On July 23rd, after 5 days of sailing and 580 nautical miles covered, we arrived in Savusavu, the closest port of entry into Fiji coming from Samoa. After notifying Nawi Marina, we were “escorted” to the transit dock, where customs, biosecurity, and immigration officials arrived shortly after and, following a few checks, officially cleared our entry into Fiji.
Nawi Marina is a recently built facility, notable for the beauty of its structures, including a pool, a few restaurants and bars, and a small massage spa.
Alex, Gemma, Ron and Sergio at Nawi Marina
The day after our arrival, we had the pleasant surprise of running into some sailor friends again, who were also passing through Savusavu. This is the main town of Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second-largest island. The town is quite lively, with numerous well-stocked shops and a covered market where we were able to stock up on plenty of fruit and vegetables.
Our travel plan had Port Denarau, on the main island of Viti Levu, as our next destination, where we would finally get the rudder repaired. During the three-day passage from Nawi to Denarau, we saw firsthand the damage caused by the repeated fires that plague all the Fiji Islands, which have drastically depleted the vegetation.
Hills stripped of their once-rich vegetation because of the fires
As soon as the boat was hauled out at the small boatyard in Denarau, we were welcomed by Nick Tansley of South Pacific Fibreglass, with whom we’d already made arrangements — during our passage from Penrhyn, he’d already arranged to import the steel rudder shaft that needed replacing from New Zealand.
ZOE at the Port Denarau boatyardAvi, the Port Denarau boatyard managerNick and his brother start the work
Together with his brother, Nick immediately began opening up the rudder cheeks to extract the damaged shaft, which would serve as a template for machining the new blank shaft that had arrived in the meantime.
Fortunately the outer shell was in excellent condition, so it didn’t need to be rebuilt — except for properly filling the inside of the rudder with appropriate material to make it resistant to any future water ingress. After about a week’s work, the rudder was reassembled and we were safely back in the water.
After several stages of work, the rudder was reinstalled
During the repair period, we took advantage of the forced pause to visit a few places of interest in the area. As we had already noticed in Savusavu, a high percentage of the population in the more developed centers is of Indian ethnicity, who brought their own cultural and religious traditions to the two main islands. For example, it’s quite common to come across Hindu temples near the larger towns. Our impression is that there hasn’t been much integration between the Indian community — even those of fourth or fifth generation — and the native population.
Hindu temple – Sri Siva Subramaniya Swami in Nadi
On our short tour we also had the chance to visit a magnificent orchid garden with a huge variety of species.
On July 23rd, after 5 days of sailing and 580 nautical miles covered, we arrived in Savusavu, the closest port of entry into Fiji coming from Samoa. After notifying Nawi Marina, we were “escorted” to the transit dock, where customs, biosecurity, and immigration officials arrived shortly after and, following a few checks, officially cleared our entry into Fiji.
Nawi Marina is a recently built facility, notable for the beauty of its structures, including a pool, a few restaurants and bars, and a small massage spa.
The day after our arrival, we had the pleasant surprise of running into some sailor friends again, who were also passing through Savusavu. This is the main town of Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second-largest island. The town is quite lively, with numerous well-stocked shops and a covered market where we were able to stock up on plenty of fruit and vegetables.
Our travel plan had Port Denarau, on the main island of Viti Levu, as our next destination, where we would finally get the rudder repaired. During the three-day passage from Nawi to Denarau, we saw firsthand the damage caused by the repeated fires that plague all the Fiji Islands, which have drastically depleted the vegetation.
As soon as the boat was hauled out at the small boatyard in Denarau, we were welcomed by Nick Tansley of South Pacific Fibreglass, with whom we’d already made arrangements — during our passage from Penrhyn, he’d already arranged to import the steel rudder shaft that needed replacing from New Zealand.
Together with his brother, Nick immediately began opening up the rudder cheeks to extract the damaged shaft, which would serve as a template for machining the new blank shaft that had arrived in the meantime.
Fortunately the outer shell was in excellent condition, so it didn’t need to be rebuilt — except for properly filling the inside of the rudder with appropriate material to make it resistant to any future water ingress. After about a week’s work, the rudder was reassembled and we were safely back in the water.
During the repair period, we took advantage of the forced pause to visit a few places of interest in the area. As we had already noticed in Savusavu, a high percentage of the population in the more developed centers is of Indian ethnicity, who brought their own cultural and religious traditions to the two main islands. For example, it’s quite common to come across Hindu temples near the larger towns. Our impression is that there hasn’t been much integration between the Indian community — even those of fourth or fifth generation — and the native population.
On our short tour we also had the chance to visit a magnificent orchid garden with a huge variety of species.