Ika Levu Fishing Charters lands 178 Kg. Marlin! On Tuesday, 5 January while on a fishing charter out of Savusavu, charter guests aboard Ika Levu hooked up with a huge 178 Kg. Marlin. The battle lasted over an hour and the Marlin was landed sucessfully. For more information regarding fishing charters aboard Ika Levu, please contact Tania by email or call +679 944 8506.

Daku Resort recently opened a new Yoga Shala with a course run by world-renowned Yogi, Mark Whitwell. Participants from The U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia came to take part in an intensive week of Yoga and Meditation.
Mark will return in December 2010. A further 17 courses have been organized in 2010, including visits from Michel Besnard from Hong Kong, Mark O'Brien from Sydney and John Ogilvie from Byron Bay.
For details visit :www.yogainfiji.com or www.paradisecourses.com

J. Hunter Pearls puts Savusavu and Fiji on the map! Click for details.

Food & Art Festival and Casino Night! Will be held at the Jean-Michel Cousteau Fiji Islands Resort on 23 January 2010 with local artists & crafts people for items to display and/or offer for sale. Pacific Sun donated 2 return tickets to Suva to auction, so be sure to be there to bid on this and possibly other interesting items! $25.00 per person.

Savusavu Clean Up Day  Was held on Friday 9 October with almost 200 kids from Yaroi, SS Primary and Khemendra Class 8’s.  Rotary organized and prepared the barbecue and also donated a trash bin.  STA purchased 6 trash bins and J Hunter Pearls donated one as well. Special thanks to Rotary and J Hunter AND to Leanne for all of the organizing!!  Thanks also to the Savusavu Police who provided an officer to escort each of the groups of children, Lees Bakery, J Dayaram, Chhaganlal Store, Hot Springs Hotel, Savusavu Town Council and Therese!  Both Fiji Times and Fiji Sun carried stories on the project over the weekend.

Leonie Norton

Study courses from Daku Resort in Savusavu, Fiji
Daku Resort’s 2009 programme of study courses wrapped up in a holiday is half way through – and still has some wonderful courses to come.
 
Tony Backhouse is coming back for a week of Gospel Singing from November 22 – 29.
 
You can find full details of all the courses at www.paradisecourses.com 

More News from Savsavu!

CLICK HERE for a very interesting article concerning the uniqueness of
J. Hunter Pearls, based in Savusavu.

CLICK HERE for the latest updates and Newsletter from J. Hunter Pearls.

CLICK HERE for the latest 2009 schedule for Cruise Ship visits to Savusavu.

News from J. Hunter PearlsFiji

Savusavu's own unique Pearl Farm, J. Hunter Pearls Fiji holds second auction in Japan.
This past May, J. Hunter Pearls Fiji successfully hosted their second annual Fiji Pearls auction in Yokohama, Japan, with over 90% of their lots sold, attesting to the strong demand for J. Hunter’s untraditionally colored Fiji Pearls. Demand was brisk: over 90% of lots were sold. As was last year, the highlight of the auction was the pearls themselves. Lot number one, a 18.9mm round, saw
aggressive bidding. J. Hunter introduced his new gem, Fiji baroques, to an enthusiastic audience. These pearls, keshi in appearance but huge and untraditional in color, were highly sought after and appreciated. Truly unique this year were natural earthy tones. These were very popular, not one being left. As before, a small group of buyers from different market locations around the world was invited to attend. To read a very interesting article from The International Pearling Journal Click here.

The Savusavu Rotarians are delighted that Jeff’s work has been recognized: it was a HUGE effort and made a real difference in the lives of local Fijian people. The project tackled the threatened closure of three schools in outlying areas due to sickness from unsafe drinking water. It involved identifying and installing piping and tanks to insure clean running water. The farthest school was over 2 hours away on terrible potholed dirt roads; the longest pipeline was over 2 km long. It was, of course, a team effort and Jeff feels that it really goes to the entire team, and particularly to Suzie Ilina & Peter Ilin, as they worked tirelessly to get those projects done in very adverse conditions. 

Jeff was presented with the award on July 24th, when the new District Governor, Jack Davies, from Auckland, NZ, visited Savusavu. The award is given to only one person in each District –  Savusavu is in District 9920 which is a huge area spread across seven countries: Fiji, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands and French Polynesia and a part of Auckland. With 48 clubs and over 1,800 members you can see it’s a significant achievement.
  
Jeff tells the story of when last year's District Governor was visiting Savusavu Rotary Club and wanted to see the projects we were working on.  It had been an especially wet month and was a very dreary, rainy day as they slogged along muddy roads. Even Jeff was concerned his 4WD truck might not get through; they forded swollen streams and had to jump out at one point and hack away at a tree that had fallen in the road.  Of course, there are no chainsaws in the bush so the locals used their sharp machetes to chop up the trunk and get through.  The DG exclaimed that he had never seen anything like it and was so impressed with the hardship that the people live with on a daily basis here and the effort that Jeff, Suzie & Peter were undertaking to see to it that there was clean drinking water for the children in the schools.

The Savusavu Rotary Club is proud to have been part of this effort.

The Rotary Club of Savusavu meets every Tuesday at 5:30 pm on the deck of the Hot Springs Hotel. There are twelve active members. Visitors welcome! Call 885-3189 or E-mail for more information. Through generous funding and matching grants from various overseas Rotary clubs, our club has been active in placing donated books & computers in rural schools, building a library in a rural school, providing new library book shelves & reading tables with benches to rural schools, building new toilet blocks in schools, building a house for a crippled man and his young family, bringing in 280 new all terrain wheelchairs to handicapped people in out lying villages, repairing old water lines and bringing in new water systems to provide clean water to schools that were threatened with closure due to lack of clean, safe drinking water. Our current project, funded thru the European Union, is providing training in Hospitality/Tourism, Floriculture/Arts & Crafts and Construction for disadvantaged young adults in the Savusavu area.

Coming to Savusavu? Be sure to stop by Budget Car Rental office across from the Post Office on Main Street and check out the new Tourist Info Spot. What is the Spot? It's a great place to find out all about what you can do in Savusavu! Diving, Fishing, Tours, Rentals, etc. or just about anything that Savusavu has to offer.