We left our anchorage on the northwestern tip of Taveuni yesterday, planning on sailing around the island and ending up on the eastern side where we'd be well positioned to jump off to the Lau Group.
Unfortunately, when we weighed anchor, we almost immediately ran into heavy squalls and pouring rain. Piko and Dilligaf were both within a mile or two of us, and I lost my visual on both boats due to how heavy the rain was.
Getting around Taveuni isn't as easy as it sounds. There are a pile of reefs that require dodging, and if the visibility is poor that becomes a pretty dangerous proposition. We decided to reroute ourselves to a clearer anchorage, and we're now tucked into Katherine Bay in the island of Rabi (pronounced "Rambi").
Moving through reefy waters anywhere is scary, but in Fiji it's particularly bad. I've been playing with a program called MaxSea (Dominic, look into it if you haven't) which allows for a comparison of the two major electronic charts companies (CMap and Navionics) as well as a satellite image. It's a horrifying exercise - if you overlay the two electronic charts in places, they only vaguely resemble each other, and it becomes particularly scary to overlay the satellite image (which we'd presume to be accurate) and see that both sets of charts read like a novel "loosely based on a true story". No where else have we had the charts be off like this.
It's pretty infuriating - the charts are extremely expensive, and those companies should be fully capable of performing the same Google Earth comparison that we're making. I realize we're living a ridiculously cushy life navigation-wise (sextant who?) and maybe I should just be grateful.
We've heard of too many boats being lost on reefs here. In fact, a boat we made landfall with was lost about 10 days ago on a reef.
So, we're being cautious. Waiting for better weather and getting ready to explore Rabi.
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At 11/22/2011 8:38 PM (utc) our position was 35°18.69'S 174°14.80'E
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