Coming into the rather industrial port of Suva, we had been warned, one can see plenty commercial fishing vessel of the Chinese/Taiwanese style. Some are floating well on their lines, others are half sunk, or even sitting on the reef that protects the Suva harbour from ocean swell. We called port control, and were told all is clear to come thru the reef entrance. Despite that one of those fishing vessel left harbour and we waited a few minutes for it to clear the entrance.
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| The reef is littered with these fishing vessels. |
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| Others are abandoned in shallow water |
We are not quite sure what is happening in the pic above. Every day, tugs moved some of these type vessels, hip-tied to the tug first, then tie it to the other boats. They are all swinging on a single mooring. Some of the vessels had laundry drying in the wind, so they are being lived on.
Deep inside the harbour is the Royal Suva Yacht Club. It severely shallows there and we were in 8 feet of water looking for an anchor spot between a shipwreck, some mooring buoys with boats on them. In the end we went back into deeper water (30ft) closer to the bigger vessels that anchor there. It felt like good holding, probably better than the silty 10ft deep anchorage.
Our evening view, and noises, was very different from what we had for months.
