Kite Spot: Nananu-i-ra, Fiji

After slogging up the West Coast of Viti Levu from Lautoka under power we dropped anchor at Nananu-i-ra. Actually, although the kite spot is called Nananu-i-ra we actually anchored off Nananu-i-cake.

At first we anchored at the north end of that island, then we moved closer to the kite launch (S17°19'41.83" E178°13'03.60") on the southern tip of that island, and when the wind really cranked up – too strong for our smallest kite – we moved back to the more protected northern end.


The kite launch is good at all tides. At particularly low tides there is coral under the water that comes closer to the surface. For our friend who was learning it was not a good spot at low water but otherwise was fine for us.

There is an acceleration *if* the wind has a strong easterly component. Too far north or too far south and the wind gets shut down and doesn’t reach kite point. The good news is that ESE wind is the normal wind in the area. Bad news was we had some unusual wind directions while we were there. Still, we had a number of great days on the water.



For us it was also nice to be around other kiters again. Several schools and resorts stopped at the point to kite. Some megayacht crews went out on the water and we had friends on their wind surf kit.

Although we had a fun stop and we would stop again if in the area, this kite launch doesn’t rate up there in our top spots so far in the South Pacific Islands.