Kalim to Fiji

Vessel Name: Kalim
Vessel Make/Model: 14 m Catamaran
Crew: David, Paul, Natasha, Seraphena, Ezra, John
19 October 2017
26 September 2017 | Suva Harbour
25 September 2017
18 September 2017
17 September 2017
Recent Blog Posts
19 October 2017

Captains Notes

Hi there everyone,

14 October 2017

Johns Days at Nacula Village

Just sailed to nacula island beautiful crystal-clear waters full of fish and friendly people. We met people named Gorge, Tusi, Luci, Levi, and Israel. The first day we got there we went ashore suddenly a person comes rowing toward us “are they going to be friendly” I mutter to myself, he said bula [...]

26 September 2017 | Suva Harbour

Arrived at Suva

On our second day, we saw a massive sunfish that came between our two hulls and then disappeared.

25 September 2017

Land Ahoy

First site of land after 7 days sailing

18 September 2017

Finally cleared customs today at 10 am and underway after several days of waiting for the bad weather to pass.

17 September 2017

Leaving today

Hopefully clearing customs today from Marsden Cove Marina at 10 am this morning - weather outlook not that good

Captains Notes

19 October 2017
Hi there everyone,
Tonight I really do feel that we have arrived in the South Pacific Islands of Fiji.
Yes we are now three quarters of the way North up along the Yasawa chain of islands on the Western side of Viti Levu the main Fijian Island.
Kalim this magic French skimming carpet is finally anchored in seven meters of azure water, her forged hook now snug below the surface on a bright sandy bottom, buried right to the hilt. Up to now we have been forced to anchor in what I call deep water, 20 metres plus on many occasions. Which reminds me that as soon as we arrived up here our jelly Depth Finder gave up the ghost, a real bummer, as it's one of our most used instruments. I have been forced to make up a 25 metre hand lead line. So am now an expert, calling 'By the mark twain' ad so forth...
I remember so well snagging a coral head in the Tuamotu's in Maya all those years ago, and wrapping the cable around a mushroom headed coral bommie. Too deep for us to dive and release. Not a good feeling. Then there just happened by, a native Tahitian pearl diver, who without 'a how's your father' simply swam to the bottom and disentangled us with relative ease, impressive. Anchoring in water too deep to reach the bottom by our own free diving when cruising amongst mushroom headed coralheads is not my idea of fun.
Sandy you will be interested to learn that we have bumped into Graham and Lynn Brown several times recently. His son, wife and small baby daughter, are also up here cruising with his parents in their own yacht. You may recall, that Graham's son was sometime the chief engineer on several Mediterranean super yachts.
It's a good while since I sailed these Fijian waters in 'Secret Affair', and also with Warwick and Di Bain aboard 'Seax of Legra' before that. Also a stint aboard 'Rory Moar' on another occasion. So some tips and advice on cruising these foreign climbs from someone as experienced as Graham was most welcome. His new boat 'Toranui' is an exquisite example of a beautifully constructed kauri cutter of around forty odd feet, swift too. Both he and Lynn are very proud of her.needless to say she is in immaculate condition.
Getting back to tonight's anchorage, we are deep inside a fairly open bay on the West side of Nacula Island the next stop North of Blue lagoon that lies between Nanuya Sewa and Bacawa Levu. A zig zag course through coral reefs, then North giving the small outlying Islands a wide berth. Discoloured shallow water clearly visible in the midday overhead sunlight. Whilst feeling our way in to this particular anchorage a local 'long boat" with a powerful outboard made a short cut between two breaking reefs, It was tempting to follow, but we restrained ourselves.
Next day :
During the night it started blowing like a bastard, I was very pleased indeed that we were firmly anchored on a good sandy bottom, and not too deep. We must be about 250 mts off the village beach front here.
Natasha has just cooked two large crayfish, two small ones and what looks like a Morton Bay Bug, in our stainless bucket. We used salt water naturally. Whilst beachcombing last evening, collecting pretty shells, as one does, Tasha and I were approached by a swarthy warrior, Ti, with missing front teeth followed, two paces behind, by his Moll. "Would you like some Lobsters?" he asked. "How much ?" " $20 each", he replied. You only live once so I said yes please. "Ok I'll bring you a couple in my canoe around eight o'clock this evening". Which sure enough he did.
Paul and Tasha have just taken Ezra and John off to the near by village to attend the local school for a day. On the beach they will transfer to a local long boat with a powerful outboard for transporting them to another Island where the Secondary School is situated. They only have a preschool facility on this Island. The boys are a bit nervous, wondering what kind of reception they will receive ? It will be interesting to learn tonight how they got on. Pretty well as it happened.
It's now several days later and we are at anchor on the SW side of Vanua Levi the second largest of the two main Fijian Islands.
it's funny how sometimes writing seems to come easily, and at others not at all.
This obviously has a lot to do with what is going on around one. Even when we are at anchor somewhere, there are always many things to attend to, something needs fixing, visits ashore are always interesting, then there is planning our next move to consider, Tides to note, weather forecasts to hear or download from the GRIB Files and all manner of things to attend to on the jolly computer.
Every morning at 07.15 we now listen to Gulf Harbour Radio on 8752 mega Hertz. Where a friendly lady called Praticia and her American husband/partner have a Radio Web Sked with anyone who wishes to join their group. We were given their details by Graham and Lynn Brown of the immaculate Kiwi yacht "Toranui. As I mentioned we bumped into them whilst Jen and Kate and family were with us. This tall sun tanned fellow comes up to me on the beach and says " I know who you are David, How are Sandy and Joan ?" Graham had organised a gathering of yachties on a sandy beach beneath swaying coconut trees, between the islands of Waya and the West side of Nalauwaki Island. Just like old times ! Graham was a fountain of friendly helpful information, having cruised Fiji and the Yasawa chain of islands many times. I was invited aboard Toranui, all varnished heart Kauri inside, as spick and span as a new pin. They love her and are proud experienced owners. They did enjoy their previous aluminium man eater, whose name I can't now recall, but not as much as Minerette the maroon coloured yacht they owned when I first met them whilst sailing with Sandy aboard Zeferin when Jen and I joined her in Greece years ago.

It was fun having Jen, Kate, Richard, Locky and Isla aboard for a week. With Natasha Paul, Ezra and John plus Seraphena this made eleven souls on board Kalim. That number of people on a 14 m yacht sounds ridiculous, but Kalim just swallowed them all up! Their time on board flashed by like streak lightening. We collected them at Denarau Marina, a short expensive taxi ride from Nandi Airport. As they only had this short time with us the obvious thing to do was cruise the Yasawa Chain of Islands now reasonably close at hand, and that's exactly what we did. With several night stops going North we only got as far as Paradise Cove where we anchored for their penultimate night aboard before sailing back South to Malolo Lailai, Musket Cove to round off their trip. Yes sadly Muzket Cove has changed, and alas not for the best, it is many years since I was last there.
The anchorage is now heavily crowded with moorings. Casual visitors appeared to be frowned upon ! We made three attempts to anchor reasonably close to the action ashore but were forced to drop our pick some distance out at sea. This meant trips ashore in our overloaded tender somewhat perilous. OK when the sea was smooth , however with flash RIB's zooming past in the dark at high speed producing unwelcome washes it wasn't so funny ! Once ashore we found a large attractive open sided native type of building on a small island reached by a wooden causeway .
It contained an island Bar with several gas barbecues where some visiting yachties were frying their catches of (delicious smelling) Tuna. Not having any of our own at this time made us all feel very hungry, so we repaired to a nearby Fijian Cafe/ restaurant and ordered whatever we could. There was a good selection of hamburgers, curries and various native salads for us to choose from. Also a very welcome cool Fijian beer. Kate and Richard bought a couple of bottle of Aussie bubbles to take back to Jen and Natasha who had selected to stay aboard to guard the ship.
We were very sad to see our family visitors leave from Lautoka the next day. They all piled into a mini bus taxi whilst Natasha the boys and I took off in another taxi to the large open Market in the middle of this bustling native metropolis containing a polygon mixture of native Fijians and their Indian counterparts.
The market was not close to the shoreline as I remembered, but in the middle of town under a large steel formed building, the sidewalks that surrounded it were crowded with vendors squatting on the pavements selling little piles of all manner of fruit and vegetables. On one corner some people were selling freshly caught fish of many different varieties, including octopus, crabs and shell fish. I couldn't resist taking a photo.
Anchored for the night off the Queens Wharf in Lautoka wasn't the best. Two large freighters were being loaded there all night, noisy, and even worse, out decks were covered in soot, ash and grime in the morning. We were glad to get away, but pleased with our market shopping expedition.
We had a brisk sail back to the northern Yasawa's where we caught up with 'Toranui' again. We spent a night anchored near the Blue Lagoon resort and then moved north to Nacula Island where we anchored in shallow water off it's principle village.
We made friends with the villagers here, Ezra and John even went to school with kids from there. I mentioned earlier that they were taken by long boat to a neighbouring village where the secondary school was situated.

We left the Yasawa's to sail across Bligh Water to the SW coast of Vanua Levu.
Making an early start was necessary as we wanted to get across before nightfall.
We were hard pressed as it was, close hauled, bashing into a short lumpy sea.
Two reefs in the main and staysail up all the way to a bay on the North side of Yandua Island, off the SW coast of Vanua Levu. Several chains of reefs to cross, so we had to be on sharp navigational toes ! It was a bumpy passage, so we were all glad to have reached our goal well before dark. We did catch a large Wahoo too that will feed us for several days.
Now we are making our way East along the south coast of Vanua Levu to Savu Savu where we will meet Naomi who is joining us for a while.
I am hoping to get Internet contact there and send you all this epistle soon...

We had thought of sailing home via Tonga and the Minerva reefs, but are giving up the idea of more bashing to windward. So our plan now is to cruise to Tavuni then the Lau group of Islands and then probably leave Fiji from Suva and head back to NZ from there in early November.
It's now past my Island bed time, 22.30 hrs Fiji Time, the SE trades are howling outside, but our hook is safely imbedded in eleven meters of mud.
Good night.
Cheers,
David

Johns Days at Nacula Village

14 October 2017
Just sailed to nacula island beautiful crystal-clear waters full of fish and friendly people. We met people named Gorge, Tusi, Luci, Levi, and Israel. The first day we got there we went ashore suddenly a person comes rowing toward us “are they going to be friendly” I mutter to myself, he said bula we said it back so we went ashore with a drug called kava which the chiefs drink as a ceremony. We met the messenger named Enoki who rowed out to us so we went into the chief’s house to give the kava when we got inside we realized the chief was gone so we asked if Enoki knew where he was he said he was on a boat having a chief meeting in the middle of Fiji. But then we got introduced to a family from New Zealand and then introduced to a family from united states of America that were staying in homestays at the island that we anchored at and then a kid named Tylor asked if I wanted to play tag with him I said ok so we played for about an hour and then I wanted to go swimming so Ezra, Tylor and I went swimming with the local kids so we started splashing each other, so we had splash wars for an hour and then we slept on the boat. DAY 2 early in the morning getting ready to go to the local school eating pancakes for breakfast packing our bags with a book, pencil, pen, for recess I had an apple and for lunch a pancake, school had about 60 people and we had to take a boat to a beach and we walked to school from there when we got to the school I realized there was no teacher so most the day we had no teacher which was a bit weird and I only did nine questions the whole day. After school walking to the beach on the path to the motor boat I saw a snake there is snakes in Fiji but they’re not deadly, on the beach just about to walk through the water to the motor boat. On the motor boat Tusi and Levi played a game called Master, how to play Master two players 1stplayer knock, knock 2ondplayer who’s there 1stplayer Master snake 2ondplayer 100mm open hands parallel to each other 100mm away from each other 1stplayers hand moves through 2ondplayers hands and slaps 2ondplayer 10 times. Well when we were going back to big boat the 40 HORSE POWER MOTOR WENT FULL SPEED AND I WAS AT THE FRONT!!! And got absolutely saturated well the small boat dropped us off at our boat when we wanted to go ashore so we got the paddle board down and went ashore and we played king of the paddle board for an hour and then at 8oclock we went ashore again and they sang and danced for us and then one of the men dancers came and asked us if we wanted to buy anything dad said ok so we brought 5 baby coconut, 8 brown coconut,3 papaya then we rowed back to the boat and went to sleep. DAY 3 early in the morning I woke up and went ashore on the paddle board and once I got ashore I went to the man that we were about to buy coconuts off we ate 2 coconuts and saved the rest then we went on a walk to a bush fire and then we went to a mango plantation and dad and I went up a small hill and we were tree level and in the mango trees all you could see was hundreds of thousands of mango so we went back to the village and played with our friends and went back to the boat to sleep. DAY 4 early in the morning we left to go to the second biggest island in Fiji called Venua Levu.
John

Arrived at Suva

26 September 2017 | Suva Harbour
On our second day, we saw a massive sunfish that came between our two hulls and then disappeared.
When I woke up in the morning mum showed me a squid that had jumped onto the boat at night and shot its black ink all over the deck.
When we got a little closer to Fiji we started to see flying fish jump out of the water and one flew on to our boat - I gutted it and filleted it.
A couple of days after that we put out a lure and about an hour later we caught a baby tuna, we cut it into tuna fillets and cooked it up in the frying pan for lunch. It was delicious – it tasted like beef.
We finally arrived in Fiji after a week of being on the high seas for a week.
Ezra

Seven days to Fiji. Wow great weather all the way. Just managed to stay in front of a big front on Thursday that we could see behind us. My first offshore sail so wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. Certainly, pretty tiring with the 2 hour night watches every 6 hours – end up spending a lot of your hours not on watch catching up on sleep. We had to motor for two nights when there was no wind so that made sleep even harder with a Lombardini diesel motor screaming at 2500 revs in your bedroom. Al that was certainly made up for in the amazing starry nights, the beautiful sunsets and sunrises reflecting in the endless ocean around us.
Everyone did pretty well with sea sickness, poor John was unfortunately the main victim.
Arrived in Suva harbor on Monday night and waiting for customs clearance today – nothing happens very fast here so could be waiting for a while.

My apologies for not keeping the blog updated on the way – but actually it was a while settling in to things on board and while underway the last thing that I felt like doing was sitting in front of computer.
Paul.


SAILING TO FIJI WITH MY FAMILY
Swishing waters
Rushing seas of blue streaking past,
Creeks of ropes tightening as the wind fills our sails
We fly over the waves
Movement swinging constantly.
At night, the sparkles of phosphorescence light give signs of life,
Mirroring in the night skies above,
Shooting stars flare across the night sky.
Shades of crimson and orange greet us in the morning and evening
Every breath a beginning a new day has begun.
upon the horizon the land begins to grow mountainous and mysterious, we take shelter in the harbor.
Protected from the storms that rage inside and out I will continually praise
Jesus is about.
I am blessed to be a miracle and so are you,
Thankful and grateful abounding in his love,
Guide me Holy spirit show us his way in every thought and action,
May love guide our way.

Natasha < 3 +

Land Ahoy

25 September 2017
First site of land after 7 days sailing

18 September 2017
Finally cleared customs today at 10 am and underway after several days of waiting for the bad weather to pass.
Poor Knights now in sight, 12 knots of wind behind us, sun is out. Everyone is very excited to be finally underway.

Leaving today

17 September 2017
Hopefully clearing customs today from Marsden Cove Marina at 10 am this morning - weather outlook not that good
Kalim's Photos - Main
Seraphenas photos taken with her iPhone in water proof case.
6 Photos
Created 22 October 2017
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Created 14 October 2017
3 Photos
Created 6 October 2017
4 Photos
Created 18 September 2017
Our day in Suva and at the markets
4 Photos
Created 18 September 2017

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