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Timshel - Tonga to Fiji Arrival Vanua Balavu



We came up with and talked to Aurora during the day and agreed to go into the island pass together. Managed to sail for a few hours, until wind died and headed us. Even managed to tack - a long time since we've had to do that. More motoring through the night, Owl and Misto came up, Tulla Mhor hove to off the pass, at day break waited for a squall to pass that blotted out the visibility Skylark and Zeeland came up , also Altair appeared and Exit Strategy behind. Finally entering the pass at nearly 11, following Aurora with Skylark and Zeeland in line behind, Owl, Misto and Altair ahead. We were carefully following the waypoints provided by WARC having been warned that in this area (and most of Fiji) that both electronic and paper charts might be wrong. Most of the beacons marked on the chart were absent (Hurricane Winston took them away), but the up to date Navionics on chart plotter and ipad seemed to be reasonably correct, Misto's older Navionics seemed to shifted off a bit, but the Furuno charts of Altair were the worst. We all anchored off the village of Lomolomo. The officials, Biosecurity and Customs, went round all the boats in turn clearing us in, ferried from boat to boat in the little dinghies in the somewhat bouncy conditions as the anchorage of the beach is exposed to the East. Our agent Eli was there to help and soon we were instructed to take down the yellow flag. Next day the remaining boats arrived, Laura Dawn, Shamal, Ashia, Aurora Polaris (with repaired rudder) and Sumore. Clearances were done on the table in Laura Dawn's big covered cockpit - catamarans are very useful sometimes. We had been rather concerned about the amount of fuel we had used, as it seemed it would be awkward to get any here especaily as we had no Fijian money yet, several boats kindly offered us cans, and we got 2 from Misto to tide us over.

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