When we left the southern Lau group, we decided to island hop our way north, as there are several islands spread out that only requires short day sails in between. Most cruisers move north or west in one longer overnight sail, but we wanted to explore some of the lesser visited islands along the way.
We started from Ogea and left for a 30nm sail to an uninhabited lagoon, by an island called Taqava. We were well protected behind a vertical wall, full of boobie birds. The water was turquoise blue and beautiful, but surprisingly the visibility was not that great.
We went on a local sightseeing with our dinghy, and the captain took some great shots of the boobies and their very cute furball babies.
While we were there, the Norwegian football team played a game in the World Cup that started at 05:00am. We got up in the dark to watch the game. As Norway has not been qualified for the World Cup for 28 years, this was a big event for us.
We were so happy when they won the game, which meant they advanced to the 1/8 finals, and will play Brazil next!
While we were at the anchorage, we (again) spotted the Fijian naval vessel, which checked the bay for boats which are not checked into the country. This is the third lagoon we meet a patrolling vessel, so there is definitely quite the operation going on here now.
The reason for the many controls, is that there has been an increasing drug smuggling problem locally. Fiji has become a main transit area of drugs moving between Central America and Australia and New Zealand. While we were in the Lau group, several packages of cocaine were found washed ashore.
We stayed at the Taqava anchorage for three nights, before we moved 25nm northwest to Vuaqasa. This is also an uninhabited island, but we did meet some local people in a long boat right after we anchored. They lived on the neighboring island, and asked to see our papers proving that we were legally checked in to Fiji.
It seems the locals have been instructed by the officials to keep a lookout for conspicuous boats, and not everyone is too happy about being appointed this role. We were approached the following day by a long boat with four people onboard, two men and two women. They did not seem comfortable approaching us, almost scared. I can only imagine how scary it is for them to approach a big vessel, with no idea who is on board, and what they might be willing to do if they were to be caught being there illegally.
They seemed very relieved when we could inform them that we had already been checked, and to prove it, we told them the names of their friends from the same village who had checked our papers the previous day.
We stayed at Vuaqasa for two nights, before we made our way 40nm directly north, to an island called Lakeba. This is the main island of the central part of the Lau group, and even has an airport. We anchored on the western side, behind a little “dent” in the reef. We could tuck in just enough to get out of the worst swells.
With six weeks spent in remote locations, we were running very low on fresh produce. With two onions, a few apples and some ginger and garlic left on the boat, we decided to stay by Lakeba for only one night. By now, we were eager to reach our final destination of the Lau group, which is an island called Vanua Balavu. We had heard that there were a few local farmers there, where we hoped we could stock up on some freshies.