The Royal Suva Yacht Club (RSYC) facilitated our clearance into Fiji. They asked that we anchor close in, which meant we had about 6ft of water under our hull. While they said "no problem", I didn't feel comfortable in that shallow of water - especially as I looked around and there were sunken boats everywhere! As quickly as possible we moved into about 25ft of water, although we were still surrounded by sunken boats, commercial tugs on moorings and commercial fishing/transport ships from an era long, long ago. A few days before we arrived a container ship sank off the commercial wharf as it was leaving the dock!

Suva is the capital of Fiji, and a big, industrial city. The main grocery store is in the "Mall" in the city center. We also had a large market to get produce, as well as several very nice butchers. There was also a "Costo-like" store called Cost-U-Less, that allowed us to provision. Cindy and Dina took some time to do a walking tour that included the Thurston Botanical Gardens, the Fiji Museum, and drinks at the Grand Pacific Hotel. In the small world category, Cindy ran into a group of women that she did yoga with last year in Savusavu, that were having a "girls get-away".

The highlight of our time in Suva, was a day trip (beginning at Pacific Harbour) into the interior of Viti Levu Island (the largest of the islands), where we took a river rafting trip with Rivers Fiji. The 5-1/2 hr rafting trip follows the upper Navua river through the highlands and winds through chasms with more than 50 waterfalls along the way. The scenery was stunning! We had rapids that kept the ride interesting, and learned about the area from our guide Moses who is from the local village. Rivers Fiji has partnered with the village to make the area a conservation area so that there is no logging or mining. They are an American company that runs many of the rivers in the US, and they have invested in training the locals to make the entire adventure first-class. The result is a pristine river that is an unforgettable experience.

We said good-bye to Dina and Malcolm as they took a bus from Suva to Nadi where they caught a flight to Vanuatu. Their boat (SV Good as Gold) is waiting for them there in Port Villa. We had a great time with them and appreciated having the extra hands for the passage from NZ. Hopefully the experience gave them the information they were looking for about catamarans.

While Suva has just about anything you could ask for (including a Cinema 6 showing Bay Watch and Wonder Woman among other movies), we were ready to move on to the outer islands and the pristine waters that Suva just doesn't provide.