The passage from New Zealand to Fiji, was rugged, to say the least… We had 5 days of winds blowing 30-35 knots, and 3+ meters waves coming mostly from the side. Our plan to make a stop at Minerva Reef (where we spent 12 lovely days on our way to New Zealand half a year ago), was shut down when we realized the weather forecast had not only been wrong about the wind speed, but also the direction the wind was coming from. When we passed Minerva Reef, we were 270 nm west of it. So, waaaay off….
After 6.5 days sailing, we arrived during the night time in the capital of Fiji, Suva, on May 21st, 2026. The harbor is quite industrial, which made it easy for us with a night time arrival, as it is well lit up.
There was one other sailboat anchored in the designated small yacht area, and as we knew there were quite a few wrecks around this anchorage, we had our goal set to anchor close to this boat. It turned out several of the bigger commercial ships anchored in the harbor did not have anchor lights nor their AIS on, which was quite surprising.
The captain steered us slowly in between the anchored ships, with the admiral at the bow to see if she could spot anything in the water. We dodged a deserted buoy, and safely anchored around 3:00am. After the rugged passage from New Zealand, we were so relieved to get a few hours of sleep in calm surroundings.
We woke up the next morning, with directions to wait onboard until the officials, who were going to check us in, would arrive around 11:00am. First, the health official came over. We got cleared by her after answering some questions pertaining our health situation. About an hour later, the remaining officials, bio security, immigration and customs, came out in a local boat.
The overall formalities took around one hour, with lots of paperwork to fill out. We had finished all our honey, fresh fruit and vegetables, and had no pork on board, as we had previously been instructed. No inspection of the boat was done, and they gave us very thorough instructions on which offices we needed to visit in the city, to make our payments for the checkin process, and lastly pick up our cruising permit.
We started the treasure hunt like process of visiting the 4 different places we needed to go around 14:00, and were done 1.5 hour later, with cruising permit in hand. Super easy and also a good way to get to know the city. As we know that several boats have had to wait up to 5-6 days for their cruising permit in some ports, we were happy that it was this smooth.
According to the customs number we were assigned, we were the third boat to check in to Suva this year. Most other sailboats choose to go to a marina to check in, and let them arrange everything for them. We found the process of sorting this out ourselves fun and well worth the extra effort. We celebrated our arrival and cruising permit with a beer at the Royal Suva Yacht Club, of which we now had become temporary members.
There were two other boats who arrived just after us into the anchorage, and we enjoyed sundowners and a dinner with them over the next two evenings. We also ensured the boat got stocked up with fresh products while we were in town, as we are planning to leave for the remote Lau group, where there are little amenities, for a couple of months.
Suva has about 330,000 inhabitants, if you count the surrounding areas, which is about one third of Fiji’s population. So, it is a good place to stock up, and easy and cheap to go by taxi around town. It seemed every taxi ride cost 4-5 FJD (equivalent to 1.5-2 EUR) wherever we were going.
We left Suva an early morning to make a day sail to an island called Dravuni, which was close by. We were planning to stay there for a couple of nights, before heading on to Fulaga in the Lau group. The day we left Suva, we had clouds and some drizzle, like we had experienced every day. This is supposedly the wet side of Viti Levu, the biggest island in Fiji.
After a short day sail of 40 nm, we entered the lagoon at Dravuni. This village gets a visit by a cruise ship once per month, and according to the schedule it was supposed to turn up the day after we arrived. Not the best planning, and we did not really see how almost 3,000 people could possibly go ashore in this tiny village of about 70 inhabitants.
The village also has leased a private island close by to a five star resort, and gets their income mainly from the cruise ships and the resort. Therefore, we had been warned via the sailor app we use, No Foreign Land, that this village was not particularly interested in visiting sailors like us.
We prepared ourselves for the sevusevu welcoming ceremony, by dressing up in sulus (sarongs) and bring the kava root to shore. Little did we know that the whole village would be waiting for us in the village hall, together with all of the staff from the resort. We crashed their introduction ceremony, where the new staff of the season met with the people of the village.
There were about 60-70 people seated in the village hall, when the two of us entered. Unsure about the ceremony, how to act and where to sit, we tried our best. We were instructed to sit right next to the village chief, and sat down in the proper way, which means women sit with legs together and feet tucked to one side, and men sit cross-legged.
They stopped their own ceremony to welcome us, and we were offered kava drink in half coconut shells. When asked if he wanted high tide or low tide, the captain answered “high tide”, off course. The admiral was not too happy about that, for it seems the woman follows the man on these matters…. Two rounds of kava drink later, we were ready to explore the island, while they continued their meeting.
Unfortunately, we are not allowed to take pictures of the ceremony, so it has not been documented, besides this recount and the tingling sensation we each felt on our lips and tongue from the kava drink.
Since all of the adults of the village were present in the village hall, we started our exploration of Fijian islands through a remote, and very stylized village, ready for a cruise ship visit (which we learned later just got cancelled due to too much wind, so it wouldn’t be safe for them to enter the pass into the lagoon).
We went for a short hike to the island’s highest “peak”, and was guided by a cute dog along the way.
We only stayed by Dravuni for two nights, before we headed for an overnight sail to Fulaga, Lau. We wanted to dive the pass, which is supposed to be spectacular, but will have to return for that opportunity.
