On the hard at Vuda Point

En route to Vuda Point we anchored in Nadi Bay whilst we were waiting for our haul out date to be confirmed. A decent enough anchorage we were within dinghy distance of Port Denerau. This place is on a private island and with that comes luxury prices! This place is seriously commercial and a total culture shock for us having been out of the real world for some time. Big super yachts berthed in the marina, many luxury brand shops and restaurants including Hard Rock Cafe lined the harbour and western tourists tottered about the dock in high heels. Great for people watching but not so great for yachties on a budget, we spent 2 days anchored off then headed for Vuda Point.

Sunset at Vuda Point

Temple in Nadi

Orion is due to enter Australian waters where they can be a little particular about the growth on one's hull. As there was a little play in the rudder due to wearing on the bush (she has done 12 000 miles in the last 20 months!) and the antifouling needed to be done, we decided to haul before we got there.

Strangely enough it is pronounced Vunda Point. It is a lovely little marina and haul out and we had as good a time as one can have whilst being hauled out of the water and covering yourself with blue antifouling dust everyday to look like a smurf whilst baking in 35 degree heat to really get it into the pores.

Gremlin stirring the antifouling

We scraped, sanded, varnished, painted, sweat (a lot!), cleaned, polished and waxed Orion until she was sparkling. I must admit we hired one guy to help us, at $3 USD / hour he worked really hard to help us speed up time spent on the hard. The main job was the rudder and I'll leave that to Dylan and another post to explain in more detail how we did it but suffice to say, it was easier than expected and cheaper than budgeted. A nice surprise for a change in the world of cruising.

Chief painter

I am making it sound like it was all work and no play but that isn't entirely true. One of the days we rented a car with 2 other young boats in Vuda Point and drove to Suva to go on the renowned shark dive. Up at 4am we piled into the hire car and drove for 3 1/2 hours to Beqa Adventure Divers where we then jumped on a boat to Beqa Lagoon. Call us slightly crazy but we paid to dive with bull sharks that were being fed fish heads in front of our eyes. We donned 5mm wet suits, extra weights on our belt and sank like a stone to 30m where we knelt behind a coral wall. The feeders then came with a big bin full of fish heads and we watched on as 30 bull sharks (one guy's job was to count them) had their lunch no more than 10ft away. Absolutely amazing experience and photos / film courtesy of a friend's Go Pro (Thanks Ninita).

Fiji has been a food frenzy for us. We started in Suva where we gorged on authentic curries and continued when we arrived at Vuda Point. The locals are super friendly here and we both turned into Yes Men. Every time a local asked us home for dinner, we replied with yes, straight away. By taking this attitude we clocked up 4 nights of eating at local Fijian's houses, countless memories to relive, a Fijian church ceremony and many new friends. Our first night of eating out at our taxi driver's house was a real lesson in Fijian Indian culture and Muslim etiquette. We learnt how to sit on the floor for a prolonged period without getting pins and needles, how to eat curry and even dhal soup with our fingers and how to drink 'grog' (kava) like a local. I'm keen to carry on the tradition of eating with fingers on Orion, saves washing all of the cutlery! Dylan is keen to continue drinking "grog" when we get back to civilisation. 

One of the local families, this lady made and gave us the mat below

Eating at another local's house

Cute kid

Eating at another local's house

After 12 days on the hard and way too much food consumed, we were ready to launch Orion looking all sparkly and white. A rum party was held that evening to celebrate being back in the water and a few of our neighbours were less than enamoured with us the following day…marina living eh!

Ooooo sparkly

Proud owners

Unfortunately we have not seen much of the outer islands of Fiji but one cannot see it all. We have seen Fiji from a very different perspective and the warmth and hospitality of the people has been overwhelming. 

We set sail for Vanuatu today, off to peer into an active volcano!