Day 37, Year 2: Finally at Anchor in Vaga Bay, Beqa
Date: Thursday, May 31, 2007
Weather: Ugly Rain and Wind Causing Low Visibility
Location: Vaga Bay, Beqa Island, Fiji
Latitute: 18 degrees, 24.33 minutes South
Longitude: 178 degrees, 06.18 minutes East

Just how many times can a grandmother get the greatest thrill of her day by just turning on her computer and seeing her grandson on her screensaver? I know the answer to that and it is endless times. I just turned on my computer and there was Sam and his mommy on my screen. I’ve seen this picture countless times, but the thrill does not lessen. Sam (and Sam’s mommy and daddy), we love you!

Right now we are at anchor in Vaga (“Vanga”) Bay on the southwest side of Beqa (“Mbengga”) Island. We left Suva around 10 AM, but the weather deteriorted the further away from Suva we traveled. Our passage here was okay, but it was a rock and roll trip. The 20 to 25 knots winds were behind, which was a good thing as the gusts were 30 to 35 all day. But the seas were coming at us sideways and they were a good 2-3 meters. So we rolled a bit, but we also made good time, averaging about 6.6 knots.

As we approached Beqa around 1530, all of a sudden we were socked in with rain and clouds. The island was there and then it would disappear. Like most of Fiji’s islands, Beqa has an outer reef, reefs in the middle, and an inner reef just next to shore. This is when electronic charts are really helpful. Being able to watch us on the computer screen as we entered the bay was very helpful. But unfortunately, the charting software can’t help you anchor. We headed in and all of a sudden we were
getting depth readings of 10 meters, 9 meters, 8 meters, 7 meters, 6 meters, 5 meters, 4 meters, 3 meters. And it happened instantaneously. I signaled to Mark on the foredeck to set the anchor. He did, but it didn’t catch. We could hear it scraping against coral. So we tried to raise the anchor to try again. But it wouldn’t budge. I tried driving forward on it, but no movement. I really gunned the engine. Still nothing. We must have worked for over an hour and finally we are able to break
loose from whatever was holding us. We inched our way forward and the depths got immediately deeper. We must have been on some sort of shelf. We kept inching our way forward trying to stay in the center of the two arms of the inner reef that reach out into the bay. We anchored a second time. Even though we felt like we were caught, we kept hearing scraping sounds. We had plenty of depth, but something was just not right. And we were being blown right down on one of the arms of that inner reef.
So we tried again. By this time it was pouring rain, the torrential type, and it was nearing 5:30 and sundown. Three times must be charm, as we feel that we are safely anchored for the night. But both of us are a little ill at ease because of the wind direction and ferocity of some of the gusts that come blowing down off the island mountains. I think it will be a restless night, but so far, so good. We set the GPS to retrace our sail in here today. If we should break loose during the night,
we will just head back toward Suva. Again, this is where electronic charting and GPS mapping are wonderful. You can watch yourself retrace your steps and know that you will be safe because you were there before.

We are missing the safety of our anchorage in Suva and our friends there. The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) that is hanging over us is really making it uncomfortable out here. I’m hoping for better weather tomorrow or at least by Saturday. If the anchor holds overnight, then I will be a happy cruiser. Tomorrow we will visit the village of Naiseuseu that we can see from where we are anchored and present our sevusevu (gift of yaqona or kava) to the turagi ni koro or village chief. Once
we have met the villagers, maybe we will feel more comfortable here. Of course, better weather would certainly help!

As we send this we are both feeling more comfortable with the set of the anchor. We are staying put even when we get strong gusts off the mountains. so maybe this will be a peaceful night.

070531 Day 37 Beqa Island, Fiji– Arrival in Vaga Bay

Day 36, Year 2: Checked Out and Ready to Leave Suva
Date: Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Weather: Intertropical Convergence Zone Hanging Over Fiji
Location: Suva, Fiji

It has found us again. The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) that seemed to follow us to Rarotonga, to the Samoas, and then to Tonga last season is now here in Fiji. It was a mostly cloudy day with rain showers here and there, but not the torrential rains that we experienced last year that were associated with the ITCZ. Because it is a La Nina year, the ITCZ will be further south than normal, and that means Fiji and Vanuatu. I guess we had better get well acquainted and learn to love this thing. I cannot believe that I did not mention in yesterday’s log that Marie and Paul of Ranger safely returned yesterday from their trip to the United States for Paul’s father’s funeral. And neither did I mention that we hosted Ranger, Scot Free II, and Safina for a traditional Memorial Day barbecue onboard Windbird last evening. We grilled good old American hamburgers (actually minced beef from New Zealand), had my mom’s famous potato salad that I made the day before, and fresh green beans from the market. It was just like being back home. And since we are leaving tomorrow, it was a bit of a farewell “until we meet again.” We are hoping to see Safina when we go south of here to Kadavu Island, and we hope to see the whole gang when we arrive in Savusavu on the big island north of here at the end of June. We were all at the Riverside Drive Marina in Whangarei together, and made the passage here at the same time, so we have “bonded” and hope to meet again. We are all going to Australia at the end of the season, so we will probably see each other again then. Three of us (all but Ranger) are signed up for the Sail Indonesia Rally leaving Darwin, Australia next July, so we do know we will see each other again then. We were up really early this morning and in town by 7:15. We needed to call the Concord School District office to get some answers to questions about our health care coverage. This information gathering is all still part of Mark’s “coming of age” in July and needing information in order to make decisions about prescription coverage under Medicare. Pam Dolloff, the Human Resources person at the Concord School District office has been very patiently answering our questions via email and we needed to talk with her this morning. Our early morning is late afternoon in the US, so that was the need for going into town so early. Pam has been wonderful and a wealth of information. Thank you, Pam! After leaving the internet cafe, we then went to the Custom’s dock to check out. The woman in the office was the same one that boarded our boat when we arrived to check us in. She is very efficient and took us through the process quickly. She was very surprised that we had a permit to visit the Lau Group. It is looking more and more like we will be the only ones out there, but that is part of the adventure. From Customs, it was then to the market to buy last minute fresh veggies and fruit and then back to Windbird. We spent a couple of hours aboard doing laundry, reading, and having lunch before heading out once again. I wanted to go to a grocery store that Jean-Pierre had mentioned last night. It is on the outskirts of town and I had not heard of it before. We waited for a bus that never came, and then took a taxi. The store was not huge, but it did have things that no other stores here have–fresh broccoli being the prize of the day. We got back to the Yacht Club just in time to join Ranger and Scot Free II for Happy Hour. While at the club, we met Pril and Dick of Awesome. They are a couple from Southern California that have been out here in the Pacific for 14 years!!! Dick built their bright yellow boat in his backyard and they have been sailing ever since. Pril was a wealth of information about Fiji as they have spent many seasons here. We also enjoyed seeing Sylvia and Franz and their almost three-year old Dillon. They are leaving this weekend for Kadavu, so we hope to see them there. Kel, the young single-hander from Norway was also at the club, so almost everyone from out here in the anchorage was there this evening. Tomorrow morning we leave for Beqa (pronounced Mbennga). This island is on the south side of Viti Levu and is the home of Fijian fire walkers. We don’t know if we will get to see them in action, but we are hoping that the weather settles down and we will at least get to swim and snorkel. From there we go to the Astrolabe Reef on Kadavu–another diving and snorkeling “hot spot” that we hope to enjoy both in and out of the water. While here, we have really enjoyed the comments sent to our website. We can only read these when we are in a port with high speed internet. We feel like each and every person sending comments is a good friend. To Judi Stuart in New Hampshire and Cheryl in Maine, both of whom have been following up for some time, we just want you to know how much we appreciate your comments. I’m glad someone is worrying about us, Cheryl. And to Michael Marino and RichC, both more recent people sending comments, we really appreciate the questions and clarifications we receive from you both. We also cherish the comments from long-time good friends from back home in New Hamphire from New Hampshire Public Radio and the Concord School District. While here, Mark even heard from people back at Eastern Illinois University where he went to undergraduate school. Somehow the internet makes us a very small world and I love that. We got most of the pictures posted from our visit here in Suva, but there are a few logs that won’t have pictures until we reach Savusavu. For those of you who want to look at the photo albums that are associated with a log, all you have to do is double click on the picture that is posted at the end of the log. That brings up the whole album. If there is no picture, that means that no photo album is posted for that log. So it is farewell to Suva and on to the out-islands. Can’t wait to start meeting the people and exploring the beauty of this nation of many islands.

070530 Day 36 Viti Levu, Fiji–Saying Goodbye to Friends at Roya

Day 35, Year 2: Yeah! We Got Our Lau Group Permit Today.
Date: Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Weather: Partly Cloudy Day; Some Rain in the Evening
Location: Suva, Fiji

We got our Lau Group permit today and as far as we can tell we are the first cruisers this year to get this. It took persistance with the Police Department, but the persistance paid off. We have read all sorts of horror stories about Lau Group permits costing $1,000 and other stories stating that getting a permit is just not possible. Things change from year to year. But from what we learned from Anna Maria of Galetea in New Zealand, the process they followed last year worked for us for this
year. So at least two years are consistent. The Lau Group of islands are far to the east of here and the government is trying to keep the group as traditional as possible. For the last twenty years, and maybe more, it has been very difficult to get permission to visit there. The process right now is not written down anywhere. You just have to figure it out on your own. Aki Sise, the young woman in the Lau Group office here, is the one who told us we needed police clearance first. The policemen
don’t seem to be aware of this, so it was best to just apply for clearance without stating why. When Ranger went to apply for clearance they explained that they were doing this so they could visit the Lau Group. They were told that they (the policemen) had never heard of this procedure. Well, whether or not they have heard of it, it works. We met a woman named Bernadette in the Central Records Office of at the police station, and she made sure our clearance was processed and ready for us today.
once that clearance was in place, it only took the Lau Group office a couple of hours to get our permission and issue the official letters that we will take when we visit. So we are all set on that front. We will be traveling alone as no one else has permission, but the islands there are very safe and it will be a neat experience for us.

We talked to our grandson, Sam, today, via Skype. Of course, Sam is only 4 months old, so we didn’t actually talk, but we watched him and he watched us via Skype cameras. We won’t get to see him for the next month while we are traveling, and our daughter assures us that he will be sitting up before we see him again. He is changing at a very fast pace and it is really hard to keep up.

We took a cab to the south part of town today to see the changing of the guard at the Government House. The changing of the guard happens every couple of hours during the day and it is really a neat experience. We also walked to the old Parliament Buildings, but since the coup in December the Parliament has been empty. Regardless, it was neat to see. We have heard that the United States, New Zealand, and Australia have imposed an embargo on Fiji because of the coup. None of the locals we talk
to have made reference to this, but other cruisers are finding the locals not as friendly as they were prior to the embargo. We haven’t really noticed this, but since the embargo is taking money from the people, I can understand their probem.

We shopped at the market and then headed home. We will need to go check-out of Suva tomorrow, but I doubt that we will leave. Leaving will probably happen the next day.

070529 Day 35 Sam Update–Four Months Old

070529 Day 35 Viti Levu, Fiji–Government House and Old Parliame

Day 34, Year 2: Mom’s Potato Salad in Fiji
Date: Monday, May 28, 2007
Weather: Partly Cloudy Day
Location: Suva, Fiji

Today was actually another quiet day and we have yet to have an evening “incident” as we had last night. This is good. It was a holiday here, so not much was open in town. Mark did go into town with Gary of Heartbeat (New Zealand) to make a bid on an auto pilot for him on e-Bay. Gary doesn’t have a PayPal account and we do, so he asked if we could help him out. The bidding is over tomorrow and I doubt if he gets the auto pilot unless we go back in and make a last minute bid, but at least we tried for him. While Mark was gone, I worked on health insurance paperwork. We still have not been reimbursed for all of the costs associated with my broken leg last season and we are dealing with Mark’s coming of age and the Medicare issues. He will be 65 in July and that changes our currrent health care status. In the afternoon we did the requisite amount of work for the day–more stainless polishing and reinforcing the windvane steering by connecting the struts that hold the windvane steering mechanism together with through-bolts.

At the end of the day, we went over to Scot Free II to talk with Donna and Gerry. Since tomorrow might be our last full day here and we don’t know when we will see them again, we wanted to spend a little quality time together. They are a very nice couple. Scot Free is a 36-foot steel boat. Even though it is small, they have rebuilt the interior and have an amazing amount of storage space. They will be here in Suva for another week or so as parts for their broken auto pilot were sent to Britain instead of Fiji. Just a small error in geography! Like us, they are headed to Australia at the end of the season and are going to Vanuatu from here, so I’m sure we will see them again along the line. They are also signed up for the Sail Indonesia Rally for next year, as are we, so I know we will see them again next season.

Marie and Paul of Ranger return tomorrow and I plan to have everyone over for a dinner. In honor of Memorial Day, I plan to grill hamburgers and serve with potato salad that I made today. I must digress here to tell the “potato salad” story. My mother’s potato salad was one of her specialty recipes. I never make it because it takes so long, but for some reason I decided that I just had to make it today. I looked for the recipe and surprised even myself by finding not only the recipe, but the original in my mom’s handwriting. I have no idea why I have that here on the boat in Fiji, but I do. I first delighted in reading the recipe written in a style only my mother could write–not as efficiently written as it could be, but it has her voice. She died over 10 years ago, but she lives on through many of her hallmark recipes. I realized that I have never made this potato salad on my own. I have done it with my mom, years ago, and with my brother and sister more recently, but today’s attempt was my first solo. It is the dressing that is tricky. This recipe was around before there was such a thing as potato salad dressing for sale in stores. These days, it is probably not time efficient to make such a dressing, unless you are in Fiji where they have no potato salad dressing. I’m really glad I had the recipe and I have to say that I was successful. The potato salad tastes almost like my mom’s. I’m going to transcribe my mother’s recipe here for posterity. They don’t sell sweet jherkin pickles in this part of the world, so I substituted with olives. And I don’t have a double boiler, but I made one by putting canning jar rings in the bottom of one pot and placing a smaller pot in that one.

Ollie Martin’s Famous Potato Salad (as written by my mom sometime in the 1980′s)

Cook about 8 medium-sized potatoes. I cook mine in the jackets. You can tell when they are done by testing with a fork. If you have trouble getting the fork to go through the potato, you will have to cook until the fork goes through easily. Try not to overcook them or you won’t be able to dice them as they will be more like msshed potatoes. After you get them diced, put in a large bowl. Then add:

1 cup diced celery
1 cup diced onions
1/2 cup diced sweet pickles
1 small jar pimento/diced

Sprinkle about 1 tsp of salt and a little pepper over this. Add 3 hard boiled egggs, diced. Then pour on dressing and stir gently until it is well mixed. Sprinkle some paprika over the salad, if you prefer.

Boiled Dressing

1 cup sugar
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup wter
2 eggs
2 tbs flour
1 tsp salt

Mix the salt, sugar, and flour good. Mix eggs lightly with a fork. Add to the flour, sugar, and salt misture. Then add the 1 cup water and mix well. Add 1 cup vinegar. Slowly mix well, stirring constantly. It is better to use a double boiler, but if you use a sauce pan, put on low heat and cook about 8 or 10 minutes. When done add 1 Tbs oleo. It (the dressing) is supposed to be medium thick. You can add about 1 tsp of prepared mustard after this cools, and also add some mayonnaise. I usually do. The boiled dressing isn’t hard to make, but you do have to keep stirring it from the beginning or it will curdle.

Day 33, Year 2: Calm Day with Exciting Ending
Date: Sunday, May 27, 2007
Weather: Most Cloudy Day with Rain Showers
Location: Suva, Fiji

Even when we have a calm day, we always seem to have some little twist that makes the heart rate go up just a bit. We were having an early dinner in the cockpit after a very quiet day. I looked over and saw one of the open wooden boats that the locals use for getting around out here not too far from our boat. There was no one in the boat and I mentioned this to Mark. He said whomever was in it was just probably bending down working on something, so I ignored it and we continued talking and eating and forgot. Then I heard loud voices coming from a boat near us. The boat is Sea Whistle out of San Francisco, and when I counted this afternoon it appeared to have 5 teenagers onboard. So I wasn’t surprised to hear loud voices. They seemed very excited, but then teenagers get excited easily. We continued eating and just as it was getting dark, the wooden boat that had been sitting near us with no one onboard started coming toward Windbird and looked like it was going to ram into us. Mark ran out and pushed the boat off, but the local onboard pulled closer again. Mark asked him what he wanted and he said he was a water taxi. He was obviously intoxicated and almost fell in the water as he walked over the seat in his boat to hold on to Windbird. I wasn’t sure what was really happening, so I went below and got ready to make a call on the radio for help if the guy was boarding our boat. But he finally pushed off and then took off, doing a U-turn and going really, really fast. So we thought or hoped that was the end of that. Then we heard Sea Whistle calling the Yacht Club on the radio. They called a number of times and got no answer, and I was still hearing loud voices coming from their boat. I called Safina, the other boat next to us and told them about the guy who had come up to our boat. I wanted to warn them of a possible problem, and I asked them to stand by on the radio in case of another incident. Then Sea Whislte called for us. We answered and found that the reason I had seen a boat with on one onboard was because the guy had fallen into the water and almost drowned. Sea Whistle threw him a life ring and Justin, the captain on Sea Whistle, jumped into the water to retrieve the boat. When he got the guy back in his boat, he took off. That’s when he came to our boat and then zoomed off. There is an old concrete structure on piers near us and evidently he and two young women had been sitting in the building drinking the day away. He left them just before he fell into the water, and eventually, the two woman swam to Sea Whistle. Sea Whistle’s three young men had their dinghy in at the Yacht Club, so they had no way of getting the young women back to shore. That’s where we came in. Mark went over and he and Justin took the young women to the yacht club. They were in quite a jovial mood and almost fell overboard while riding in Windbird’s dinghy. I could hear Mark giving them a lecture about calming down and not falling overboard as he motored toward the Yacht Club. None of us knows what happened to the young man. Hopefully he made it back to land safely and hopefully he doesn’t come back out here again.

So much for a quiet Sunday. Actually, we did attempt to do nothing today. Mark walked to the Mobil station this morning to get a newspaper and we did some reading. But I think doing nothing for a whole day is just not possible for us. We did some stainless polishing, and Mark’s applied rust remover to the side of the engine. We have a leak in an anti-syphon valve that has dripped salt water on the engine. That, of course, causes rust. So Mark took care of that today. Tomorrow looks like another quiet day, but I’m sure we’ll find some way to spice that up just a little.

Day 32, Year 2: To Market, To Museum, and Back to Market
Date: Saturday, May 26, 2007
Weather: Strong Southeast Winds; Low Humidity and Cooler Nights
Location: Suva, Fiji

Suva is all about hot–hot weather and hot food. But it is winter here and we are getting a little break in the heat with the strong southeast winds that are blowing in making days and nights a little cooler. Cool nights means temps in the 70′s, but that is cooler than the 80′s. With the southeast winds, we get more rain showers than usual, but the showers are really squalls and usually last only a few minutes. All in all, the weather here has been fantastic.

Today was Saturday here (your Friday) and Saturday is market day. We walked into town, and after a quick stop at the internet cafe for our daily “hit”, we headed to the market. The vegetable market in Suva is huge and is open six days a week. On Saturday, however, there is much more variety available–white radishes, tomatoes, potatoes, green peppers, lettuce, okra, eggplant, bok choy, cucumbers, carrots, celery, bananas, oranges, and all sorts of South “Specific” specialties. We bought potatoes and mandarin oranges (not in the can, but the real thing)–both of these should keep for a few weeks. We also bought okra, bok choy, tomatoes, and green peppers. We will buy lettuce, bananas, and eggs before leaving on Wednesday, but otherwise, we are pretty well set for provisions. We ventured to the second floor of the market today to buy yaqona or kava root to take with us to the islands to present as gifts or sevusevu. Kava root costs $38 a kilo and you are expected to present the chief of each village you visit with a half kilo. This is a long standing tradition and is more of a requirement than an expectation if you want to be accepted in the islands. We bought four kilos and had it packaged as half kilos bunches for sevusevu presentations. When you buy the root, they wrap ribbon through the dried yaqona to make a special presentation. Other cruisers are having their kilos divided into thirds for presentation, but we have been told that the welcome will be warmer if we go the half kilo route. Presentation of yaqona to village chiefs as a formality has been tradition here for hundreds of years, so we are just trying to follow tradition and do what is right. We will probably have to buy more yaqona along the way, but we have a good start. While we were finishing our shopping at the market, we heard a band playing outside. The police and miliary bands were leading a parade down Victoria Parade in celebration of whatever holiday weekend it is here. Mark waited for the yaqona while I ran out to the street to try and capture the parade on video. I was just a little too late, but I did get a picture or two and just an few seconds of video.

By this time, both Mark and I were laden with food and yaqona, so we hopped in a taxi and headed back to the Yacht Club. We dropped off our bounty on Windbird and then headed back into town to go the Fiji Museum. We saw Donna and Gerry from Scot Free II on the way and they went with us. We hailed a cab and in a matter of a few minutes we were delivered to the front steps of the museum. There was a man there with a one-year old who was having a great time crawling in the gravel. We talked with the man who told us his son’s name is Jovial–named this because he was the fourth and last child born into the family and he was a job. The man explained that he and his wife were overjoyed to have a son as their last child. We talked to the man about our new and only grandchild and then we went into the museum. The museum is hidden from the street by the the greenery in Albert Park. It is housed in a modest wooden structure, but we found the museum to be very rich in information. On display was the largest and last waga drua or double-hulled canoe built in Fiji, Rata Finae. The museum was filled with other treasures of early life in Fiji as well as more modern day artifacts. It was a great tour, and then we were on our way back downtown to the Arts and Crafts market. Somehow, we have missed this, but we certainly enjoyed our shopping there this afternoon.

It was starting to get to be late in the afternoon, so we headed back to the yacht club. We had all been invited to visit Safina for sundowners, so we hussled back to our boats to drop off those things we had purchased during the afternoon and then over to Safina. We had a great time talking about our plans for cruising Fiji with both Safina and Scot Free II.

We just got an email, literally seconds ago, from Mark’s brother Steve confirming that he is coming to sail with us in Fiji. He will arrive on July 7, Mark’s birthday, and stay with us until July 26. We are SO excited. Steve is a great sailing partner and we can’t wait to see him. He will be with us while we travel through some of the best Fiji cruising grounds, so it should be a great experience for us as well as for him. Steve, we are so glad you are coming. We know you will love it here.

070526 Day 32 Viti Levu, Fiji–Miji Musuem

070526 Day 32 Viti Levu, Fiji–Saturday Markets

Day 31, Year 2: University of the South Pacific Trek
Date: Friday, May 25, 2007
Weather And Yet Another Beautiful Sunny Day
Location: Suva, Fiji

Our day started with a walk to the Hydrographic Office and to Carpenter’s Hardware. Both are very close to the Yacht Club, just on the way into town. We wanted to check the Hydrographic Office to see if they have any close-up charts of the Lau Group islands and we just wanted to check out the hardware store. We were told that it is an even bigger store than Ace Hardware in American Samoa. After visiting it, I don’t think the actual retail store is bigger, but Carpenter’s has a yard out back and a warehouse attached to the retail store that houses just about anything you might need. It was impressive and the stock they carry is top-notch. We didn’t really need anything, but we just had to check it out.

We then walked into Suva and went to the police station to check on the progress of our police clearance needed for visiting the Lau Group. We went to the Clearnance Office and they sent us to “Sierro.” At least that is what we thought they said. We asked at the main desk for directions to “Sierro” and they just stared at us. I finally said the word ‘records’ and a young policeman was able to direct us to what we discovered was CRO–Central Records Office. I guess that sounds like “Sierro.” Language barriers always make things interesting. We made it to CRO and found out that our information had just reached their office on Wednesday of this week and that the Captain still needs to approve it. A very nice woman assured us that clearance can probably be completed on Tuesday.. She suggested that we convince the woman from the Lau Provincial Council Office to walk over to the CRO at the police station on Tuesday to pick up our clearance, and then it might be possible on the same day for us to know if we have permission to visit the Lau Group. It is complicated, but we will just hope that all of this works. We can’t find out anything on Monday as it is a holiday. We’re not exactly sure what the holiday is, but our Canadian friends think it is the Queen’s Birthday. They celebrate this in Canada on the weekend before Memorial Day in the United States. The Lonely Planet Guide says that the Queen’s Birthday is celebrated here in the middle of June. Whatever, most everything is closed on Monday, so we will be here until at least Tuesday, probably leaving here on Wednesday.

After leaving the police station, we hopped on a bus heading to the University of the South Pacific (USP). We wanted to visit the campus and to go to the Cost-U-Less just across the street from the campus. The bus we got on was completely full, but a young man immediately jumped up to let me have his seat. I tried to refuse, but he wouldn’t let me. The trip across the peninsula to the USP campus was a short ride. We got off at the Cost-U-Less which is like a Sam’s Club. There was a MacDonald’s next door with a “Bula” instead of “Welcome” sign. Behind the MacDonald’s and the Cost-U-Less there was a strip mall. For just a minute, I felt like I was back in the US of A. But then we walked up the street to the main gate of the University. There was a Hindu temple on our side of the street. We were very curious, so we walked in the gate. We know so little about Hinduism and realize that we really need to learn so much. About 52% of Fijians are Christian with 37% of those being Methodist, about 9% Catholic, and the remainder being evangelical Christians. Another 38% of the population is Hindu and about 8% Muslim. The other 2% follow other religions or none. As we entered the gate, there were three shrines on our right and then the main temple. We climbed the stairs and looked inside through the windows. There was a young woman who was entering the small temple and she indicated that we should take off our shoes and follow her. We did so, and found the whole experience interesting but very foreign to us. Like I said, we have a lot to learn. After leaving the temple, we crossed the street and entered the University world. USP has a lovely campus here. There was a campus botanical garden, but we had to laugh at that. Every place here is botanical garden! We walked past the student center, men’s housing and women’s housing, classrooms, the stadium and playing fields, saw some interesting solar and wind power science projects on the lawn in the science sector, and then exited on the street right across from the Cost-U-Less. We were back where we started and we decided to stop for lunch in the strip mall before doing our shopping.

For lunch, we had to make a choice between MacDonald’s, the Quick Bite, Govinda Vegetarian Restaurant, and the Taj Palace. We chose the Taj Palace and enjoyed chicken curry with garlic naan. Then it was on to Cost-U-Less. Actually, it should be Cost-U-More, as everything was very expensive. But it is the only place in Fiji that you can buy certain items. The only other place we have found like this was the Cost-U-Less in American Samoa. I was looking for quart-sized Zip Loc baggies, canned green beans, shampoo and conditioner in one, canned coke, and liquid Tide. I found the quart-sized baggies, something not availabe in New Zealand, canned green beans (the Watties brand in New Zealand were just too mushy for me), canned coke, and liquid Tide. I didn’t buy the Tide, however, as it was $42. Right next to it was a brand called Sun that cost only $21, so I have just become a Sun user. Combined shampoo and conditioner is something that is just not available anywhere in the Pacific Ocean. I didn’t bring any back from the US thinking that I could buy this in New Zealand, but that was not the case. On the next trip home, I will certainly stock up.

We took a cab back to the Yacht Club area. We had the taxi driver drop Mark off at a beer distributer near the Yacht Club and I went on the Yacht Club with what we had bought. While I took the first load out to the boat, Mark bought beer. He brought this back to the dock where I met him. We can buy beer in bottles in town, but the distributer seems to be the only place that sells cans. So we are now restocked with canned goods and drinks. Tomorrow we will go to the market to buy fresh fruit and veggies and complete our provisioning for the next leg of our journey. It will be about a month before we will be where there are stores of any size, and probably months before we will be anywhere that has as much to offer as Suva.

070525 Day 31 Viti Levu, Fiji–University of the South Pacific T

Day 30, Year 2: Living the Good Life
Date: Thursday, May 24, 2007
Weather Today: Yet Another Beautiful Sunny Day
Location: Suva, Fiji

I often think of Helen and Scott Nearing. They once wrote a book called, “Living the Good Life.” Scott was a professor at Columbia early on and I think Helen was from France. In the 1940′s, maybe late 1930′s, they built their first home in Vermont. They later built a home in Maine, always living as self-sufficiently as possible. The point here is that they wrote about the good life. But I think they had it wrong. I think the good life is out here in the South Pacific. Or maybe they had it right and we’ve got it right. Maybe the “good life” is living your dream. I have to admit that it was never my dream to sail around the world, but I also have to admit that I am really enjoying the journey. Today was just a very simple day, but I enjoyed every minute of it. I really felt like I was living the good life. We spent this morning trying to figure out where it is we want to visit in Fiji. Once we had a rough plan, we wrote our letter to the Lau Group asking for permission to visit there, and then we headed into town.

The Lau Group Provicial Office wouldn’t take our letter because they still have not received police clearance for our visit. They suggested that we go back to the police station to check on the clearance process. We will do that tomorrow morning. So we left there and went on to our next task. We spent part of the afternoon in an internet cafe–not our favorite Connect Internet as their connection was down. We spent $6 Fijian for a couple of hours online and had a great time. Such simple things thrill us out here. We finished getting our pictures uploaded to our website. If you want to see those pictures, you simply go to the travel log for a particular date. If there is a picture at the end of the log, then you double click on it. That will open the whole album for that day. We also paid a couple of bills online, checked on flight possibilities for Mark’s brother Steve who is planning to come visit us here, and checked on renewing Mark’s New Hampshire driver’s license online (not possible). We then walked back to the Yacht Club and celebrated our day with a pitcher of beer. Beer is actually cheaper by the pitcher, so why not. We met a couple who came in today–Wolfgang and Margaret on Contessa. They spent last season in Fiji and visited the Lau Group for six weeks. They said it is phenomenal and that we should persist in our attempts to get our permit for that group. So tomorrow morning we will head in to the police station to check on the status of our clearance.

None of what I have described here sounds very exciting but somehow doing it here does seem a little exotic and special. I think I just enjoy being in a totally different culture. It feels good and therefore, life is good. We are coming near to the end of our stay here in Suva, however, and tomorrow we need to get a move on. After checking in at the police station, we plan to go around the end of the peninsula to the University of the South Pacific. We just want to see the campus and visit the Cost-U-Less store across from the campus. I’m out of Zip-Loc quart bags and they are the one place out here other than in American Samoa that will have those. We also plan to visit the market in town tomorrow to buy kava root (yaqona). We need a half kilo to present as a sevusevu (gift) for every village we plan to visit. This gets expensive as a kilo costs about $40 Fiji. This is the cost of the good life.

Day 29, Year 2: Internet Connect
Date: Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Weather Today: Another Beautiful Sunny Day
Location: Suva, Fiji

After yesterday’s excursion, we took it slow today. We got up early and I washed towels that I had left soaking all day yesterday while Mark made runs to the Yacht Club to get water. Slowly we are refilling the port tank that we have been using since we left New Zealand. We filled it using the watermaker while on passage and are now filling it with water from the dock. The water in the anchorage is totally unfit for watermaking as there is often a sheen of oil floating atop. Oil and watermakers don’t mix, so the watermaker was pickled when we arrived and will not be used again until we get to the out islands. Filling the tank using jerry cans takes a few trips, ten gallons a trip, but we should fill the port tank tomorrow. As soon as it is filled, we will switch to using the starboard tank. We don’t like to let water sit in a tank more than a month without being used, so the New Zealand water from the starboard tank is ready for consumption.

I continued doing laundry and working on naming photos for the website while Mark worked on our Fiji sail plan. We are struggling with this one, but hopefully by sometime tomorrow morning we will have a plan. We went into town around noon and spent the entire afternoon in the “Connect” Internet Cafe. It only costs $3 Fiji per hour, so we had a $15 afternoon. They are getting to know us well at the Connect Internet Cafe. We are their best customers these days, so much so that the young man that works there is going to talk to his boss tomorrow about getting a hot spot at the Yacht Club. Mark worked online getting new credit cards authorized using Skype, searching our Health Trust account to see if all of our medical bills for check-ups while we were home have finally been paid, and posting pictures to the website. This is what took the time. While he did this, I worked on naming more photo albums.

Once my computer battery ran down, I left Mark working and did a little shopping. Mark is able to plug in his computer using a New Zealand power adapter that Helaine and Alan left for us. Thanks to the Kanegsbergs! Now back to the shopping . . . I’m trying to find inexpensive but useful items to take to children on the islands we will be visiting, but I’m having a hard time finding things. I did find some $2 backpacks that actually looked very nice and some crayons for $ .90. These prices are Fiji money, so the cost US is about two-thirds of what I list here. Soccer balls are what we hear they would really like, but they cost $10. Still that might be the best gift as every child wouldn’t need his own soccer ball. I could just buy one for a group of children. Yoyo’s would make good individual gifts, but I haven’t seen any of those. I’ll continue my search tomorrow. While I was shopping, Mark continued uploading pictures. He worked until dark and is still not finished uploading all of the photo albums. This job should be done by tomorrow evening which means all of our pictures from New Zealand, from the passage, and from our time here in Fiji will be on the website. I’ll give the full report on that in tomorrow’s log. Right now it is back to trip planning. Last year, I did most of the trip planning and then gave Mark the itinerary and he filled in the routes and passages. Cruising Fiji is very different. There are so many islands and the reefs make passages sometimes very convuluted. We are struggling with a way of working together on this. I think we are almost there, so I’ll also give a full report on that tomorrow as well.

Day 28, Year 2: Bus Trip to the North Coast of Viti Levu
Date: Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Weather Today: Beautiful Sunny Day
Location: Suva, Fiji

We did the ultimate road trip today. We were up at 5:30 AM, on a bus leaving Suva by 6:45 AM, and we just got back to the boat at 8 PM. When we got to the Yacht Club at 6 AM, Donna and Gerry of Scot Free II were there waiting for us. They told us yesterday that they wouldn’t be going with us, but overnight they changed their minds, so off we went to Suva to catch our bus. An $8.00 bus ticket each transported us to a whole different world. We traveled north on the King’s Highway to places with names like Nausori, Korovou, Dama, Naiserelagi, Nanukuloa, and Rakiraki (old name) or Vaileka (new name). We traveled through parts of the city of Suva we had not seen before, followed the Rewa River, passed through dairy-farming country, bumped our way over unpaved road, wound in and out and up and down hills along the Wainibuka River, climbed into the highlands, and finally came out on the north side of the Nakauvadra Mountain Range and found ourselves in much drier sugar cane country with land that slopes down to the sea. Views of Viti Levu Bay and the Bligh Waters between this island and Vanua Levu to the north were spectacular. The friendliness of the people here is very evident even when riding a bus. Everyone along he way waves and yells out “bula” to welcome those passing through. We are tired tonight, but it was a great day.

Our original destination for the day was Naiserelagi where we wanted to visit the Catholic Mission with special art work. It took a little figuring out to get the bus driver to understand where we wanted to get off, but when we were near, a local sitting next to Mark was very helpful and got us to the right place. We climbed about 500 meters up a winding hill and found ourselves at the Catholic Mission on top of the world. The view of the bay from there was beautiful and the clear, blue skies with puffy white clouds didn’t hurt. When we got to the top, we stopped at a little overlook gazebo that housed the church bell and the drums for the call to worship. As we looked around, a couple of women came to greet us. Adi Reki, the priest’s mother, and Kata, a woman who works for the priest, made us feel welcome and invited us to visit inside the church. Adi Reki went with us. She spoke no English but was able to help us understand that we needed to take off our shoes before entering the church. The mission was built in 1917 and is totally empty inside except for the pandanus mats on the floor, the altar and the art work on the walls. There are three panels high on the wall above the altar painted by Jean Charlot in 1962. In the Lonely Planet guide, it said that there was a black Christ depicted in a masi sula (sarong) with a tanoa (kava bowl) at his feet. We did see the masi sula and the tanoa, but the Christ in the mural looked very white. There were Indigenous Fijians offering mats and tabua (whale’s tooth) and Indo-Fijians presenting flowers and oxen. So that part of what was in the LP guide was correct. There was one other difference in what we found and what was in the guide, and that was the name and location of the mission–thus the difficulty in finding it. The sign on the road says it is the Parish of Saint Francis of Xavier in Navouluabitu, not Naiserelagi. Nevertheless, we found it and it was very interesting. That is the important thing.

After leaving the mission, we started walking down the hill and a man who had been cutting grass when we went up had stopped using his weed eater so he could talk with us. His name was Mika and he was the perfect example of a Fijian who stops whatever they are doing to make you feel welcome. We had a nice talk and then traveled on. We thought we understood that we could walk to the next village and find food for lunch, so that is where we headed. On the way, men working in fields along the road all called out the friendly greeting of “bula.” We then came to a bus stop shelter that was very nicely painted inside with a map of the Fijian islands. There was also pandanus leaves hanging to dry and as I was taking pictures of this, we struck up a conversation with a man there who told us we were just a short distance from the next village. He was very proud of the fact that a young Peace Corp volunteer named Molly that lives in his village had painted the inside of the bus shelter. He wanted us to meet her since she is from the United States, but unfortunately she was in meetings in Suva today. We traveled on and became discouraged as there was no town. There was a fork in the road and what looked like a few buildings to the right, but it didn’t look like the place that had been described to us as a town with a Pizza Hut. Mark had walked ahead to scout things out and met a young man named Pat who was running up the mountain as part of his rugby training. Pat explained that there were no restaurants in Nanukoloa and that we would have to take the bus to Rakiraki to find food. This was not part of our original destination, but we had time and thought seeing the land on the north side of the island sounded like a great idea. Pat waited with us in the basi (bus) shelter, and we waited, and we waited, and we waited. Actually we waited two hours for that bus, but we had a great time talking to Pat in the meantime. He insisted on waiting with us and near the end of the time, Gerry got out some coins and taught us to play a game of throwing the coins to see who could get closest to the wall. Very simple, and very silly, but we had a great time. Everytime I would screw up terribly and get my coin no where near the wall, Pat would laugh heartily. We also got a kick out of his view of us and our ages. He couldn’t believe old people like us could be sailing a boat. When Donna told him we didn’t consider ourselves old, he just laughed. I was using my Fiji Phrase Book and told him how old I was in Fijian. He started walking all bent over and acting feeble and said that is what a sixty-year old looks like. Since Pat is only twenty-six, we explained to him that someday he will think sixty is young!

We reached Rakiraki just in time to catch the bus back to Suva. Unfortunately we had no time to explore the small, but busy little town. The trip back seemed even bumpier than the trip over in the morning and I think it really was. The morning bus driver was very careful, but the evening bus driver seemed like he was in a big hurry and those bumps were not going to slow him down. The whole trip was probably 150 kilometers one way and over 50 of those kilometers were unpaved. That was the bumpy part. The entire unpaved stretch is under construction and there will someday be a paved road there, but it will take sometime. Even the paved part is barely wide enough for two buses to pass, however, so we had some most interesting times today when passing other vehicles. We were coming home at a time when children were walking home from school. They were great fun to watch and they would wave and smile. We got back to Suva after dark and walked through town to Singh’s Curry House for dinner. It is not fancy, but for $6.80 Fijian you can get a great curry dinner. We understand that it is not safe to walk around town at night, so a security officer in front of Singh’s went to the main street and hailed a taxi for us. It is good to be home but we are much richer as a result of our trip today.

070522 Day 28 Viti Levu, Fiji–Suva North to Naiserelagi

070522 Day 28 Viti Levu, Fiji–Naiserelagi to Rakiraki and Back South to Suva