ASOLARE funny Fishing Video (Link to Utube)

 
ASOLARE funny Fishing Video (Link to Utube)
 
Filmed during the ARC 2009. 
 
Sallyanne Bought the Lure - nicknamed Yozuri
Mark and Stephen both caught a fish on each line at the same time.
Yozuri on Stephens rod had caught a monster... it took 2 of them into battle....
 
Enjoy ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOB1WyX5-s0
 
 
For the rest of the Logs gcapturing our Race across the Atlantic visit the ARC website (www.worldcruising.com/arc) and look for Daily Logs - and select boat ASOLARE.  :-)
 
or follow the link directly.. http://www.worldcruising.com/arc/dailylogs.aspx?EIValue1=286
 
 
 

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Eschatology..

It is Sunday again and this morning we are to be found in Bible class at the Christian church on Makogai. While we probably would not have chosen to learn about Eschatology, being half an hour early for the church service this morning gave the rather fervent pastor the opportunity to teach us something new.

 

The local kids are well up to speed, unprompted they tell us that “Eschatos” is the Greek word for “Last”, that Eschatology is the study of (I hope I remember correctly) the “Last Phase” before Jesus returns, the World ends and we are led to heaven or hell as deserved. Fortunately, and before we are shown up completely, the service proper soon starts. Children and adults sing each hymn as if it were their last, the likelihood of which is reinforced by both Chief Watson and aforementioned fervent pastor at every break in song. It is not long before we have had our fill.

 

Motoring out of the bay to a dive site carefully selected by our Skipper, we find someone else already there! Not phased by this we nose up to within 20m of the reef face. Showing as a seabed-to-surface wall ahead of us on Asolare’s forward facing sonar, standing on the bow Tim and Suzi need no electronic aids to spot this hazard!  The anchor is lowered and we drop back to a more comfortable 60m from the reef.

 

This is my 4^th and final dive of the trip. Peter and Clare giant step into the water then swim to the anchor chain. Memories of our last dive still fresh, we are diving on the condition that if there is a current when we reach the seabed we will return immediately. On the surface there is a small current against us. Descending using the anchor-chain as a guide I muse the space around me, today the underwater scene extends away like the hills and sky above. This shouldn’t feel strange but it does, we must have 60-70m of visibility, it is amazing!

 

On the seabed and with no current to worry about we take a bearing and swim towards the reef. As we approach it towers above us and we spend a happy half hour swimming among now familiar clown fish, box fish, parrot fish and a whole host of new particularly huge fish that take no notice of us at all! We swim up down and though the various “bommie” (Australian word for pinnacle of coral) that make up the reef. Just before my pressure gauge reads 100bar indicating it is time to turn-around and make our way back. Peter indicates he has a problem.

 

I had noticed Peter was heading rather quickly to the surface. Now he is holding on to a piece of coral to stop himself rising further and is fiddling with his BCD.  While I am new to diving I do know that a speedy non-stop trip to the surface here is not just a bad idea, being 14 hrs motoring and several reefs away from the nearest decompression chamber, it is downright dangerous!  Fortunately just a couple of minutes pass, Peter regains control of his equipment and we continue with our dive.

 

I later find out that the main dump valve in his BCD had jammed so he was not able to release air from his BCD and maintain neutral buoyancy as pressure decreased in his tank, a situation made worse as we moved upwards exploring the reef.  Having failed to un-jam it, he was forced to use one his 2 alternative dump-valves to release air. While Peter has the experience to recognise and deal with these problems, I quietly add this to the list of potential problems I am now aware of!

 

Safely back on the surface we recount the tale, the amazing physical structure of the reef, the near perfect visibility and sighting of Mola Mola or Ocean Sunfish. These, often giant, fish are one of the top 5 fish to see according to Tim. While he sadly was not diving with us, Tim had his day with an earlier dive to a bommie in the bay and later diving to see Giant Clam an amazing 3-4ft wide at the mouth!

Good Morning Savu Savu....!

It is 0830 a fact warmly and enthusiastically announced 5 out of 7 days by Curly Carswell on VHF Ch14. A long-term cruiser, Curly has found roots in the South Pacific and Fiji in particular, he is currently based in Savu Savu from where among other activities he runs the local cruisers radio net.

 

I have been told that wherever you find a congregation of sailing cruisers you will also typically find a radio net. My first experience of this was in Vavau where I was bowled over by the lively, informative and truly interactive session run each day at 0830 on Ch06 or Ch26 by a guy called Baker providing an eclectic mixture of weather, local activities and information exchange between cruisers as they pass through Tonga. Walk through the town at the right time you can hear the net being listened to by almost everyone as it plays out in the shops and café's.

 

Savu Savu in Fiji is no different. Curly starts with weather information for the region from a variety of sources. Weather prediction is something of a black art right across the Pacific so more often than not, several forecasts are read out followed by a punt on which one may turn out to be correct! When you consider that the Pacific Tropical Convergence Zone, which dominates the weather extending for 1000's of miles east to west, is represented on the official weather charts with a squiggly line just like a child would draw a cloud in the sky, it is amazing that anyone gets it right!  In this area riddled with small islands and reefs, weather is critical to safe navigation. In strong sunshine between 0930 and 1530 it is possible to see shoal patches clearly as aquamarine spots in the otherwise deep blue sea, however, under grey skies made even worse with rain, everything beneath the surface is rendered invisible.  Prevailing trade winds swing from NE to SSE sometimes southerly, strengthening from zero to 35knots in a matter of hours and as Curly advises, we must remember to add at least 5 knots to the forecast in acceleration zones around islands. How the early explorers managed without the benefit of engines to bail them out is hard to imagine!

 

After weather Curly gives his take on World News, we all stop whatever we are doing to listen to this part of the net. He gives a headline from each continent reading them deliberately and accurately, then we are kept hanging just for a long half-second before Curly delivers a suitably apposite comment on the subject. We laugh! The rest of the world could be in a different galaxy it all seems so far away.

 

Moving on to activities in and around Savu Savu, Curly makes mention of "Chart Marking Sessions" and sessions on Fiji Cruising Permits alongside Friday Happy Hours and Curry Nights. Everything a cruiser could want seems to be laid on for us. For the newcomers the usual warnings of wake free dinghy speeds and tying to the dinghy dock with long painters are delivered with the same enthusiasm as the need to comply with local customs check-out procedures, a requirement that applies to boats moving just 200m from the wharf. How restrictive is that!

 

Curly has been working in and around Fiji for nearly 40 years, and there is nothing he likes better than exploring and charting a new area. Often single-handed in his 65ft 40 tonne yacht he has not put it on a reef yet! He is slowly building up enough data to publish a new pilot guide to Fiji and this gives him just the excuse he needs. Often he will anchor outside a new area, visiting it first by dinghy charting its depths, establishing waypoints and bearings to visual reference points before he attempts an entry by yacht. While his pilot book might be some way off being published, all those clearing-in to Fiji in Savu Savu should certainly visit Curly's Bosuns Locker and pick up a set of his chartlets.

 

At the end of the morning broadcast the airways are opened to all the cruisers in the creek to exchange information, offer and request help or advice on everything from co-ordinating gas supplies to the location of the nearest sail-maker. By 0900 the broadcast is complete and we are left motivated to fill and enjoy our day with rather more activities than we intended.

Savu Savu

1700 (Fiji time) turns out to be a perfect hour to arrive in Savu Savu. We have been chatting to fellow World ARC yacht Cleone on VHF during our approach so we know what to expect, we have safely rounded Point Reef Light and can see the cruise liner Pacific Dawn marking the Nakama Creek entrance. With 4 miles to run and 10 knots of breeze on our starboard beam for the first time today, the evening sunshine picks out the deep greens of the forest, the blues and reds of houses on stilts and just to finish off the picture, a flower patterned green and white bus is trundling along the coast road. Someone comments; we haven’t seen a bus for a while!

Our pilot notes from Cleone are perfect. We enter the river, avoiding the big steel mark in the centre, passing the ferry dock on the right, ahead of us we see the Copra shed where we will meet our friends later. The river is a busy place with maybe eight World ARC yachts here already. All the moorings are taken, but we knew this, nosing our way in carefully we try to find a shallow spot in the river. Sadly this is not to be, so we return closer to the entrance and anchor in 20m giving ourselves plenty of room to swing.

The Copra Shed is clearly the place to be tonight. We thank James from Cleone for his advice earlier. Jus do it and Cleone crew are in fine form arriving dressed in sari costumes. Tallulah Ruby laugh loudest, we suspect the dresses may be a continuation of earlier frivolity! Windflower, Graptolite and Andante are all at the Copra Shed. Maamalni we see in the river, but not yet on shore. Peter is particularly pleased to see Quasar V with who some great times were had earlier in the rally before they fell behind with technical problems.

Savu Savu is a curious place with 40% of the population being Indo-Fijian and 20% Chinese-Fijian although most of these people are 4^th or even 5^th generation settlers there are strong Indian and Chinese influences here. Only indigenous Fijians are permitted to own land, so others must rent or make their money through trade. Indian and Chinese shops and restaurants line the street of Savu Savu.

Hot springs are very much in evidence, where the hot water meets the river it steams. Just 35 minutes will cook a chicken buried in the river-bank apparently!

Avoiding near death experience is all a matter of judgement!

It is raining again! This time we have the full works; thunder, lightening and torrential rain. As the front goes through the wind has risen briefly to 35 knots, just long enough to consider starting the engine to ease pressure on our mooring. However, we are in a perfect place, we have taken one of Fred Fisher’s moorings for the night in Viani Bay, and with our lightening conductors out we should be safe enough.

The compressor is on again, but somehow the noise seems less, maybe I am getting used to it’s diligent hammering or maybe the results of its work make the whole process more agreeable. Thinking about it, the “schwsssss” of the last air-tank being disconnected is identical to the sound of our first gin and tonic opening. No wonder it is a mighty fine sound!

Back to today’s adventure …

With our local knowledge Fred Fisher on board we set out to dive this morning about 1030. With the top of the tide at about 1200 the conditions should be perfect for an hour or two. Anchoring Asolare in a safe spot 30m outside the reef, we transferred to dinghy for the final half-mile. After a few minutes Fred stopped the engine and announced, “we are here”. Looking down all became apparent; we could see a white buoy attached to two small tractor tyres submerged about 3m below us marking the start point of our dive.

Tim, first into the water, checked the strength of current against the white buoy, there was none. Peter and Clare joined him and together we made our descent to the tyres and coral shelf at 8m below. From there we could clearly see the dark entrance to a tunnel. 2m in diameter and just over 25m long we swam down and through it. In the low light it was difficult to see much, a few quite large fish hiding in the corners, grey-white coral fans and more fish silhouetted against the exit.

We emerged at a depth of 25m onto the flat face of a large underwater cliff known as The Great White Wall and turned right. Extending either side as far as we could see, the vertical face dropped into the dark beneath us and up to the sea-surface above, with no horizontal reference points this felt very weird and strangely exposed. While physically spectacular the cliff surface was quite plain supporting little marine life. We moved easily up and down exploring the wall and around the corner before turning back on ourselves. Passing our tunnel exit we moved to the aptly named Purple Wall to admire the rich Papal purple soft coral, simply beautiful. Then we started to notice a current.

Gentle at first, we saw a small shoal of silver damsel fish holding station but swimming up against the current; we added air to our BCD’s to compensate for this downward current. The stream started to carry us along the wall.

In a planned drift dive this would not have been a problem, in fact it is an amazing feeling to fly along with the sea. But changing our plan underwater without being able to communicate to our support in the dinghy above, in unknown waters, the drift may have taken us over a mile from our original location. On the surface three little heads just 100m away would be very, if not impossible to spot from the dinghy, at best we would be in for a long wait.

After just a few minutes we re-grouped on the wall holding onto pieces of coral with our fingertips, very aware that we shouldn’t be touching it at all. In the strengthening current it was important to stay together, we made our way back to a gully not far from our original tunnel. Out of the main stream we decided to return to the start point of the dive.

Typically divers do not choose to swim against a current. Just 3 knots of current is almost impossible to swim against, vulnerability is obvious and air is consumed at an alarming rate when swimming hard. We moved from rock to rock balancing exertion with air-conservation, faced with a common threat we shared the space closest to the coral with fish also doing their best to keep out of the stream. We have been so careful allowing them their space, watching from a distance without scaring. Now eyeball-to-eyeball they don’t seem worried by us at all!

After a few minutes we are just 10m from the tractor tyres, and with one swim across open sand we re-group on the line. It is just 35 minutes since we were here before. Then we experienced no current at all, now there is probably 1.5 to 2 knots of current. Amazing how things can change in such a short time. With Peter and Tim’s skill and experience I am reminded of my more familiar winter mountaineering environment. There, our experience and respect is rewarded a thousand times over with amazing moments. In the under-water world I feel it will be the same, the more we get out into it, the better it will be!

We made our ascent remembering to do a 3-minute safety stop on the way. The deepest point of our dive was 35m on the Great White Wall and while our ascent via the gulley had been slow, despite the current, stopping was still a sensible precaution. We could see the dinghy above us, Fred had in fact followed us all the way, and having 11 years of diving experience here himself he knew what was happening below.

Safely back on Asolare with just a little coral-rash to the fingers and a mental note to wear gloves next time, we regaled Suzi with our adventure. When asked if we would go again ... “Of course” was the unanimous reply!

Vanua Levu, Rainbow Reef and Sharks..

Just over half the size of Viti Levu (The Big Island) Vanu Levu is Fiji’s second largest island. Again volcanic in origin it is apparently home to nearly 140,000 people although so far we have seen just one, Fred Fisher.

A big draw for us is diving and the 32km Rainbow Reef here on the south west coast of Vanu Levu is apparently one of “the” places to dive. Approaching Asolare this morning in his aluminium dory, Fred Fisher, son of Ned Fisher the authority on these waters quoted in our trusted pilot “A Yachtsman’s Fiji” by Michael Calder, was about to shape our day.

With Fred’s tales of the Great White Wall drift dive and it’s glide through cave, Blue Ribbon Eel Reef, The Zoo and Cabbage Patch it did not take long before we were planning an adventure with him. After agreeing to meet again just after 10am Fiji time (we took note and put our clocks back another hour from Tongan boat-time) Tim quickly started the compressor and began the noisy process of charging our air-tanks.

Yesterday as we came through the 75m wide and 6m deep break in the reef to enter we knew these waters would be good. The disturbed sea escaping the lagoon gave way to smooth swell and crystal clear visibility, the never seen by us before, bright blue and yellow bi-colour angel fish were just pin-clear as were a squadron of grey bottom-dwellers holding station on the sea-bed beneath us.

Tucked into a small lunchtime anchorage behind the main reef we managed two dives yesterday. The first was a pretty dive of coral gardens with exceptional soft coral, beautiful blue-tipped stag coral and thousands of reef fish. The second dive after lunch involved a long surface swim to the reef edge itself. We were not put off but with the tide change and lower visibility but it was not long before we headed back towards Asolare.

Back on the boat Suzi’s afternoon read was interrupted when her sunglasses inexplicably fell into the sea! With no-one around she leapt in after them and executed a deft recovery. Still fresh from her success, Tim and Clare returned with photographic evidence of sharks! In a shoal patch just 50m from the boat we had seen both white and black tip sharks. Caught in shallow water with several dead ends, Clare was pleased to learn only when she returned to the boat and after an unaccustomed expletive from Peter, that the gentle reef sharks she was taking pictures of were not quite what they seemed!

The compressor has finished, Peter has returned with Fred. We are about to head off for the day…

Not so desert island .

Our arrival boldly announced by a single cockerel made us doubt we were alone on our desert island.  We had slipped into the flat waters of a remote atoll shortly after dawn cruising the 15 miles across it’s diameter to an anchorage behind a small island. 

 

From our chart it is clear our atoll is the remains of an ancient volcano, being an almost continuous and quite circular ring of reef and small islands. The ring is broken only in two places, one of which, American Passage formed our entrance (deep and wide), the other a narrow gully Qilaqila Passage, will provide our eventual exit. Once over the lip of the volcano, the water depth in the crater is generally a comfortable 27- 40 meters rather less than the 5000+ m of the seabed outside!  The platform for an atoll is a volcano that is slowly sinking into the sea, what gives the atoll its character is the coral that grows on top. The coral goes on growing towards the light as the volcano sinks beneath it. Knowing this, perhaps we should not have been so surprised at the number of (often uncharted) isolated coral capped pinnacles, shoal patches and linked reefs that we found in this otherwise quite benign sailing-crater. These hazards, just at or under the sea surface turned casual cruising into quite an adventure. It is no wonder these are called the Exploring Isles!

 

Our island 2 miles long, 3/4 mile wide and maybe 150m high, is topped with a thick forest of coconut palm and notable variety of tree species. At high water the island looks quite impenetrable, at low water a 25 metre shelf of coral emerges, sufficient for two native-backed horses to come galloping by!

 

Temo and Nada are from the local town of Loma Loma on another Island, they are two of eight people working on the island harvesting copra. None live here permanently, they come and work for 2 weeks before a boat arrives to collect the copra and take it to Suva for sale. Then they either move to another island or return home, depending. Their party is made up of six young guys an older man and a woman who, as they put it, cooks for them.

 

While his mate cut coconut deftly with his machete, passing the opened fruits to us at intervals, Temo went on to explain a little more. He knows these islands well, when he is not harvesting copra he dives for “Sea-demons” which we later discovered are a particular type of sea-cucumber, a local delicacy. Temo has scuba-dived all around these islands and while foreign travel is just a dream for him, he knows the rich coral and sea life here are something extra special.  Our own brief snorkelling trips revealed curtains of coral, shoals of brightly coloured fish, a small turtle (apparently there are many) but no whales. Temo advises that no big whales come here, pretty much like yachts, which he has also never seen here before.

 

After tales of the English-man who once owned this small island, which he “bought with his gun” chasing the locals away to the other islands, and a gentle comparison of life on Fiji compared to life in London, it was soon time for the boys to get back to work. Mounting their horses bareback they galloped off across the re-submerging coral shelf just before the tide got too high for the horses to return.

 

Left to our own devices we planned our evening entertainment. A BBQ on the beach, it just had to be done even in the inevitable rain. It has rained here in the South Pacific almost every day for a month. And it rains well here! Just like on those childhood camping holidays in North Wales, Devon or Cornwall, continuous heavy downpour for hours gives way to sultry low cloud occasionally.  However when the sun does eventually come out, everything changes, the scene is transformed to one of sparkling blue ocean spotted with aqua-marine edged coral reef, and coconut palm-fringed beaches just like on the screen-saver images people long-over in city offices across the world!

 

Our BBQ, in the dark, in the rain, covered in insect repellent, on a beach diminished to the point of non-existence, a truly British experience, was deemed a success by all. We returned to Asolare happy!