September 15, 1998-Musket Cove Regatta

Musket Cove, Fiji

Musket Cove? Where’s that?

Fiji?

OK, Where’s that?

I can honestly say that I was pretty ignorant of the island countries of the South Pacific. In fact, as far as I knew, with my only images of Fiji being big cook pots full of white explorers surrounded by frizzie haired natives; Fiji could have been in Africa.

But we were game. When Carol suggested that we come to Fiji in September and sail in the Musket Cove Regatta, we said, “OK”. That was it, period. We’re going to Musket Cove wherever it is, and we’re going to get there by September.

Well, by the end of August, we had found Fiji, and had arrived at Savu Savu in the country’s East. We’d met up with Carol and soon we had her on board and were headed around to Musket Cove at the island of Malolo Lailai, on the west side, where the regatta was going to be held a week later.

We figured two days, and it took all of that. Fiji is a big place, by South Pacific standards. I was thinking as we sailed past its shores for a couple of days and nights, “This isn’t just a little Pacific island, it’s a whole country.” As we got to the west side the terrain and flora changed. It was drier, with rolling hills, brown grass, and only patchy trees. A rain shadow, cool!

Momi Bay

We anchored the second night in Momi Bay, inside the reef system in the West, and motored to Malolo Lailai the next morning. The scene which greeted us was another eye-opener: A few hundred anchored yachts anchored in a large bay of clear aquamarine water. Behind, we could see what looked like a five star island resort nestled among palm trees.

This looked promising.
Malolo Lailai


We went ashore to have some fun, and we ran into some friends.

Ed & Julie were there with their Valiant 40 Cinnabar. They were going to crew for us in the regatta. Back in Papeete I’d signed Ed on to do foredeck here. Julie was not so enthusiastic about racing, but she agreed to try it out too. They said they’d make to Fiji and they did. They both proved to be great crew.

John Neal and Amanda Swan were there on Mahina Tiare, as were Amanda’s parents Robert & Lesley who had sailed there from New Zealand on the family boat, Tiatoa. John and Amanda were getting married here at Malolo Lailai and I agreed to take the wedding photos.

John & Amanda











There were lots of folks here.

Dick Smith was there too, as he would be, since he’s the resort’s owner and this is the big event of the year for them.

I sought out Dick and asked him about ratings, since I didn’t see any mention of them in the instructions, thereby identifying myself to him as a guy who was “not in the proper spirit of the event.” Dick sort of stalled me a bit on the question of ratings, as he would. There are no ratings in the Musket Cove Regatta, and I’d find that out soon enough. Also, there were few rules; even use of engines was permitted. It was great fun for anybody who had that figured out, but we still had it in our minds that this was a race. We had arranged for crew. We had a practice. We put on the racing sails. We tried very hard. We nearly made fools out of ourselves for not “getting it” sooner.

Our first real clue about the nature of the event was that a lot of boats simply turned on their motors and roared past us at the start of the first race. Naive Fred and Judy were shocked.

But the regatta was a fun. There was great sailing around the islands, great lunches and drinking at the stopovers, and we did pretty good against the other boats. Our mostly pick-up crew of international cruising sailors were super. We did sail changes, spinnaker changes, jibes, the whole ball of wax. And, it was good having Carol back on the boat; she’d been one of our core crew members in Seattle.

Wings' Great International Crew

We were hot, but the rest of the fleet was having a blast.

Then came the awards party: we didn’t get any. Not even a participation plaque, which everybody else got. It seemed that they ran out of participation plaques before they got to “W”.

So Judy and I learned a lesson. We obviously had the wrong expectations. But we know now that you go to Musket Cove to party and sail and to have fun, not to race and get trophys. That's OK too, once you know.

And the rest of our stay at Malolo Lailai was terrific. The weather and climate was wonderful for cruisers, but not so good for farmers, The place was dry, too dry. Fiji caught fire while we were there. Even the Island of Malolo Lailai had a fire. Most of the cruisers pitched in to form a fire brigade and we all spent a day clamoring around on the nearby hills fighting the grass fire and saving homes.

Fires of Fiji

In other places, on the main Island of Viti Levu, the fires of Fiji were more serious. Mostly it was sugar fields burning, and we watched the hillsides alight with fires for night after night. It made a big impression on us.

After we finished racing and firefighting we tried windsurfing. We all fell down a lot and Ed got a cut on his face when the mast of his board fell on him a bit too hard once. Judy and Julie and Carol relaxed.

Finally our week at Malolo Lailai was over. Carol flew back to Savu Savu to rejoin husband Bob on Elyxir.

So that was Musket Cove.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Fiji