Warm Rain Ship's Log

My Favorite Mailbox

We’ve seen some cool mailboxes during our travels – like the long skinny ones that baguettes are delivered to in French Polynesia, but this is one of my all time favorites – an elephant made out of corrugated tin at a house in Snell’s Beach, New Zealand.

New Fiji Pictures Posted to Website

As promised, I just finished uploading some Fiji pictures to the website. There are four folders to peruse:

• Ferry Trip to Nadi – Pictures from our first visit to Nadi when we visited the fruit & veggie/kava market and the Indian temple
• Musket Cove – I've added more pictures of the resort, island and activities (BBQ’s, happy hours, etc) here
• Somosomo Bay – Pictures of our hike across the island to snorkel on the Spitfire wreck, some underwater pictures of the wreck and pictures of the wonderful people that live on the island
• Blue Lagoon – Pictures from our “circumnavigation” of Nanuya Island on foot with Jan & Dave as well as pics from the BBQ that we had onshore with friends on Aurora Lights
• Yalobi Bay, Waya – Pictures from our tour of the village at Yalobi Bay with our wonderful tour guide, Tui

Busy But Boring

Sorry that we haven't had a lot to contribute to the blog lately, but we're busy getting the boat ready for our next passage - to Vanuatu. Our days are filled with boat projects - mainsail repair, provisioning, bottom cleaning, etc. - stuff that needs to be done but is boring to write about.

The Island Cruising Association "fleet" has begun arriving here at Musket Cove. There will be about 20 boats participating in the rally to Vanuatu. We don't know a lot of the boats as they sailed from New Zealand to Tonga, while only 6 of us sailed from New Zealand to Fiji. We'll have fun getting to know the Tonga fleet as they all gather here at Musket Cove to prep for the trip.

I promise to go ashore and try to use the resort internet to upload some Fiji pictures before we take off. Stay tuned...

Frankenpilot

On the way back from the Yasawa Islands our autopilot control unit died, the control unit brains were fried after 15 years of use. In 2007 I was able, with help from a good friend Gary in Washington, to get internal motors and gears for the auto pilot. In 2006 I went on EBAY and purchased a used complete unit and have scavenged parts out of it over the last 3 years. Yesterday I took the remaining parts from the EBAY unit, my old unit with new gears & motor(thanks Gary) and got to work putting the best pieces together including swapping out wiring harnesses, gears and CPU boards. The result is an auto pilot that works better than I've had in years. We have named it Frankenpilot (with apologies to Frankenstein).

Back in Musket Cove

We left Waya yesterday (Saturday) after a wonderful visit at Yalombi village. Our friends on s/v Bold Spirit arrived and anchored near us and we had Jeff, Kathy and Bailey over for cocktails on Friday evening. It was nice to see them one more time as we're heading different directions and don't know if/when we'll see them again. The great thing about cruising is all the people you meet and friendships you forge - the sad part is that everyone goes their separate ways and you never know if you'll see them again. We had a motor-sail to Musket Cove on Saturday and arrived to find the bay and marina chock full of boats. It's good to be "home", our Fijian home anyway, and we're anxious to get caught up with many people that we haven't seen in awhile. We'll spend the next few weeks getting ready to leave for Vanuatu with the Island Cruising Association Rally on August 6th.

I just love this picture of Lavinia & Vasiti, two of the women that work at the island bar. They're always smiling!

Back in Waya

Yesterday (Thursday) we left Blue Lagoon and sadly headed south toward Musket Cove. We really enjoyed our time in the Yasawa island group but it's time to head back toward Musket Cove. We motor-sailed to Yalombi Bay, Waya which was our first stop when we began our trek north. This time, however, we stayed an extra day and today went ashore to see the village. A wonderful man who spoke excellent English, Tui, proudly showed us around the village then took us to the "acting chief" whose name was Tom. My Tom presented our Kava root gift to Tom who then blessed the kava (in Fijian) and we were told that we were allowed to wander about the village and anchor in the bay. Tui took us to the school, where it was parents day, and we got to see all of the kids proudly showing their work to their parents. Tui asked if we had some food products that he could purchase from us so I went through our lockers and packed a goodie bag for him filled with 2 kgs. of rice and several kinds of canned meat. We did not accept any money for the food but told him that it was our gift to him for showing us around his beautiful village. I'm really glad that we had the opportunity to see the village and meet these wonderful people. Tomorrow we head back to Musket Cove to finish getting the boat ready for the upcoming trip to Vanuatu.

This is a picture of our guide, Tui with his daughter, Pauline and her two children at parents' day at the school.

A Kiwi Campfire

On Saturday night we joined Kiwi's Jeff & Joan and Dan & Chris from the boat Aurora Lights for a game of boule and a campfire/BBQ on the beach. The fire was supposed to be started by Sammy, a local guy that lives on the island, but he was late arriving, so we scrounged around the beach and adjacent bush looking for anything flammable. We actually did a good job getting the fire lit and had dinner cooking on the BBQ in no time. Sammy showed up about an hour later and joined us for dinner and a chat. It was interesting talking with Sammy - he's in his 20's with a beautiful wife and 3-month old baby. They live with his family (mom, dad, aunts/uncles/cousins) here on Nanuya Levu island in a house with generator-provided electricity. He has a computer that he can only use when the generator is working (it's currently not working) and, like most Fijians, he carries a cell phone. Apparently the cell phone coverage is good here on the island which is a plus since they have no landline phone. So, they're part-way into the technology age. On the other hand they are a very traditional people, holding to traditions hundreds of years old. He told us that the children go to school on the island across the bay beginning at 6 years old. The kids leave for school on Monday morning and stay in dorms for the entire week, returning home for weekends only. And they start that at age 6! I can't imagine sending a child away from home at age 6 but he said that they quickly grow up and learn to take care of themselves. Of course they're supervised in school, but that seems awfully young to me! We had a great time with Sammy and our new Kiwi friends Jeff, Joan, Dan & Chris. We hope to visit Jeff & Joan when we're back in New Zealand this coming season.

Getting into Mischief

While anchored here at Blue Lagoon we met Darren and Melinda on the boat, Mischief. Darren is a naturopath doctor and his wonderful reputation preceded him. He had done acupuncture treatments on friends of ours who said that after the treatments they felt great. Our friends had also told Darren about Tom and his arthritic back pain, so when we introduced ourselves he knew who we were as well.

Yesterday Darren worked on Tom, giving him RIFE treatments (a small machine that's hooked up to your fingers that sends shockwaves into the body to kill bacteria, the cause of arthritis) and 1 1/2 hours of acupuncture. In the meantime, Melinda gave me nutritional information to help treat the pain. Tom said that while Darren was giving him acupuncture he was heating up mugwort on various points of Tom's body and at one point it looked like several small campfires were alight on his chest. I wish I had seen that! Anyway, Tom came away feeling a bit fragile after the intensive treatment, but said that the back pain has lessened. Darren is going to give him another acupuncture treatment later this week.

Darren has been treating the people here in the local villages with great success and is in high demand. The village chiefs are vying for his time and tonight one of the chiefs is holding a feast in Darren's honor. We're kidding him that the chief is going to kidnap him to keep him on the island.

Darren and Melinda came over for happy hour in the evening and we had a wonderful time just chilling in the cockpit, telling stories and getting to know each other better.

Circumnavigation! (of Nanuya Levu)

Yesterday (Tuesday) we decided to walk around the island of Nanuya Levu at low tide with Jan & Dave (s/v Baraka). We were, in fact, only going to go halfway around. The walk on the beach was beautiful and it was windy so it wasn't too hot. We got 1/4 of the way around the island and came to a cut between Nanuya Levu and Turtle Island. Turtle Island is an exclusive resort and non-guests of the resort are efficiently chased away by security guards. Across the small stream of water that separated the two islands at low tide there were people playing volleyball on the beach and they had tables, chairs and umbrellas set up for lunch. We tried to be as inconspicuous as possible and started up the stream towards land on Nanuya Levu. The first few steps were in very mucky mud - so much so that my Keen sandal stuck in the mud when I tried to walk. I fished around in the muck and found it then we found better footing and headed around the island - with no trouble from the Turtle Island police - whew. We came around the corner onto a beautiful beach and saw buildings in the distance. We were told that there were other backpacker-type resorts on the island. Tom was in the lead and spoke to a woman on the beach and she led us up the hill to Lo's Tea House - a small "restaurant" in the middle of nowhere! Lo was in the kitchen taking a chocolate cake out of the oven - how fortuitous our timing! So, we had no choice but to force ourselves to stay for warm chocolate cake and tea. I also bought some of Lo's jewelry and Jan bought a beautiful Nautilus shell. We decided to continue on around the entire island instead of cutting across the middle. We ended our circumnavigation at the Nanuya Resort bar and celebrated with beers and munchies. Tough life, eh?

Fijian Feast

Last night we went ashore to attend a lovo lovo feast with 3 other boats. The food is wrapped in leaves and cooked covered with rocks and sand in a buried pit in the ground. The meal consisted of a huge red snapper served with a beautiful coconut sauce, a whole chicken, cassava, spinach, eggplant, and pawpaw (papaya). What a treat! One of these days when we're back in the land of internet connections we'll post some pictures.