Wilson!

We continue our gradual exploration of our new playground. Last night we moored off the northwest end of Malolo Island in a lovely little bay with nice protection from the southeast wind.

Maureen thought it would be important for us to do some exploring and try anchoring on our own hook. For my part, I was pretty content at the Musket Cove Yacht Club and could have comfortably spent a long time sitting by their lovely pool and drinking their ice cold Fiji Bitter.

So anyway, as these family decisions go, we are not at MCYC any longer and have instead begun our wee tour into the rest of the Mamamuca Islands -- slowly at first, just moving around to the other end of Malolo Island. (Lest you feel too sorry for me, I must confess that we do have a store of ice cold beer right here on the boat.)

Over water Bures at the Likuliku Lagoon Resort

We anchored without incident and found our new home in front of the Likuliku Lagoon Resort. As we arrived the nice man came out to greet us and mention that while we were more than welcome to anchor for as long as we liked, the resort itself was not open to yacht guests. He was very kind about it and even a bit apologetic and since we are pretty self contained it really was not a constraint. It did get us looking on the Internet though and Maureen came up with this website - http://www.likulikulagoon.com.

It seems pretty spectacular to me!

Castaway Island

This photo taken in the opposite direction may look familiar to some as the set of the Tom Hanks movie 'Castaway.' I have not independently verified this fact but I will certainly have my eyes open today for a weather worn volleyball.

Talking about the Weather

Enjoying the Rainbow over Malolo LeiLei.
The traditional thatched roof is covering a 4000 sq. ft. vacation home
but the view is pleasing just the same

I guess we live outdoors now... I hadn't really thought about that much before? I know that sounds funny but everything is new and, well, I just hadn't really thought about it much. I noticed the difference with the passing of our first really big thunderstorm. The photos before are of a cute and friendly storm, the one I am talking about was somewhat more sinister...

Rain squall hits the Musket Cove Yacht Club

At times like this I suppose one falls back on our childhood learning -- in my case the total of my collected wisdom was to "pull the Sunfish up onto the beach and go inside to start (or continue) a game of Risk." Obviously I am going to have to either get a Risk Game, or learn more about lightning.

30 seconds later

Not to worry because our boat was fairly well equipped with technical resource books and, well, it was raining outside so I dug right in. The answer to my questions would be in Nigel Calder's Mechanical and Electrical Manual, How to Maintain, Repair, and Improve Your Boat's Essential Systems -- or else it didn't exist.

For those unfamiliar with Calder's opus, it is about 700 pages written in six point text. I noticed early in my search that I must have an older version because even when I pinch my fingers over the pages I could not enlarge the font?

Our friends from Vuda Point. Note that there is no dinghy floating behind.
They had taken a wee excursion in their 8' inflatable to the main island.
We noticed them paddling back just before dark.

I did preserve though and was able to learn that lightning on a boat can have dramatic and dangerous consequences -- and if you are lucky it won't hit you. There are some pathetically inadequate precautions one can take, and the boat seems to be in good shape that way but I think we will need to follow the tried and true strategy of finding a bigger boat, mooring beside them, and hope it hits them instead of us.

The iPhone doesn't fully capture the grandeur of the rising full moon.
Just have to close your eyes and see it that way I guess.

Happiness Is...

I suppose there are two ways  to look at this weather chart. One  could look at it and say "well that storm is 50 or 60 miles away, not likely we are going to see any action there."

The red lines wrapped around the red ball are isobars,
(lines of equal pressure) --  really shouldn't be that
close together. Fiji is just to the left of the red ball and we are on
westernmost part of Fiji. It is nice and quiet here today, let's
see what Wednesday brings.

Or one could look at it and say "yikes solid triangular barbs on the wind arrows (more than 50 knots) one small shift we we could be in the middle of some real excitement. This morning we chose the later and left the most beautiful Musket Cove (in flat calm water) and beetled back to our favorite cyclone hole (where everyone knows our name). We were (I was) unsure what the best call was going to be but relaxed here and snugly tied up it feels like we have made a good choice. Maureen tells me that storm has a name now.

Wish you were here!

Making our way to the Pacific...

I am not sure quite what to call this post -- maybe cause we can't quite believe we are here? As the kids might say, yesterday was -- the best day ever.

We were finally able to get organized to leave Vuda Point which has been our home for the month or so. We had made arrangements for the first lift in the morning and our plan was to not tie up, just to drive away out through the channel and into the Pacific.

Everything went according to plan -- pretty much... The boys had the boat lifted and in the cradle before we got up from the table and with a quick thumbs up they took us over and plopped us into the ocean.

Maureen scouts the horizon for perilous danger...
...or maybe she is just daydreaming???

From there is was a simple matter of starting the engine (which we had done only once before) and heading out to sea. The channel out of the marina is a dedged channel with sharp nasty coral on either side. Luckily for us we were able to get 50 metres past the end of the channel before the engine stopped... Ok, now what. Prep to drop the anchor and have a look. In the end this wasn't a big issue and we were able to be underway again fairly quickly but as I thought about it I was glad we got out of the channel before we had to deal with it.

On a mooring ball at Musket Cove

Our first wee trip was over to Musket Cove Resort and Yacht Club which although entirely new to us is a well worn path from Vuda Point. We were able to follow an existing set of waypoints and were comfortable all the way over. The engine ran perfectly and we had no more drama on the crossing. It was fun.

Once we arrived we immediately carried on the Gorma tradition and cracked ourselves a celebratory drink before turning to the more significant tasks at hand such as lunch and a swim. After lunch we launched our little dinghy and headed into the Musket Cover Yacht Club to check in and scout out the facilities. Sophie at the Yacht Club asked us how long we were going to stay and we answered that we were unsure (in my mind I was thinking forever). We asked if we should be worried that we were the only boat on a mooring ball and she smiled and said "the Aussie's won't be here until the middle of May. Seems ok to me.

Here is the view we woke up to this morning!

So here we are -- the past year has certainly given us a variety of strange and unexpected twists -- and our plans have had to adapt to each successive surprise.  No idea what tomorrow will bring but today is a good day.

Wish you were here!

Where to Go!

We spotted this lovely little graphic in a recently published cruising guide (hopefully they won't mind if I re-use it here. We liked the image because it nicely sums up our next couple of months here and about. More background can be found here. Looks like fun to me!

Visiting Suva

Well -- over the past 8 or 10 days we have worked our way through the boat trying out all the various systems. We had a slow period in the middle where we were needing some help with the various pumps on the boat. Our freshwater pump, for example decided that last week was the end of its run -- but to be fair it may have had something to do with our vigorous cleaning of the water tanks. Anyway the 'Yacht Shop' which is about 20 steps away had a usuriously priced replacement pump and, well, we had no choice. We have had similar problems with the shower drain and with the head (toilet). Our fellow cruisers helped us out on the last one letting us know that a 1/2 cup of vegetable oil works wonders in the head -- who knew?

Fiji's Trans Canada Highway...

More recently we rented a car for a couple of days and drove around Viti Leuvu. We drove the King's Road around the north part of the island toward Suva (Capital). We very much enjoyed that trip and were amazing at how beautiful and rural that part of hte island is. There is not too much traffic so as you drive through each village folks hear the car before you arrive and are waiting at the side of the road with bananas, and various other tropical delights for purchase. Regrettably one person can only eat so many bananas.

Lunch at the Novotel in Lami Bay -- we'll be back

Floating in Fiji

We are enjoying a wee break tonight. Patrick has been here this week and that has been wonderful. What a strange and wonderful world where he can prepare for mid-terms right here with the aid of a Mobile broadband USB key. Wonderful for Maureen and I to have him close as we work through the slightly hectic transition.

We have decided to minimize our intrusive repairs and renovations (on the advice of the repair guy here). Instead we have focused on cleaning and discovery. The boat has been mostly full of pleasant surprises as much of the extra stuff is truly here and in reasonably good shape. Things like blue masking tape have been in abundant supply so that we have not spent too much on anything except the basic consumables (zincs $F45 and bottom paint $F371 x 2 cans).

We are still learning how to shop. Lautoka has a truly fantastic market with abundant fresh food. Only problem is that we don't know what any of it is. On the plus side, we have learned that Liquor World delivers right to the boat!

We think our plan will be to spend the next week or two checking out various boat systems: cleaning water tanks, learning how to turn on fuel, that sort of thing. There are a variety of small jobs but we should be able to push off from the dock later in Feb. Musket Cove is just 12 miles away so we should have lots of opportunity to learn how to set a anchor, etc... Within close proximity of help.

Maureen is finding it 'quite warm' and has made it her business to understand how to operate BOTH the 110 volt and 220 volt fans. For my part I have been happy ever since we turned the refrigeration on and Fiji Bitter is served ice cold, more or less on demand.

Now that I think of it that also corresponds to the slowing of forward progress...