We found the descriptions of the anchoring at Coffs a little confusing and didn’t have a guidebook yet. The inner anchorage, more protected in general from the swell wrapping in is between the old pier and the marina. The outer anchorage is anywhere outside of the old pier including snugged up against the breakwater to the SE (out of view in the picture). While we were there the boats in the outer anchorage were always rolling more than those in the inner anchorage. We anchored for an hour in the inner anchorage awaiting room inside the marina for us to come in and clear customs.

Coffs Harbour was an extremely walkable/bus-able place for boaters needing to get to various supplies. There are also tons of small restaurants in the marina area itself and a 5 minute walk outside of the marina. If you want quick groceries, there is a small IGA close by and the enormous Cole’s further away towards town is enough to boggle the mind of someone who has been in the islands for a few years.

As we’ve already mentioned in our passage notes, we found Coff’s welcoming, cozy and in general to suit our tastes. There are gorgeous beaches on either side of the marina with loads of happy dogs, families, surfers and wind sports folks. The small hill overlooking the marina is a great walk with a nice view of the ocean for fun, for exercise and if you want to get a sense of what the swell is doing before you leave.

What an odd time we had at this place.

Ono is inside Astrolabe Reef – a big dive area. We anchored in Naqara Bay to present our kava root so we could snorkel at the nearby manta spot and perhaps do some diving. When we sailed into Ono, after having left Savusavu hoping to make it Fulaga, we saw a handful of lovely little islands, the kind that spark our imagination as cruisers and we foresaw ourselves staying for a while. It turns out we only stayed a handful of days, and didn’t do the diving we wanted because we saw what we thought (for the third time) was a good weather window to head to Fulaga.

This was our first experience giving the village kava in what is called a sevusevu ceremony. Historical information from cruisers waxes on about how to appropriately dress and behave in a sevusevu, and how to clap, and how to drink the kava.

Our sevusevu experience is very, very limited but even in moderately remote places like Ono and Fulaga the ceremony we experienced was low key, no one was uptight about how we dressed or whether we knew when to clap, and in neither ceremony did they prepare and drink the kava with us.

What made the experience odd in Naqara was not the sevusevu experience, but it was the very first time we had multiple villagers coming to us, ashore and on the boat, asking for things from our stores. Not asking to trade, just asking to have. This is something we had expected to happen before we sailed to the South Pacific, that really hasn’t happened until now. A difference from the Eastern and Western Pacific perhaps? Who knows- we don’t.

We were asked for snorkel masks, floating rope, super glue (twice, this is a hot item apparently), gasoline (they offered to pay for the gas but we couldn’t spare any because we were heading to an even more remote location), fishing hooks and whether we would trade our personal snorkel fins with a local (his were child’s fins).

The snorkel and mask was asked for by the village elder to support their pearl farming project and we had an old snorkel aboard that we happily donated. The rest we politely said no to except the fishing hooks which we had aboard as a good giveaway item because helping people feed themselves is always a warm fuzzy feeling. We also had planned to give away some old charts to the school (which we did) and some frisbees we’ve carried across the South Pacific without using.

TIP: We didn’t have much time to explore the area before we headed to Fulaga but we did swim with mantas again (approx S18°51'53.70" E178°30'50.19"). This is always amazing to me and even though we have swam with mantas a dozen or so times, every time is otherworldly.  We showed up during a sun break in the middle of an otherwise cloudy day and immediately saw mantas including one huge, all black (even on the belly) giant. Then, we went for a surprisingly amazing snorkel (approx S18°51'53.99" E178°30'49.84") through scattered coral heads some not so great, but many loaded with soft and hard corals and swarming with fish. We were very surprised at the liveliness and even more bummed that we didn’t dive outside the lagoon. All thwarted by our desire to make it to Fulaga.

We anchored in the far eastern corner of Viani Bay, carefully dropping in sand and buoying the chain over the coral heads. The winds were blowing like stink and the fetch travels right into Viani Bay in southerly wind. We escaped the fetch in the Eastern corner and watched the rest of the fleet bobbing restlessly.

As the wind switched farther east, the island of Taveuni mostly blocked the wind from entering Viani Bay and things flattened out considerably.

We arrived at midday and the next day were visited by Jack who apologized for not coming earlier to greet us. We apologized for not having come to him because we were too lazy to reflate our dinghy post-passage. For years Jack has offered a service to visiting yachts where he will go out on one yacht, direct the yacht to a safe anchorage or mooring and guide snorkeling or diving trips off the famous Rainbow Reef in Somosomo Strait. He charges only $10FJD pp for this service and that is an absolute steal for his years of experience with this particular reef. We did 5 dives – more on that in a separate post.

Jack also will organize a long boat to Taveuni and then a taxi into Somosomo for provisioning trips. Reportedly, you can anchor off the town as well in your own boat but many people (including us) take him up on this offer. We schlepped over a jerry can and came back with cash from the ATM, groceries, produce and gasoline.

The produce market is small and the MH grocery less stocked than some of its other Fijian counterparts but after so much time in places like the Tuamotus and Tonga, it was still big enough for us.

Viani Bay is so open and exposed that we felt a little comfortable when we first poked in. Add into that the fact that the bottom has coral and after the first night we weren’t sure we would be happy staying there long enough to see what we wanted to see on the reef. After careful buoying and with the ESE winds blocked by Tavueni it was quite comfortable in the end. Still, if the winds were going to do any clocking around or stay too southerly we would probably have ducked out and come back.

That’s just us though and many boats were happy on Jack’s two moorings, or anchored in the more exposed part of the bay.

Friends had told us this was their favorite anchorage in Vava’u and what good advice that was!

Kenutu has hiking, crashing waves (on the opposite side from the anchorage), a great beach, gorgeous water colors all around, lots of room for anchoring and good conditions for a solid night of sleep. Plus, as already discussed, it is a fantastic kite spot.

We hiked all over the island and still managed to miss a few trails that others told us about. We swam in the anchorage, organized a few beach fires, played with the crew of other boats and kiteboarded ourselves silly.

We visited three times, always when the wind was forecast to be strong, and the anchorage was perfect.

We spent a lazy several days bobbing about in the “Blue Lagoon” off of the island of Foelifuka. The colors were mesmerizing and it was one of those places where a main attraction is the cockpit view.

Although we walked the beaches and swam in the water, one of the nicest things about the place was sitting in the shade of our cockpit watching the scenery. Even Carol, my highly energetic husband, could properly chill out in this type of beauty.

It was the kind of weather and place that inspired lattes outside in the morning, cooking on the BBQ for dinner, long drawn out sundowners and every day sunset watching.

Tonga was a bit chilly when we arrived but the summer furnace is starting up and that is definitely no longer the case.

We had one day so calm that we were able to dinghy the miles over to the Coral Garden which was on the backside of another anchorage we had already visited.

I can give the coral garden a thumbs up. Not world class perhaps but if you are anchored nearby, a definite nice snorkel with a variety of live coral and lots of reef fish.