Kiteboarding: Caqalai Island, Fiji.

I hatched this plan to kite surf in the islands November 2015. I have a bucket list of islands and places to visit. Kite surfing, along with snorkelling, diving, kayaking and generally having a good time in the warmth whilst home is in the early throes of winter has great appeal. Last year I went to Lombok with a company in Sydney called Kite Power and really enjoyed that. Always wanted to visit Fiji, the air fares were compelling so the choice was made.

Now for where to go: "Fiji consists of 332 islands (of which 106 are inhabited) and 522 smaller islets" according to Wikipedia. I had to narrow that down a bit, after all there is only two weeks available to me. I want to take advantage of the south east trade winds, it has to have a sandy beach, not too extortionate in price, not too popular as we need to land our kites without getting tangled in boats and people and no more than a day away. Google Maps, what a wonderful free commercial asset we have. I simply got a map of Fiji and looked at the islands that have exposure to the south east winds, then zoomed in on a satellite view to look for sandy beaches.

We landed in Nadi, but this was on the east of where we need to be. For us, the islands off Suva were a better choice, or maybe the north of the island. I looked there (Nananu-I-Ra off Volivoli) and felt it to be too expensive: too well influenced by western money, I think. I could have rented some houses at reasonable rate, but no response came from them until it was too late. Over to the west, I saw Moturiki to the north of Suva and felt this was worth a look.

Caqalai island

Look at that satellite photo. Small island called Caqalai, sandy beach all round and a reef extending out to provide great flat water kiting. Choice well made it proves !

I looked up Caqalai island and found a resort and checked out a blog or two. My kind of place, a place to chill out on and do not much at all except of course kite, fish, drink from coconuts and not much at all.

I found a flight with Virgin that had a direct route from Melbourne to Nadi and got us in at 4:30pm. I was not sure of the timing so left the first night's accommodation to the last minute as the last bus to Suva was 6pm. It turns out that we landed on time and was cleared through customs rapidly.

You get out of the airport and are invited by friendly faces to use a taxi or shuttle service. I knew there as local bus service but where ? After a bit of questioning and refusal to fork out $250FJ we found that the express bus service to Suva was up the road a bit to the right of the car park. Not easily seen due to construction works. How much to get to Pacific Harbour ? "$FJ 12.50" - say that again ! No wonder the spruikers didn't want us to know.

Dennis booked the first night's accommodation at Club Oceanus Resort, apparently only 10 minutes away from Waidalice bridge (pronounced Wadaleethee) . It turns out he screwed that one up, it was more like an hour or so away ! Oh well, we didn't need to get there until 2pm. The bus journey was comfortable, with a toilet stop at Sigatoka it didn't seem long. The accommodation at Club Oceanus was comfortable and the food was quite tasty. This place also featured dive trips, the highlight of which was a shark dive. In the morning I went for a walk and was almost tempted to get the kite out for the beach was receiving cross shore breezes at about 20 knots.

Last night we enquired about transport. A guy quoted us $FJ150 to get there, saying it was hard to get to and a long way. We baulked. In the morning a lady staff member also knew a guy from 'the village', who could take us for a hundred. Done. It turns out we could have caught a bus out front to Suva and then on to Waidalice bridge, which is also on the main road round the island of Viti Levu, all for about $12 and it was within each hour. Oh well.

Our boatman arrived at the appointed time, but said he wanted some money and had to get fuel. We parted with our $40 each and off he goes, leaving us to wait at this forlorn bridge in the middle of no where. We sat there wondering whether we got duped.

It was quite hot so we were advised to sit in a very ramshackle waiting shed with a precarious rotting walkway.

Throw suspicion aside, this is Fiji, he was honest and did eventually come back with a couple of plastic drums of fuel. and we were off on our adventure ! The trip took about 45 minutes, first coursing out through a narrow river, across some shallow mud flats then to our destination.

We were greeted by a very friendly lay, our host Ro. After paying, we were shown to our lodgings and given a brief tour. The accommodation is basic but clean, we had a beach front bure with a shower and toilet in an ideal location to launch our kites from.

From the satellite picture you can see that our bure couldn't be better placed for the predominant SE trade winds. At mid to high tide we leave from out front, at low tide we walk a short distance north on the spit and kite in the channel that separates us from Moturiki island, being careful not to head too far east, or north. Otherwise if the wind runs out, we will drift with the tide into the big wide open ocean.

We stayed 4 nights and had great winds. In the morning we would go out on the 17m or 15m kite with a 155 board, changing to the 140 board. Afternoon pumped it up requiring the 10 or 11m kites.

When I left Melbourne I was worried that I chose badly with a 10 and 17m kite, it was a late night unpack - weigh - repack of baggage and dilemma of choice with an 8, 10, 12, 14 and 17m set of kites to choose from, let alone the boards. I chose the combination of 10, 17m kite with a 140 and 155 board . Why did I choose a 10 when I often use a 12 ? I also was spewing because I purchased a 165cm board just before leaving and found it too large for my Mystic bag. Not wanting to fork out an extra $110AUD for the extra bag I had to leave it home. That board would have been even better on the light days in the latter part of the trip.

It turns out that I chose well with the equipment combination. I was not happy with the new Mystic bag though: it was light, granted, but poorly engineered on the wheel frame. The frame bends and scrapes on the ground, also all the stitches came apart almost causing me to have to carry the bag: a 23kg lump 160cm long. Great.

Not wanting to land our kites on the sand, despite being relatively free of coral, it only needs one point bit to do damage, we launched and landed in the water. This was done by attaching a leash to a rope on a dumped boat near our bure at high tide and from a log on the sand spit at low tide. Launching and landing this way is really easy.

I am glad also to have invested in some new booties. I bought some Ion plasma booties. These are nice and thin with no buckles nor protrusions to catch on the board bindings. They proved to be an excellent choice - no coral or shell cuts for me, and a cinch to get in and out of the bindings.

Caqalai island is host to a charity aid group called GVI international who run volunteer groups. a young group was there doing marine conservation work. The learnt how to dive and were researching the coral. They also assisted with the cyclone clean up and were going over to Motoriki to teach and help out there. The villages in Motoriki were quite badly affect by cyclone Winston and still need aid. Our little island showed little damage except the tarpaulins over the bure roofs.

The aid groups were run like well oiled military operations with job boards of duties, though the kids were pretty chilled and seemed to be enjoying themselves. I'd probably do a month before wanting a change of scene !

I was told that if I wanted a coconut, just ask a worker. I did and he was more than happy to oblige. I tried knocking one off the tree myself. It was an epic fail; there is a knack to it that eluded my skill set.

The staff are a friendly lot here, and indeed in all the places we visited in Fiji. This makes all the difference on a holiday. Even when you are offered a ridiculously priced taxi ride, they will back off if you say so - so completely different to a lot of Asian countries I've been to.

The food was simple and good, but too much starch for my liking at breakfast and lunch (note to self: when asked proclaim a non wheat/potato diet !) . Dinner is good especially if fish is on offer. How much fresher can you get than when you see the guys go out in the boat, come back and the catch is on your dinner plate.

One afternoon, we partook in the fishing for dinner exercise and returned with a whopper trevally. If you go fishing here, be sure to take a light leather glove otherwise you'll be hauling in a hand line with soft bare hands - as Dennis will attest.

Caqalai island can be walked around in 15 to 20 minutes without a rush at low tide., you can walk on the reef (suggest booties) at low tide to 'snake island' so called because sea snakes like to be there on certain occasions (not when I came to visit !). There are few tourists, great for the ones who take the opportunity to visit. The accommodation is somewhat primative, but we didn't care, it served its purpose.

> Great place to chill, kite surf, snorkel and fish. We had a great 4 nights of stay with superb winds for our sport along with tranquil mornings and evenings to rest by.