The Royal Navy HMS Spey is the first Royal Navy ship to visit Fiji after 25 years.
The ship which called into port on March 16 has more than 40 crew members onboard during this voyage.
HMS Spey Lieutenant Commander Bridget Macnae on Monday said her crew has had the opportunity to explore Fiji, particularly Suva during their visit.
“We’ve had a very busy defence engaging program because this is the first Royal Navy ship visit since 1997 so we got a bit of catching up to do especially in respect to our army counterparts in rebuilding some of those connections,” she said.
“A perfect example of that was yesterday (March 19) where I was fortunate enough to go to Nakelo district where there is a strong link and historical ties with the Royal Navy who the villagers had supported about 100 years ago.
Lt-Cdr Macnae said they unveiled a new plaque and gave a new flag (union flag) to villagers to continue their commitment and demonstrate the absolute honour and pride in the Royal Navy.
She said the villagers continue to send people from the district to the British military.
“It has been a lovely opportunity for my sailors to go out and explore Fiji and be welcomed into the community, understanding the similarities of the Fijian Navy and Royal Navy.
“Operations in the Pacific are quite complex at the moment, we are here with our sister ship HMS Tamar and we deployed into the Indo-Asian Pacific region about six months ago.”
She said they have been fortunate to go to all areas in the Pacific, some of them long distance just to explore some of the relationship and build up some of the partnership with the Pacific Island nations both from a patrolling point of view and on “what they might want us to report on. Also looking at emerging issues such as the disaster relief activity that we did in support of the Tonga volcanic eruption”.
HMS Spey is the newest ship in the Royal Navy and it is the greenest ship.
“She (HMS Spey) has a system that is able to reduce emissions which makes it easier to get into some of the ports in the Pacific that have environmentally friendly conscious port infrastructure,” she said.
“She has been in the area since August –September last year.
“She has a ship company of about 40 to 45 people and they are in a three watch rotation system that keeps her at sea a little longer than some of our conventional larger ships.”
The ship has a Fijian-born navy personnel onboard, Unaisi Luke who is a leading photographer.
