Two At Sea

August 27, 2013

Every so often, people from the village throw a party for the cruisers, which takes place on the beach by the sandspit. All the attending cruisers contribute homemade dishes, while the villagers make their traditional foods. As it so happened, the village threw one of these events just after we moved to the Sandspit anchorage.

The party took place pretty early in the day. Each arriving dinghy was greeted by a group of very excited children, while the adults worked setting up food at the lean-to they’d prepped on the beach. At least seven boats had come over here for the party; so the cruisers were all busy meeting each other. Linda from Bright Angel brought the perfect thing for this party: inflated beach balls! The kids (and later some adults) had a great time playing with those!

It turned out to be a nice afternoon. We had a big potluck lunch with lots of good stuff. I was excited to try the local crab, but it turned out to be one of those crustaceans where you have to do an awful lot of work for a little bit of meat. With all the effort and the resulting cuts on my hand, I think the crab had its revenge. Otherwise it was a very enjoyable meal. Earlier there’d been a weaving class for the women, where we learned to weave our own nice serving plates for the lunches.

At one point, Rich and I broke off from the party to wander out onto the sandspit. The tide was low enough that it was only partly submerged, and we were able to walk way out around the anchorage on the finger of sand. Very cool! Below, a galley of photos from this day. (Click to enlarge and scroll.)

August 26, 2013

Today we went for a walk. At the sandspit, the beach takes a turn east and goes about a quarter mile to the outer rim of the atoll. Some of this rim has broken apart, creating a few gaps through which a person, maybe even a dinghy, could pass through. Even though you’d then be outside the atoll, the reef around the island forms a very effective barrier and keeps the water as protected and calm as it is on the inside. We figured this had great snorkeling potential.

We were struck by this area of the beach. It wasn’t very wide, but it had the sort of white sand and arching palm trees that have sold calendars around the world. The water off this beach was shallow and very colorful.

As we neared the outer rim, we turned a corner and found an area of rocks and pools between our beach and the outer rim. There was a good-size pass through to the outside, but what was most striking was the amazing color of the pool fronting the gap, the most rich and intense cobalt blue I have ever seen. Naturally we named it the Blue Pool. (Click to enlarge and scroll through the gallery below this post.)

We walked through about a foot of water to a tiny beach amid the boulders on the rim and discovered more small pools. We definitely planned to come back and do some snorkeling. –Cyndi

August 26, 2013

It’s easy to see why this anchorage seems to be everyone’s favorite. The first thing that stands out is the water: an unbelievable shade of bright aqua near the sandspit, then a darker turquoise in the anchorage. The contrasting white sand beach curves all the way around the bay, backed by a multitude of palm trees and punctuated only the by the occasional mushroom rock. At low tide the sandspit is exposed, creating a long walkway through the bright clear water around it. The whole area is protected by the low hills along outer rim of the atoll and the reef beyond it.

We’ve seen many beautiful beaches during our cruise, but this was easily one of the standouts. Below a gallery of photos from the anchorage and beach (click to enlarge and scroll).–Cyndi

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.

August 26, 2013

We decided to take one final dinghy ride near our anchorage before moving across the big lagoon to what is known as “The Sandspit.”

We motored over to the east side of our anchorage. From afar it looked like a solid wall of islands, but a closer look revealed a channel between them. And so we began our journey through a maze of islets. Sometimes we’d end up in these beautiful areas of blue-green water, initially appearing as dead ends until we’d find another gap and continue threading our way through. (A quick video below).

We finally ended up in a completely different bay, then headed through a pass and out to yet another bay and more small islets. The whole place was like something you’d see in a dream from which you’re sorry to wake up.

Here’s a gallery from our dinghy ride (click to enlarge and scroll).

We finally came to some open water in the lagoon, recognized where we were, and then found our way back to the boat. I looked forward to going to the Sandspit, but I’d miss this special place. –Cyndi