9/17/2015 Thursday
Arrived in Savusavu on Tuesday at 8pm. Surfing the waves the last day out. But cloudy and rainy. Just like home, put on long pants for a couple hours for the first time in months. Entered the bay between two reefs. An easy process until we got to the creek where the marina was and started looking for a mooring. Fortunately several friends knew we were arriving and had reserved a mooring. Matt from Perry was there in his dingy holding up the mooring line for us because it was hanging underwater and out of our reach. Finally, a full night's sleep. We always look forward to this first night in town.
Our passage thru the Lau Islands and up to Savusavu was uneventful. The same couldn't be said for our buddy boat, Aussie Rules. They ran into a pod of sperm whales that were surfacing right at their boat. At one point a male charged the stern and was about to hit the rudder. A scary proposition when the whale is twice the length of your boat and much, much heavier. Dave was heading away from every direction he had available without success. Rose, of course, was out with her ipad filming as much as possible. A very scaring time for them for about 10 minutes until the whales got bored and headed off. Were they playing? Were they mad? You can never know. We don't have any experience with sperm whales, only the humpback. It's entertaining to hear these stories, but terrifying to experience them. We saw them at a distance about an hour later, but they stayed off.
We checked in with bio-security, health, customs and immigration right at our boat. Jolene always arranges this so we don't have to go all over town tracking down the officials and their offices. People here, like everywhere so far, are very helpful, friendly and content with their lives. The ethnicity is changing with islanders, Melanesians, and Hindis and some others making up the population.
Savusavu is a great little town. Curley, an xpatriot kiwi came and stayed 46 years ago, runs the net and does a great job telling us what's going on. We spent the first couple of days exploring town; buying groceries (not that we need any)and trying out the geothermal hot springs. Wendy's on a roll and quickly booked a massage after loosening up in the springs. Jolene runs the small marina and is fantastic. Moorings are $3/nite. Everything is inexpensive here. I just bought some vegetable at the outdoor market. For $6 dollars Fijian, I got 3 tomatoes, a bunch of bok choy, head of lettuce, a cucumber and a bunch of beans. By the by, that's $3 US. Our typical lunch of fish, rice, salad will be about the same. Yes, it is cheaper to eat out than to eat on the boat. We've been catching up with friends during the day and at night.

We should be heading out to split rock for some snorkeling later today and then back to the harbor for a dingy raft and cocktails. Cruisers like to bring their dingyies together tied up to each other and drift thru the anchorage sharing snacks as they trade stories, plans and information. Great fun!