Provisioning in Port Denarau for Vanuatu

We moved Musket Cove over to Port Denarau two days ago. The passage was short and easy although the last two miles were in waters under 20ft deep and murky, so a little unsettling. The port is just inside a massive breakwater up a river. The anchorage is only 8ft deep at low water with a big sandbar that dries and covers with each tidal change. The area is on the big island of Viti Levu and south of Lautoka where we will check out for the passage to Vanuatu.

So we are reprovisioning here as we are a bus or taxi ride away from major grocery stores, the butcher, etc. We had to go to the ATM machine twice over the last two days and I have to go again tomorrow to be able to pay for our meat order which we left at the butcher two days ago to have packaged and deep frozen. It is better to have them freeze it since our little unit would take a couple of days to do it and this saves us valuable energy. We also refilled the diesel tanks (over $4.00 a gallon US - yikes!) and got a 20lb propane tank filled. I also refilled our gasoline tanks for our outboard. It was a good decision for us to get the four-stroke outboard motor in our view. It is much heavier and harder to get on and off the boat to the dink but uses much less gas and is quieter and does not smoke and stink like a 2-stroke motor which uses premixed gas/oil. I have to get some beer and cokes today and more potato chips. We got two cases of wine at a wine wholesaler for a good price (about $6.50 US per bottle). So this little reprovisioning will cost us nearly a $1,000US but we will be set for at least a couple of months on most things and longer for others.

Denarau is a reclaimed mango swamp of an island but it now has huge fancy resorts ringing the waterfront, a big golf course and more than a few mansions all over. They just opened a little mall with tourist shops, restaurants, a pizza place (good!), grocery store, bakery, etc. Very upscale as they cater to the well-to-do tourists from the resorts and the big yachts that come in to the port. It is also the main transfer port for tourists to get on to the fast boats going out to the resorts in the outlying islands.

We will only be here a couple of days more and are already looking at weather reports on the radio and on internet to try and pick a decent weather window for the short hop of 474nm to the volcanic island of Tanna in south Vanuatu. Tanna has a very active volcano that you can go see with guides right to the rim. Lawyers would prevent this type of high risk activity in the USA since it is very possible to get overrun by lava or hit by exploding boulders. They haven't lost any tourists in at least a couple of months though so we feel safe.

I will try and post some pics of our visit to the school on Waya Island in the next post.