We covered the just-under-450-nautical-mile passage from Niuatoputapu to Fiji in a little less than three days. We entered Fiji on July 10, and our first stop was Levuka, a small town on the island of Ovalau.
Levuka is a quiet place today, but it has a surprisingly important history. It was Fiji’s first colonial capital, back when the British took control of the islands. The capital was later moved to Suva, but old Levuka remained largely preserved, squeezed between the sea and steep green hillsides. Today, the historic town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
This was where we checked in with immigration and customs, then waited for a while until the customs officer came out to the boat.
He was an older guy, medium build. He climbed aboard, shook hands, looked through some papers, glanced left and right, and then asked, as casually as if this were the most normal question in the world:
“Alright. So, what alcohol do you have?”
“Alcohol? We don’t have any.”
He looked at us as if we had just said something completely unbelievable.
“How can you have nothing?”
We explained that I had cut my leg, we’d had a party, and we had basically drunk everything we had.
He still wasn’t convinced.
“Come on. You must have something for me.”
Eventually, we managed to dig out about half a litre of homemade grape brandy.
The moment he saw the bottle, the atmosphere changed.
“Everything is fine. All your papers are in order. I wish you a pleasant stay in Fiji.”
He grabbed the bottle and disappeared.
It seemed that the deeper we sailed into the Pacific, the worse the alcohol shortage became. And the more we regretted not buying crates of rum in Panama like so many other sailors had.
You live and learn.
This particular lesson cost us half a litre of homemade rakija.
By then it was getting dark, so we decided to stay at anchor, get some rest, and spend the night there.
My leg was holding up reasonably well. The stitches were still in place, it hurt a little, but what bothered me more was the strange numbness around part of the wound. I kept changing the dressing and tried not to put too much weight on it.
The next day, Damir went into town to buy a few things.
He came back looking thoroughly unimpressed.
“There’s nothing special there.”
So we spent the day mostly resting, and the following morning we moved on. The plan was to continue around the northeastern side of Viti Levu and eventually make our way toward Nananu-i-Cake, an island off the northern coast of Fiji’s main island.
There was almost no wind, so we were motoring. Everything felt calm and routine.
At around two in the afternoon, I went below to lie down and rest my leg. I had started getting some strange pains and just wanted to stretch it out for a while.
Then came the impact.
My head shot forward and slammed into the end of the bunk.
I was fully awake in a second.
I scrambled up on deck as fast as I could with my half-useless leg.
Damir looked at me.
“Fuck! What the hell did we just hit?”
“What happened?”
“Looks like we’ve run onto a reef.”
It was July 12, sometime after three-thirty in the afternoon. We were near Nasava Bay and Veidrala, on the northeastern coast of Viti Levu.
The first thing I did was go below and lift the floorboards.
When there is even a possibility that you have put a hole in the boat, there is no point standing around discussing it. First, you find out whether water is coming in.
Luckily, everything was dry.
The hull had not been breached.
I went back on deck and we looked at what we had managed to do.
The port side of the boat was slightly raised, resting on part of the reef. We had not climbed fully onto it, but we had hit it well enough that we could not simply keep going as if nothing had happened.
Every few minutes, somebody looked below to see whether any water had appeared.
So we started working the engines.
Forward.
Reverse.
Forward.
Reverse.
Little by little, the boat began to move.
One thing was in our favour: according to the tide information we had, the water was rising. We were hoping that as the tide came in, it would slowly lift us and help us float free, because only part of the hull was actually caught on the reef.
After maybe twenty minutes, perhaps half an hour, we got off.
We were floating again.
We continued very slowly.
After a hit like that, nobody was in the mood for speed.
It was not far from the reef to Nananu-i-Cake, so in less than two hours we reached the island and dropped anchor.
We left the floorboards up.
Nothing.
Damir went into the water to inspect the hull.
At least from what he could see, we had come out of it much better than the sound of the impact had suggested. In one place we had scraped away the paint and damaged a surface layer of fiberglass, but there was no hole and no water coming in.
We decided not to touch anything else that evening.
Morning is usually smarter than night.
And that evening at Nananu-i-Cake we had a spectacular sunset. After the impact, the reef, and all the time spent staring under the floorboards waiting to see whether water would appear, it felt good to simply sit on the boat and watch the sun disappear behind the island.
The next morning we called the marina and explained what had happened. They had space for us, but only after a couple of days, so we stayed at Nananu-i-Cake for two nights while we waited.
That was not much of a hardship.
The important thing was that the boat was not leaking and that we had somewhere to haul her out and inspect the damage properly.
On July 15, we continued toward Lautoka. It was roughly fifty nautical miles from Nananu-i-Cake, so most of the day was spent underway.
Off Lautoka, near Bekana Island, we dropped anchor and decided to spend the night.
While we were sitting there, I removed the dressing from my leg and looked at the wound.
It seemed to have healed pretty well.
I consulted my friend Peđa.
“Yeah, I think you can take the stitches out. No problem.”
Of course.
Whenever somebody says, “No problem,” there is a good chance it is about to become one.
I took a pair of scissors, cut the stitches, disinfected Viktor’s pliers, and started pulling them out one by one.
Ugh.
What a horrible feeling.
It felt as if somebody were threading a needle through my skin and stitching me up all over again, except this time I was voluntarily taking part in the procedure.
But it was done.
The stitches were out, the wound stayed closed, and for the first time my leg really looked as though it was heading in the right direction.
The sensation was still strange, though. I could barely feel anything when I touched part of the area, and because I had spent so long keeping the leg straight and trying not to use it, it had weakened. I was still limping a little.
But I could walk.
I had to be careful, but I could walk.
The following morning, July 16, we headed for Vuda Marina.
The entrance to Vuda is a story in itself. The marina sits behind the reef, and you enter through a narrow channel cut through the coral. You have to stay right in the middle, and if there is a strong crosswind, there is not much room for error.
After our recent introduction to coral, nobody had to explain to us how narrow that channel could suddenly feel.
They keep the entrance maintained and dredged, but coral is coral.
Once you have met it up close, you do not really feel the need for a second introduction.
We made it in without any problems and were given a berth.
Then we had to arrange the haul-out and the repair work. We explained what had happened and how we had hit the reef.
The marina guys started laughing.
“That’s nothing. If you haven’t hit a reef in Fiji, you haven’t really been to Fiji.”
I was not sure whether they were trying to comfort us or simply enjoying the story, but we soon realised we were definitely not the only ones.
Later, walking around the marina, we saw a large sailing yacht, maybe around a hundred feet long, that had come off much worse than we had. It had also hit a reef, but in its case the impact had caused serious damage around the keel and into the structure of the boat.
And there were plenty of stories like that.
It looked as though we were going to be staying in this marina for a while.
And when you stay in a marina long enough, the stories usually start collecting themselves.