We really like Whangarei and the town basin marina. Whangarei has a lot of services to offer to boats. There are sail lofts, chandleries, yards, mechanics, welders, painters, and refrigeration guys. Notice the plurals; there is competition here, so prices are significantly lower than elsewhere in New Zealand.

We can’t say enough good things about the Town Basin Marina either. The Town Basin itself is ridiculously secure from weather. There is never any wave and winds are much reduced. The Marina facilities are in great condition, and the people who run the marina are wonderful. The town basin marina is also among the least expensive places to keep a boat in Northern New Zealand, especially if you’re willing to take a pile mooring rather than a dock. We’ve had Scream on the piles in Whangarei last year and we did them again this year. Being on a mooring is much more private and reassuring to us.

In Whangarei, we recommend Frings and the Judge for pub food, Amici for nicer dining, and Killer Prawn for special occasions. The Whangarei pool is across the street from the marina and is worth a visit. The walk alongside the Hatea river to AH Reed Park to see the giant Kauri trees is quite pleasant. There are two art galleries and a clock museum adjacent the marina office, all of which are interesting enough if not big attractions.

Whangarei is our home town in New Zealand. We miss it when we are away and we always look forward to our returns.

We anchored in four different locations inside Whangaroa’s large harbour. First we waited out an easterly blow in Pararako Bay. The bottom here was described as M.cS.bkSh, which intimidated even us. Some time with the guide translated this as mud, coarse sand, and broken shells. That’s a lot of words to say that anchors hold well there.

The water in Whangaroa was quite clear when we arrived, with visibility of perhaps 5m, easily the best that we have had in New Zealand. We had the privilege of seeing a pod of Orca with some juveniles or new borns.

Next we anchored off the Whanagroa Marina. The facilities there are newer and nicer than we expected. Top marks for them, especially for letting have the run of the place for free. The Whangaroa Sport Fishing Club (formerly Whangaroa Big Gamefishing Club) is at the top of the marina docks. Their restaurant and bar are good and inexpensive, and the fish mounted on the walls are very impressive. I ‘m not sure that I would have believed that Marlins exceed 400 Kg if I hadn’t seen them. There isn’t much more to the village, other than the general store south of the marina. We got eggs, bread, and somewhat fresh vegetables there.

We moved on to Rere Bay, where we anchored in the cove on the south side of the peninsula to the north. It’s a bit of a tight fit, but very pretty. The wind shelter there is excellent, though what wind that arrives when a north easterly is blowing comes from all directions. We swung quite lazily.

We rounded out our trip in Waitepipi, reputedly the best anchorage in New Zealand. We had a great time, though I preferred Rere myself.

Somehow we had cell service throughout the harbour, even though there is little settlement.

Whangaroa is a great place to get away from the crowds and tour boats of the Bay of Islands. Whangaroa is about 30nm north west of the Bay of Islands, so you’ll want to wait for favourable weather before sailing between them.

This is Scream at anchor in Paihia as seen from Waitangi. The perspective is a little odd in this photo. We’re much closer to the beach at the right than to the town in the centre.

While anchored here we went to the Countdown grocery and to the Waitangi treaty grounds.

Most cruisers leave their boats in Opua and travel to Paihia for groceries. We took the infrequent, inconvenient, and expensive shuttle from Opua to Paihia a few times last year, and decided that there must be a better way. Now that we have tried it we definitely prefer anchoring at Pahia to get groceries over travelling from Opua.

We spent several weeks before we departed looking for favourable weather for the passage. We wanted to leave when the weather systems were weak, with little difference between the central pressures of the local highs and lows. We departed with a 1020 KPa high north of New Zealand and a 1005 low in Tonga. We departed as soon as the wind from the high shifted out of the south to the south east. Typically this is the strongest wind of the cycle, but it provides the longest window between contrary winds.

Our passage was in many ways wonderful. The winds were fair. The seas were short, and were only choppy on the first day. We had sun every day, with mostly clear skies. We had only a couple brief showers and there were no electrical storms.

Unfortunately, the wind was contrary for almost the entire passage. Instead of behaving normally and moving steadily east, the high between Fiji and New Zealand moved west then remained stationary in the Tasman sea. During the first week of our passage the wind was 15 knots out of the south east or south south east. Then wind then eased to 5 to 10 knots and shifted due south. The last three days the wind was south west or south south west at 5 to 15 knots. We sailed close hauled for nine of eleven days, motored one and a half days, and were close reach for the remainder. The apparent wind was never more than sixty degrees from the bow. We probably spent close to half of the passage pinching.

This meant that the passage was long and mentally frustrating, if much more serene and comfortable than normal.

We arrived in Opua Friday afternoon, in time to catch the end of the All Points Rally. We’re having a good time with many friends.

We spent several weeks before we departed looking for favourable weather for the passage. We wanted to leave when the weather systems were weak, with little difference between the central pressures of the local highs and lows. We departed with a 1020 KPa high north of New Zealand and a 1005 low in Tonga. We departed as soon as the wind from the high shifted out of the south to the south east. Typically this is the strongest wind of the cycle, but it provides the longest window between contrary winds.

Our passage was in many ways wonderful. The winds were fair. The seas were short, and were only choppy on the first day. We had sun every day, with mostly clear skies. We had only a couple brief showers and there were no electrical storms.

Unfortunately, the wind was contrary for almost the entire passage. Instead of behaving normally and moving steadily east, the high between Fiji and New Zealand moved west then remained stationary in the Tasman sea. During the first week of our passage the wind was 15 knots out of the south east or south south east. Then wind then eased to 5 to 10 knots and shifted due south. The last three days the wind was south west or south south west at 5 to 15 knots. We sailed close hauled for nine of eleven days, motored one and a half days, and were close reach for the remainder. The apparent wind was never more than sixty degrees from the bow. We probably spent close to half of the passage pinching.

This meant that the passage was long and mentally frustrating, if much more serene and comfortable than normal.

We arrived in Opua Friday afternoon, in time to catch the end of the All Points Rally. We’re having a good time with many friends.

The snorkelling was good.

The anchorage is a roadstead north of the island. Reefs east and west of the anchorage provide only minimal protection from those directions. This is not a good place to be in foul weather. We were heard second-hand that the cove on the NW side of Naingani is tabu so you should not anchor there.

We spent only one night at beautiful Makogai. In the eighteen hours we were at and near Makogai we saw as much wildlife as we had in the previous four months in Fiji. We were greeted by a large pod of pan-tropical spotted dolphins. Gannets and boobies are in abundance.

We came to Makogai to see the giant clams. Each one of these clams is a meter long, and about half as wide and tall. They weigh hundreds of kilograms. The locals farm these clams and raise sea turtles as well. They appear to have farmed coral in the past.

The anchorage in Makogai is just off the village, sheltered between three islands. We anchored in 18m, sand. Despite being almost surrounded by islands and being completely surrounded by reefs the anchorage has some swell.

We entered through Daveta Yawa-levu pass in the NW and departed via Daveta Loboni pass in the NE. The range on the chart for Daveta Yawa-levu pass crosses a shoal of about 5m, so you should stay SW of the range as indicated by our waypoints.

Unfortunately the forecast for our next leg to Savusavu dictated that we leave Makogai after only one night. We had a fast if uncomfortable reach to Point Passage and Savusavu.

Eating Locally

I can speak with some authority on the ways different cultures interact with food. We’ve spent years living in foreign lands. On South Pacific islands, there is a limited diversity of food available. It isn’t the limit you might first expect; there are usually several brands of imported canned tuna competing with the local canned, fresh, and frozen tuna. But there may not be any dried, canned, or frozen vegetables, for example. Most people walk to the markets and groceries, so heavy items, particularly drinks, are uncommon. But the limited selection of food doesn’t mean that people eat the same dishes over and over. Every grocery has a good selection of spices.

In Latin America, people are more likely to take the bus to the grocery, so packaging is heavier. Like South Pacific Islanders, Latin Americans eat more fresh fruits and vegetables than North Americans. Vegetable markets run six or seven days a week, and easily out sell the packaged food grocery stores. We had the hardest time finding fruit juice concentrate in Latin America. We eventually realized that fresh squeezing your own orange juice was so inexpensive that no one would pay for concentrate, and so no one would sell it.

Eating food that is local and in season is usually the only option. When imported or out of season produce is available it is usually ridiculously expensive and poor quality. So everyone eats what is being harvested locally.

Rationing

Our own peculiar sub-culture, long distance sailors, has in common with astronauts and other expeditions that we have limited carrying capacity and long periods between our opportunities to reprovision. This leads inevitably to rationing. And rationing works best in conjunction with other planning. So we obsess about food. I always know in detail how much food we have on board, how long we expect to be until our next port, and what foods we are limiting in our rations. The planning that we have to do for rationing makes sure that we eat well. We don’t have as many opportunities to eat junk and we can’t afford to diminish our supplies by overeating for emotional reasons. Which isn’t to say that we’re some sort of ascetics. There are potato chips on board, we just can’t sit around eating bag after bag all afternoon because were unhappy. We also have the negative aspects of obsession, like fantasizing about what we don’t have.

We have a few recommendations to pass on from our experiences.

Water

In many places where we have travelled, the water is not potable. Or there isn’t any communal water supply. The locals can’t afford the bottled water madness that has caught on in North America. So they filter rain water, or water from a truck. There are filters that will inexpensively make any source of fresh water potable. Boats planning to stop in Latin America should seriously consider these filters.

Fuel
Cooking fuel is limited as well. Cooking also heats the cabin, which in hot climates is often already uncomfortably warm. This forces us to give some thought to how we cook. The easiest, most obvious thing, is to let nature help. If we’re going to eat something frozen, letting in thaw for a couple hours before we cook it saves fuel. When it is sunny, whatever we’re going to heat sits in the sun for half an hour to warm it up.
You can also make huge differences in your fuel consumption my choosing your food carefully. Macaroni takes about twice as much water to cook as the same weight of spaghetti. Couscous or bulgur take about a tenth as much water as spaghetti does and about a third of what you need for rice. That’s a lot of fuel savings. Instant coffee doesn’t need boiling water, so it uses less fuel than real coffee. Once you start thinking about it you can find lots of ways to use less fuel. In a house, cooking fuel usually isn’t limited but you can keep your kitchen cool on hot days by carefully choosing what to cook.
Cooking an entire meal in one pot is another trick to living on a boat. This not only uses less fuel, but also takes less space, which is quite limited. Chilli, curry, and stew are one pot meals that we eat regularly.
Reduce the Meat
Being a vegetarian is tough, as restaurants and events in many places assume that everyone eats meat. But the less meat you eat aboard the easier your life will be. Finding meat of the quality you expect can be difficult. Once you have it, meat takes a lot of refrigeration and then a lot of cooking; if you undercook vegetables you don’t become ill. So we ordinarily eat meat only a few times a month.
The Shopping
When I was young I’d help my mother bring in plastic bags of cardboard boxes with little plastic bags in them. The norm was three layers of disposable packaging, which was not merely expensive and poluting, but heavy too, which is why the children get enlisted to help. Living on a boat you have limited ability to store or dispose of trash, most of which is packaging. I have four suggestions for reducing packaging: the simplest is to buy the least packaged option when there are alternatives ( this option doesn’t exist in my world ). The next is to buy food in packaging that you can reuse. Plastic peanut butter jars are really useful on a boat. Buying larger sizes also helps. Finally, reusable bags not only for carrying your groceries home but also for grouping your fruits and vegetables and “bulk” items are really good sense. Every bag you reuse is plastic that you don’t have to figure out how to dispose. And for that matter, seltzer machines allow you to reuse bottles, so you don’t have to dispose of trash or carry the weight home.

1. Lautoka ( 17˚36.1 S 177˚26.3˚ E ) ★★☆☆☆
   This is the Queens Wharf / Customs Quarantine anchorage. Technically every vessel visiting this part of Fiji has to anchor here when checking in and out. It is exposed to the NE and W, which are the only directions the wind ever came from in the five nights we’ve spent there. Anchor east of the line made by extending Queen’s wharf. 10m to 12m, mud.. The nearby container ships can make this anchorage unnerving. The dinghy dock is at the base of Queen’s Wharf along the east side. Expect 0.5m wind wave opposing your return to your vessel in the afternoon, so try to do your business early in the day before the wind builds.
     
2. Bekana Island ( 17˚35.5 S 177˚26.7˚ E ) ★★☆☆☆
   Just north of the Queen’s Wharf anchorage, this location offers a little shelter from the NE winds. 18m, mud.

3. Vitogo ( 17˚33.7 S 177˚29.9˚ E ) ★★★☆☆
   This little-visited bay, North-East of Lautoka, offers good shelter from S through E winds. 8m, mud

4. Saweni ( 17˚38.7 S 177˚23.55˚ E ) ★★★★☆
   Easily the best anchorage in the vicinity. Saweni is delightful in easterly, southerly, or westerly winds. There is a beautiful beach and a nearby orchid garden. A bus runs twice a day into Lautoka. A cab back from town with your groceries is only F$10. Unfortunately Saweni is uncomfortable during the northerly part of the weekly cycle. Watch the reefs that narrow in on both sides of the approach 100m north of the anchorage. 8m, sand.

5. Dreketi ( 17˚39.6 S 177˚22.9˚ E ) ☆☆☆☆☆
   This location offers the best wind protection in northerlies. Unfortunately northerly wind wave wraps around the point into the inlet, hitting the beam while you point into the wind. A safe anchorage, probably comfortable in calm conditions. 7m, mud

6. Denarau ( 17˚46.0 S 177˚22.0˚ E ) ★☆☆☆☆
   The shallows between Yakuilausewa island and the resorts at Denarau are picturesque in a tourist way. Unfortunately the normal afternoon sea breeze kicks up a south west chop that spreads into the anchorage. 6m, sand.

These ratings are probably a little generous.   

There are marinas at Vuda Point and Denarau . We don’t particularly like marinas, but given the anchorages you should consider them.

(This is a great picture of the marina entrance, but it doesn’t show the beaches well.)

The shore facilities in Musket Cove are great. There are several fancy pools and restaurants. There is a cruiser bar with wood fired BBQ’s that you can use to cook whatever you bring. There is a grocery with a limited supply of boat parts. You can also rent the resort’s hoby cats, kayaks, and windsurfers for about F$15 per hour.

Musket Cove has 25 moorings and docks for Tahitian moor. There is room to anchor nearby as well, reputably for 100 boats, though I am skeptical. The anchorage is entirely free from swell.

Musket Cove is in the lee of Viti Levu. The easterlies rarely blow here. Moderate south to south west winds blow in the afternoon while it is typically calm overnight.

The approach to Musket Cove is a bit hard to describe as you weave through the reefs. The channel is well marked and the reefs dry at low water so the route is easy. As usual, you can download our waypoints.

The downside to Musket cove would be the limited ability to provision. The grocery is neither large nor cheap.

If you are the kind of boater who likes marinas, like most are, then Musket Cove is a must. We should have stayed longer. Musket Cove is the highlight of western Fiji.  

The water at Navadra is shockingly clear. Visibility is over 20m. There is lots of healthy and colourful coral, with soft corals that we have never seen elsewhere. Reef fish populations are healthy as well. Easily the best snorkelling we’ve done since Rainbow Reef over 100 days ago.

The anchorage is located at 17˚27.54 S by 177˚02.68˚ E in 18m, sand bottom. Make your approach from 17˚27.1 S by 177˚02.8˚ E to avoid the rock in the middle of the bay. You can download our waypoints. Incidentally, the reef Calder mentions in the mouth of the bay is much smaller than he depicts. Our friends had engine trouble getting in and made twelve tacks inside of the bay without seeing less than 5m. The hazard is on and near the middle of a line drawn between the two points.   

Unfortunately the anchorage has constant, light swell. We did not find it comfortable. Without the swell we might have stayed much longer.

Navadra is out of the lee of Viti Levu. Moderate south easterlies are the norm here unlike the light variable winds in the southern Mamanucas.

The curry wrap / roti from the hut on the far side (east) of the parking lot is inexpensive and tasty. It is a large snack or light meal for F$1.50.

Kebab King makes a tasty falafel for F$10. They’re hidden just behind (north of) Mama’s Pizza.

Mama’s Pizza is the best value for eat-in restaurant. Their medium pizza is a large meal for two people and costs only $F20-25. Their caesar salad is also quite good.

Several people warned us not to eat at Lulu, but we did consume a number of their F$3 beers, which are the cheapest in the marina.

Cardo’s is a nice formal restaurant. We were quite happy with what we ate there. Their meals are F$20-40.

Amalfi makes great pasta. They’re about as expensive as Cardo’s and a little less formal.

Bonefish is a really good seafood restaurant and is priced to match. Simple fish for F$25, more elaborate meals to F$45.

The hard rock cafe is the most expensive restaurant in the marina. From what we saw of their menu and the food coming out to other tables we decided to spend our money elsewhere. F$30-50

We did not eat at Indigo or Naduri.

Everyday there is a free snorkelling trip at 10am. There is other free entertainment on the days with fire dances. And they have a wonderful beach. There is also an inexpensive dive shop.

The resort will provision for cruisers and arrange transport to Nadi. Cruisers also get a 10% discount on food and drinks by paying in cash. There is a F$1 fee per boat per year to use the facilities.

Robinson Crusoe is located in Likuri Harbour. The reef pass is at 18˚03.5 S by 177˚15.97˚ E. You can download our waypoints. The pass is over 100m wide and is easy to identify. Both sides dry on most tides and both sides break in even light swell. There are poles on either side, though the one on the south side is damaged and hard to identify. The anchorage is north of the island in 2m to 5m, sand bottom. The anchorage is free from swell and is sheltered from all directions. Likuri harbour is an estuary, with up to a couple knots of current in the anchorage. It is by far the nicest estuary we have ever visited with clean water and good visibility.

There are two downsides to Robinson Crusoe. The first is that getting there from Lautoka involves travelling 8 miles south-east outside of the reef, which is ordinarily going to windward against wind wave. Boats travelling from Suva to Lautoka won’t have this problem. The other is that the cell service is GPRS so cellular internet is painfully slow.

They don’t appear to read their email, so call them if you want to communicate.

We enjoyed our time at Robinson Crusoe and recommend it.

Here at Robinson Crusoe resort, like most resorts in the Pacific, they have a dive shop and this time we paid more attention to their offers of an introductory dive trip. The cost was reasonable, and we knew that the water would be fairly calm and clear here. After discussing it a bit, we decided to go for an intro dive for Steven’s birthday.

I was leery, mainly because I am very sensitive to pressure changes in my inner ears. I have a lot of trouble equalizing the pressure in my ears and often have difficulty when flying. Many times I’ve had blocked ears for over 24 hours after a flight, and I know from freediving that I get pain in my ears when I go more than a metre or two deep. Still, I decided to give it a try.

I didn’t have a lot of trouble with the diving gear, though it felt quite odd to be in the water with all that stuff. The main trouble I had, of course, was my ears. It seemed like forever to get down to a reasonable depth as I kept having to surface a little, try to unblock my ears, descend, try to unblock my ears, surface, try to unblock my ears, descend, etc. And the more this went on, since this is the first time I’ve ever swum with dive gear, I could feel myself start to panic because it feels so weird to breathe.

Clynt, our dive instructor, was very patient and helpful, and after what seemed like an hour got me to let go of the mooring line we were descending on and actually swim around a little. Once I started swimming, the panic all left and I was back to only have to deal with my ears. And once we found a depth to stay at, I was fine.

We dove off the reef near Robinson Crusoe, which was quite decent coral with lots of fish. Among all the other excellent reef fish and corals, I managed to see a hawksbill turtle and a huge sunfish.

After almost 40 minutes down below, we surfaced slowly, and my ears went to town. It doesn’t hurt nearly as much when they pressure is relieved, but it feels like tiny popcorn in my head. For the rest of the day, both ears were still blocked and they occasionally hurt. A day later I’m still popping my ears once in a while.

All in all, it was better (ear-wise) than I thought it would be. However, it would be hard to say that it was a huge amount better than a really good snorkelling trip. If I had the opportunity to dive a lot, I’m sure I’d get better at managing my ears, but as it was I spent probably 3/4 of the time futzing with either my ears or the gear and 1/4 of the time looking at the fish. I might be tempted to go again if the price is right, but I don’t see myself getting certified and taking up SCUBA as a hobby.

As a side note, Steven doesn’t share my inner ear troubles and had a better time of it. Even so, he’s happy to snorkel and isn’t eager to do more dives, either. Lots of people really dig diving, so our experiences obviously are just one opinion. Overall, I’d say it’s worth trying at least once. There is something really cool about just swimming along in the undersea world with ease.

The waypoints are gpx formatted for use with OpenCPN. They are split into three files based on geography as OpenCPN’s route manager gets sluggish with too much data. You can just import them one after the other to get all of the data together.

The waypoints that are “anchor” symbols are exactly where we dropped our anchor. The “anchorage” symbols are either less precise or from Billabong. The geometric symbols are used interchangeably and are all fairway markers (ie. you should sail right over top of them).

For reference, Scream is a cutter-rigged sloop that draws 2.2m (6.5′) and is 4m (13′6″) at the beam. All of these waypoints have at least 3m at low water, and outside the anchorages all of these waypoints have at least 5m.

Of course, the prudent mariner will not rely on one source of navigation data alone.

I hope that you find these useful.

If you’re going to row your dinghy, you’ll need a dinghy made for rowing with good oars and oar locks. Rowing an inflatable dinghy with the tiny oars that it comes with is vastly more difficult than rowing a proper rowing dinghy. Inflatables have hull shapes designed for plaining while rowing dinghies have displacement hulls. Longer oars with shaped blades give you much better power.

The big difference between rowing and an outboard is mobility. With an outboard you’re going to get further. Sometimes are places that doesn’t amount to much, but in some places that is a big difference. We’ve been sitting out weather and illness in the Blue Lagoon of the Yasawas. Supposedly there is a farm where we can buy vegetables and eggs just over a mile away. Instead of going there we’ve been worrying about running out of food before we get good weather to return to Vanua Levu.

The other considerations are minor, but they lean against the outboard.

For us, the biggest factor was that outboards are dirty and stinky. We don’t need that pollution.

We don’t get a lot of exercise. When we are cruising, rowing is most of our physical activity.

Putting an outboard on and off of a dinghy is a lot of work.

Outboards are also expensive. They cost thousands up front and take more than their share of maintenance.

As outboards are expensive, they are targets for theft. People talk about dinghies being stolen, but typically these stories end with the dinghy being found the next day with the outboard gone.

Both outboards and gasoline take up a lot of room, which some boats lack.

As we don’t have an outboard, we have no gasoline on board. This makes us feel safer from fire. However, I have to recommend a small portable generator for anyone thinking of living off the docks. We would have one if we had gas on board, so this point cuts both ways.

We have a sail for our dinghy, which we hoped would add mobility. So far we have found this less than satisfactory. Most of the time the distances are too small to make setting the sail up worth the effort. Most of the rest of the time the winds aren’t co-operative. By the very nature dighy trips are out and back, so there is going to be an upwind leg, unless there is no wind and you can’t sail. Waiting for weather to sail your dinghy will try anyone’s patience.

Overall I can’t recommend one way over the other. We’re glad not to have the headaches that come with an outboard, but sometime it would be nice to be more mobile.