Sailing in Unsurveyed Waters
Navigating an unmarked Fijian reef pass to find two days of total solitude
Sometimes in our ocean adventure we have the unique opportunity to be out here completely on our own. This week we stopped at one of the most isolated places we’ve ever visited in all our years of sailing.
We left Savusavu on the Fijian island of Vanua Levu on Friday, enroute to the southern island of Viti Levu and the capital city of Suva. We’d planned a few stops to break up the trip, and Friday’s sail was a short one, only four hours to the tiny island of Namena. It’s a small speck of volcanic rock inside a huge lagoon, surrounded by a coral reef with navigable passes on the north and south ends – but on the chart they show as “unsurveyed”.
The navigation charts that exist for these waters are CM93 – the first global vector charts made for electronic chart plotters, published in the early 1990s. For many places in remote ocean areas these are still the only source of navigation data. There often isn’t a lot of detail – especially for places less traveled, like Namena Island. For us, having come from North America and French Polynesia, where harbors, reefs, and channels are accurately marked and frequently updated – this takes some attitude adjustment. And courage.
To say it’s disconcerting to approach a reef from the open ocean is an understatement. You sail toward the place where the pass shows on the chart, but you can’t see anything but waves and the occasional breaking sea.
Most of the reefs that surround these Fijian islands are “awash” – meaning that they don’t show above the water unless it’s very low tide – so there’s nothing to see until you get very close. There is little margin for error, and we’ve always got that “flutter of fear in our bellies” that goes along with doing something dangerous – especially for the first time.
I can only imagine what it was like for the old-time sailors that had no charts at all. They were literally coming in blind – under sail, in boats that were anything but easy to maneuver. They’d have men in the rigging to better see the colors of the water that show the shallow depths and they would send in longboats to scout the entrance. But it’s amazing that they were able to pinpoint these places from the vast expanse of ocean with no prior knowledge. It’s no wonder that many were lost.
But even with our modern aids to navigation, we’ve got to maintain a close lookout. Slack tide is the optimum time to enter or exit, and as we approach, we’re always on the watch for standing waves or mixed-up water that might indicate current in the pass, which affects our ability to make way and hold course. We put our faith in the charts and our GPS position, but it’s not until I get eyes on the pass that I start to feel confident. We look for the light blue that shows the shallows, and for the breaking sea on each side of the entrance that indicates where the reef is.
And then we maintain our course on a line for the middle of the pass and power through. Heart in mouth until the pass is behind us.
Even then, given that these are unsurveyed waters, you never know if there is some rock or coral pinnacle ahead that might not show up on the satellite view of Google Earth. Our 80-foot yacht is 100,000 pounds – it takes time to stop and can’t turn on a dime. We proceed with caution, stay vigilant, and keep a close eye on the depth sounder.
But once we’ve made it inside the lagoon, these remote places often yield a big reward. Namena Island was an exceptional payoff.
Maps indicate that there is a dive resort at the north end of the island, and we had expected to see some activity – maybe at least a caretaker for the property. But there was no sign of life – no boats, no people. The island is 300 feet in elevation, a long narrow slice with steep rocky cliffs on each end and jungle covered slopes that lead down to the turquoise water of the lagoon. We made our way to the south end of the island and dropped the hook off Hope Reef in 40 feet of crystal-clear water off a small sandy beach. We could see the bottom, and a big turtle swam by as if to welcome us.
And then, solitude.
We’d just left Savusavu – a small town with big noise – barking dogs, traffic, lots of other boats, music, and the Dawali festival that brought fireworks every night for a week. But only a few hours of sailing had transported us to another world. In fact, we felt we could have been on another planet.
The only sounds we heard on Namena were the wind whistling through our rigging, the slap of the gentle waves on the hull, and the birds – frigates soaring overhead, terns fighting for fish, and parrots roosting in the jungle trees around the white sand bay. And when night fell, all at once as it does in the tropics, the darkness was profound. There was no artificial light – we were far enough from any population center that the only light was from the night sky. The moon was just waxing crescent, but as bright as a spotlight, and it lit up the white sand of the beach. I set an alarm for 3:00 am to do some dark sky stargazing as I knew that after moonset the stars would be brilliant to behold. I was rewarded with a dozen or so meteors emanating from the midst of the Milky Way. Pure magic.
Namena was the quintessential deserted island. For two glorious days we swam and snorkeled, ate great food, and enjoyed quiet nights and the deepest of sleep. We went ashore to hike and found the remnants of a trail across the island through palm and pandanus trees.
The beach on the west side was a wide expanse of sand with a coral fringe. The only footprints were ours. The reef is about half a mile offshore, and then nothing but thousands of miles of open ocean, with a few other island specks along the way.
We marveled at the fact that we were truly on our own, in a place where there was very little chance that any other people were going to show up. In 14 years of full-time sailing, we’ve never found a place like this. We’ve explored many remote places, but there has always been someone else around – another cruising boat, or a few fishermen in pangas. But for these couple of days, we were worlds away from the hustle and hassle of the ‘real world’. We could have been the only people left on earth.
This is yet another example of the wonder of this life of adventure on the ocean that we’ve engineered for ourselves. How many people get to really and truly be on their own? For even a minute? Ever? Yet we can sit for days in complete solitude. Yes, we take some risks to get here – but it is so worth it for the rare and wonderful experience.
This leg of our adventure ended with another successful exit from an unsurveyed pass in the south end of the reef, and we sailed away from our private island to rejoin our version of civilization in the Port of Levuka, the original capital of Fiji.
We’ll be back with people again in Levuka, but I have a feeling we’ll find more places like Namena Island. There are hundreds of islands in this archipelago, and not a lot of other yachts. Now that we’ve had a taste of it, we look forward to our next experience of total solitude.
Sail on fearless crew! LJ
We are two people exploring the ocean on our 80-foot sailing yacht, without a full-time crew or a fat wallet. To all my constant readers, thank you for coming along on this voyage with us. It’s so much fun for me to share our adventures with you, and I hope you enjoy my stories. Please invite your friends and family to join us. All are welcome onboard SV Duende.
If you are new to the crew, you can see where this adventure started with the Duende Origin Story Part 1 (and 2, and 3, and 4).
Wow, incredible. There is no substitute for that feeling of total isolation!
Wow, just wow. No safety net - on the island or out on the ocean. Just you both and the wilds. Amazing and deep respect. I was on the edge of my seat!