10 June 2010
We love the camaraderie of yacht rallying but now and again we crave our own company and the unique experience of having an anchorage to oneself. No problem if you cruise the west coasts of Ireland or Scotland. But amazingly this is incredibly difficult to achieve in the South Pacific. Refuge Bay, where we have been lodgers for the past week has been filling daily with independent cruising boats. Now boats from another cruising rally from Australia, the ICA, have arrived and then of course the Blue Water Rally follow on from that.
We have had the most lovely time getting together with our own select group and at long last caught up with the boys from Skylark. We had not seen them since Hiva Oa in the Marquesas and it was amazing how much news we could muster between us. But suddenly David and I needed time out, some space. The Moorings Guide names and numbers the anchorages in and around the islands of the Vava'u group. For our first night of our mini cruise around this delightful archipelago, David and I chose No 5, Lotuma. It was just around the corner from Refuge Bay and we dropped anchor opposite what looked like a pig farm. Not the prettiest by any means but guaranteed to deter anyone else from sharing our spot! To our astonishment another British boat came in to anchor in the early afternoon. It was not long before they left. Really it wasn't that bad. The pig farm turned out to be a place where they collected sea cucumbers from the outlying islands for export to Japan. As the sun went down the water was glassy calm, the sky turning from gold to crimson, the only sound, cicadas buzzing in the dense rainforest. Now we could turn up the volume and Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles without disturbing our nonexistent neighbours. No, we are not in the "Fairy Isles" on the upper reaches of Loch Sween. This is the South Pacific.......
Susan Mackay