Cruising the Yasawa's Waya to Naviti 6/14 to 6/18

Musket Cove is a hard place to leave, not only because of the beautiful protected anchorage, the friendly people and the great umbrella drinks, (Yes we did find them!) but because we wanted to explore more of Fiji. The outer islands of the Yasawa Group were calling to us. We released our mooring and headed north, along with Frank and Barbara on Destiny. At the last minute, Glen and Sally on The Dorothy Marie decide to join us. We had gotten some tracks from another cruiser which we could follow and entered waypoints from our paper charts onto our chartplotter. The Yasawa's are the most popular group of Islands in Fiji. The islands are not very far apart from each other so the passages from one island to the next only takes a few hours. Our first stop is on the north west side of Waya. We had been there a few weeks ago and the weather was settled so the anchorage was calm. This time the wind clocked around more south and a swell came into the anchorage making it very uncomfortable. Waves were breaking on the shoreline making any dinghy landing very dangerous so we all stayed on our boats. After a very rolly and uncomfortable night we were all up early and ready to get to calmer waters.
Our next anchorage was Norewa Bay on the Island of Naviti. On our way, both Destiny and Dorothy Marie caught large wahoo's. What's up with that? We caught nothing. But what are friends for, they shared their catch with us. We were told of a place on southern Naviti that we could snorkel with Manta Rays. We found the spot, but the anchorage seemed a little rolly and after a bad night we decided to go on. We will try and come back as we have heard that it is a really neat experience. The waypoints we put on our charts were a little off, but the weather was clear and we could see the hazards as we headed for our next spot, hoping that it would be calm and we could get a good nights sleep. And it was!
We anchored in Vunayawa Bay. It was beautiful. We walked on the beach and quickly named it Sequin Beach because of all the thousands of little round shells that covered the white sand. That night after dinner, Joe who lives in the village of Somosomo paddled by on his paddleboard and invited us to the village tomorrow to present sevusevu to the chief. We shouldn't have even walked on the beach before visiting the village with our Kava gift. Next morning we got in the dingy and went over to the village. We were met at the beach by some local women who showed us where we should bring the dingy as there was a lot of coral heads and it was low tide. We were then taken through the village to see the chief. The chief of Somosomo was an elderly woman named Andy. She was very gracious and thankful for the kava as they were building a new meeting place in the village and needed the kava for the dedication ceremony. We noticed that the village was very clean and neat. Eighty-five percent of the indigenous Fijians are Christian. The church is the center of their village life. Before we left, we purchased some of the local handicrafts and shells that were shown to us. We were also invited to come back that night and they would get together the whole village and put on a dance show for us. It was their way of making money for their village needs. Because we would be out late, we decided to move the boats around the corner to the next bay. That evening we went ashore and where taken to wait in a house while the villager tried to get enough kerosene to light up the town hall for the performance. It seems that the town generator was not working. They found enough kerosene for one light and we were taken to the town hall for the performance. The singing and the dancing were spectacular. The children of the village had a great time watching their parents with us. We thanked them for the wonderful time and headed back to our boats. The rest of the evening we spent star gazing and reveling in the experience that we had just had. Our thoughts are far away from the uncomfortable passages and the negative aspects of cruising. Experiences like this remind us of the reason we are here. The next morning we sailed back to Norewa Bay for an afternoon of snorkeling the colorful reefs.