to the mooring and “forget” to tell the office you’re leaving. The result is a slew of empty moorings that can’t be rented and a full anchorage.

Meanwhile, a small group on the front moorings (closest to the resort) had formed what I call the Musket Cove Mooring Cartel. The cartel had a kingpin, a very popular and influential boater in these parts, and his neighbors would guard his mooring like a hawk, yelling out to anyone picking it up, “That’s so-and-so’s mooring! You can’t be on that!”

One windy afternoon some friends of ours arrived. They had gone to several moorings, two of which were unmarked but a worker rushed out to make sure they didn’t pick either up because they “belonged to someone.” Finally the office, knowing the kingpin was gone awhile, granted our friends his mooring just for the night. Sure enough, the neighbor came out and yelled, not really caring that Musket Cove had granted them the mooring.

Things came to a head a few days later. Conditions had gotten windier, and people were coming back to get on their moorings. Someone picked up the kingpin’s mooring. The neighbor yelled, but they wouldn’t leave, saying no, this was their mooring. It seems two boats had rented the same mooring for the season, and somehow had not yet been there at the same time. In came the kingpin, and soon began The Big Fiji Catfight of 2015, which took place on the VHF radio for all to hear. The kingpin demanded his mooring. The other boat would not back down. Things escalated, and the lady in charge was called. Amazingly, she backed the first boat and told the kingpin that, in fact, this was not his mooring.

This was one of those tense moments where everyone knows the shit is about to hit the fan, and hit the fan it did! You do not tell the kingpin that he cannot have his mooring! A tirade ensued, which probably reverberated throughout Fiji. Someone actually offered to move so the kingpin could have a good mooring, maybe afraid this incident might upset the status quo. But it was too late: the kingpin had lost his temper. He anchored long enough to (I assume) get the refund he demanded; then left, probably for good.

In the end, I don’t know how much this incident had to do with it, but this season will be the last for long-term mooring rentals. Maybe without the stresses of managing this situation, the staff will be more easygoing? Who knows.

Meanwhile, we went ashore a few more times and found that when the tide is in, the bay is actually really nice. After seeing it at its worst, seeing it at its best was a pleasant surprise. Below, a gallery of photos that sum of the feeling of afternoons at Musket Cove. –Cyndi