Categorie archieven: English

Bula ! SavuSavu, we are in Fiji

English, Fiji, foto, ilse, reisverslag

Monday morning (july 31st) the wind dies on us and we have to motor the last 12hours to SavuSavu because we want to get there before dark. We arrive at 16.30 under blue skies at the Q (quaranteen) dock from Copra Shed Marina and receive a warm welcome with “bubbles” from our friends from SY North. This was not in our “sailing plan” but a nice surprise. Three Fijiean ladies came aboard to clear Sanuk for customs, immigration and bio-security and after a lot of giggles and filling out documents we were free to go on land.

The British ruled Fiji from 1874 till 1970. In 1970 Fiji became a fully independent nation. Several coups took place in Fiji after their independence (1987,2000, 2005 and 2006) because of growing tensions between the Indo-Fijan and the native Fijans. It was only in 2014 that new democratic elections took place. The Indians originally came to Fiji under British rule to work on the sugarcane plantations. A lot of them stayed in Fiji because they did not have the money to return. The Indians make up about 38% of the population in Fiji.

Savusavu is on the island of Vanua Levu. We will visit Labasa by car and go to Taveuni by ferry. From Savusavu we sailed to the Yasawa group of islands before arriving in Nadi on Viti Levu. Viti Levu and Vanua Levu account for 87% of the population.
View from our anchorage in SavuSavu.
The market on saturday with the typical Fiji smile and friendliness. Fijieans are melanesian and differ from the polynesians in Tahiti. In contrast to the long hair of the French Polynesian girls, the Fijieans have short curly hair.
Fijian woman selling sea grapes and snails. We tasted both and it was very yummy.
Eggs for sale at the market, no choice of free-range eggs 🙂  10 Fiji dollar (4EUR) for a tray of eggs (24). Above the egss is the cava root for sale. .
Typical Fiji kids enjoying their saturday. On sunday all stores are closed and everybody respects the sabat.
When a cruise ship arrives they dress up in traditional dress for the tourists. More and more traditions will disappear over the years.
Sanuk at anchorage in Savusavu.
The main street in Savusavu with all the businesses and restaurants. Most of these are owned by Indians who have clearly more commercial ambitions than the Fijians. This picture was taken on a sunday morning, no stores open or people on the street.
The landscape on our way to Labasa.
Lots of fields with huge coconut trees used for the copra (dried coconut).
A truck loaded with sugarcane on its way to the sugarcane factory in Labasa.
Many trucks waiting in front of the sugarcane factory waiting to be unloaded. Sometimes they have to wait 12-14hrs before they can unload. They receive on average 70Fiji dollars (28EUR) for a ton of sugarcane. It takes about 9 ton of sugarcane to get one ton of sugar. Most of the sugarcane plantations are run and worked by Indians.
The train runs through the sugarcane plantations to pick up the sugar cane. The crushing season starts in june and lasts till about november. It takes about 15months before sugarcane can be harvested.
Sea grapes on the left and snails on the right. They are best eaten together as an appetiser with a cold glass of white wine 🙂

As Stefan already mentioned in his blog we were unexpectedly stuck in Savusavu because another boat’s mooring broke and hit us in the front. No major damage but we had to involve the insurance company and this took 2 extra weeks. During that time we did go to the island of Taveuni (garden island) with the Taveuni Princess.

More on the Return of the Taveuni Princess in our next blog.

 

Tonga: Whales, Whales, Whales…

English, foto, ilse, reisverslag, Tonga

July 2017

Every year , from June to October, the humpback whales migrate from Antarctica to the warmer waters of the Pacific to have their calves and to mate. Tonga is one of the few places in the world where it is possible to swim or snorkel with whales. We did not want to miss this opportunity. Although the end of July is still early in the season, we really hoped to have this unique experience. We checked the weather and saw that monday July 24th would be a good day, not a lot of wind, calm seas and sun. We decided to go with Vava’u whale watch at Mounu resort together with our fellow cruisers from SY North (Milike and Nejat). We made reservations for dinner on sunday evening at the resort as I had read that the food was excellent there. And it was!

Mounu resort, really an idyllic place to relax and enjoy the water.

 

Ready to enjoy a great evening, underneath the cheekbones of a whale.
Having great fun with Melike from SY North.
Celebrating Amber’s (co-owner of Mounu resort) birthday with a fantastic meal. From left to right: Nejat (SY North), Melike(SY North), Kirsten (co-owner Mounu resort), Amber (birthday girl), Evelyne (great chef), Ilse and Stefan. Julia took the picture.
We had carpaccio of tuna, a red snapper with rice and a great sauce and for dessert there was a soursop pudding. Everything was very yummy.
From left to right : Evelyne, Melike, Stefan, Amber, Julia, Kirsten and Ilse..dancing was next.

It was hard to get up the next morning at 6.30AM, but the anticipation of swimming with whales made it easier. No whale watch company will guarantee that you will swim with whales as it really depends if they can find a whale that will let you come close. There are many companies “fighting” for a whale. We were lucky to be out there very early and till about 10am did not see another whale watching boat. After about 45min motoring we encountered a mother whale with a calf. Yeah!! Before we could jump in the water Kirsten and Amber had to evaluate if this whale was going to stick around and  let us swim with her and her calf. 45 minutes it was clear this would not be the case. This early in the season mothers are hesitant and nervous because their calfs are still little. For this reason it is better to do this end of August and early september when the calfs are already bigger and the mothers are more confident. A baby whale weighs about 1ton when it is born and is between 3 and 5m long. It drinks approximately 500 liters of mothermilk per day ! The milk consists of 60% fat so they can grow quickly ready to swim to Antartica in October.

Was this the most we would see of the mother?

Here are videos taken by Mileke and Stefan. We found a whale pod with 1 female and 5 males. They gradually got used to us, and the swimming experience was fantastic, judge for yourselves: