We had Bia bay to ourselves for our last night. As we get closer to spring tides the low tides are spectacular in the bay. My favourite drone photo of them all from there is this one.

We left early this morning, picked our way carefully out of the bay (though it was high tide which made it easier), rolled out some screecher and sailed up to Namuka-i-lau. Its a stunning anchorage (though not quite as good as Bia), and I got the drone out to get a picture but alas, the drone is no longer working! Not sure why, it just reboots continually.

Anyway, we had our sevusevu to do, so we headed in to the beach to look for the promised track to the village. Nothing. So we had to go around by dinghy, which given the winds was going to be a wet ride. We came across a fibre, and followed them to the village. It was low tide, but they have a cut through the sand and seagrass to get their boats up to the beach, and Susana from the fibreglass boat helped us get the dinghy up to the beach. We were then taken up to the village for sevusevu. Alas the chief is in Suva, so it was a somewhat strange affair. But we believe honour is done.

I had spotted another anchorage nearer the village and they did confirm we could go there, but having had a look, we prefer where we are. However, it promises to be a very windy week (high twenties gusting high thirties), so we may not make it back to the village in those conditions as 2nm in the dinghy upwind is no fun in those wind speeds.

So it looks like we’re staying put where we are, until at least Friday. We can use the beach, get coconuts, snorkel and get on with some boat jobs until then.

We are in mourning for our drone…