Monday 1 August Vatulele

The sun was only just above the horizon as we pulled up the anchor for passage to Vatulele island; the half way point to Kadavu island our final goal. There isn't much cruiser information available for this lagoon around an island except boats have reported anchoring there, there's a luxury resort which doesn't like yachties parking in front of their private beach. I'd phoned them to ask for safety information on which was the best pass to use to enter the reef and spoke to the general manager. She indicated Lee Passage on the west side and to anchor east of the 'white house' but could offer no more help.
The charts were sketchy for the pass, Google Easth inconclusive so it was eyeball navigation. Oso arrived ahead of us and a local fishing boat guided them in through the pass. We were sneaky and while watching Oso's the blip on our screen marking their GPS track using AIS (automatic ship ID) we were able to add a series of waypoints which we were then able to follow in although Eric did return in his tender to offer guidance. For cruisers reading this and wishing to visit Vatulele water depths were 12m through the pass and 4m at the shallowest point of the sand bank on the inside.
We dropped the hook on the north of the island well away from the resort and in front of a bird colony with boobies, tropic birds, Australian gannets and frigates and then hurried down to the second village on the east of the island to do sevusevu with the chief. What we thought was the second village was in fact the third as number one and two were misleadingly co-joined. Of course they were pleased to see us as I doubt many yachties stop to say hello. It's a poor village surviving on fishing, farming and making masi. Masi is a decorative cloth made by the village ladies from the bark of sapling trees. The bark is stripped and beaten flat with a wide paddle on a flat trunk. It's then dried, cut to length and painted with black, brown and terracotta dyes made from the mango tree to make wall hangings and place mats. The original Fijian use was clothing. It was instantly appealing both Oso Blanco and we bought wall hangings.

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