Newsflash… It rains in Fiji! I guess that accounts for all the incredibly lush, green vegetation, ya think?
Actually, it was supposed to be raining a whole lot more right now than it is. The gribs show a big, black splotch that should be rain but all we’re really getting is a light drizzle.
This splotch is in this area a lot – here or just north of us. It’s formed when two different air masses collide and is called the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ). Good thing we like the rain. -Rich
Sometimes the vegetarian pizza from the place across the street is just cheese with a few pieces of pineapple. Sometimes it has every vegetable imaginable. Sometimes it even has some kind of worcestershire/barbeque sauce like tonight. The only consistent thing is its inconsistency… that and it always tastes great!
We could show ours but yours will never look the same.
Lest you forget where we are because of all of Cyndi’s New Zealand posts, here’s last night’s sunset at the Marina here in Savusavu, Fiji. We’re having a wonderful time just kicking back, doing a little boat work, waiting for a new outboard motor, reading and relaxing.
We left Vanua Balavu yesterday at somewhere around 10AM and arrived in Savusavu just before sunrise this morning after a 100 mile passage that was a mixed bag. The first part was calm, warm, sunny and very pleasant. By yesterday evening, the seas got big, the wind got strong and we were actually cold late last night and this morning.
We were going to spend another week or so visiting a couple of other islands but two factors drove us back to our home base; we have a lot of broken equipment and we don’t have a lot of food (not to mention the fact that we’re out of beer, wine, and rum).
Of the broken stuff, I am hoping none of it is too major. Here’s a brief list…
A non-functional pump on our watermaker (there’s still one that works so we’re OK for water).
Our electric Torqeedo outboard no longer runs.
Our shower sump pump quit
Something went wrong with our batteries and the voltage dropped way too low.
The computer mouse became self-aware and developed it’s own personality – a very bad one.
The heater (which we don’t use here) is leaking coolant.
And probably one or two other things I’ve blocked out.
Oh well, such is life on a cruising boat. As for the lack of food issue, we’re already started working on that with a wonderful breakfast out this morning at the Captain’s Deck: pancakes, crispy bacon, eggs and toast with cappuccinos too!
We’ve been preparing a bunch of blog posts and now that we have internet, we’ll start posting like crazy. (Right now, I have 17 New Zealand posts all done and waiting to be posted, and a lot more to come after that—Cyndi). Stay tuned and clean off your reading glasses. -Rich
We set off from Vanua Balavu during a warm, sunny morning, but conditions deteriorated as the day went on. The wind steadily ramped up into the 20-knot range while sloppy and rough seas grew into big, fast swells. In all it got pretty boisterous but thankfully we were going downwind, the swells and wind pushing us along at a good clip. It was a reminder of just how rough the water around Fiji can be, something that often takes cruisers by surprise.
Conditions remained rough through the night. Rich was surrounded by breaking waves when he went through the pass (into the Savusavu area) on his watch early the next morning. We were perfectly safe, but the visuals were unnerving. And of course it was raining (it always rains when we enter a pass).
Once inside, the wind was still blowing, but at least now the seas were calm. By the time we got to the Copra Shed Marina conditions had died considerably to just some gusty winds. We were lucky to find a slip available. Tied up by 7:30am, we decided to celebrate with breakfast at the Captain’s Deck.
The saying goes that the two happiest days in a boater’s life are the day they buy the boat and the day they sell it. For us it’s the day we head off from a marina and the day we return. After weeks of deprivation, Savusavu seemed like a garden of earthly delights! Restaurants, ice cream, markets (once seeming small and limited now seemed huge and bountiful), liquor stores, laundry service, long showers, internet, and new TV shows! We felt ridiculously happy to be here and continued to be so all day! Breakfast out was a treat, as was lunch at Savusavu Wok (dumplings, Mongolian chicken and beer) and finding my favorite wine in stock at the liquor store. People we knew in town seemed happy to have us back, with joyful Bulas ringing out when they’d see us. Dinner was takeout pizza, episodes of our favorite TV show, and wine. I don’t know that life gets much better than it is on arrival day!
The arrival high lasted well into the next day, but no rest for the weary as important repair projects had to be started. Rich dove right in with our top priority: researching outboard engines. We were giving up on the electric Torqeedo and going with gas. It would be the end of an era.–Cyndi
The Bay of Islands is another place that we feel we can’t adequately convey the beauty with just a few pictures, so here are a whole bunch! (Click on an image below to enlarge. From there, you can navigate through all 100 pictures.)
