Day 27, Year 2: Contact with Kids
Date: Monday, May 21, 2007
Weather Today: Sunny Day
Location: Suva, Fiji

We were up by 7 AM this morning to listen to the radio net. Our friends Pam and Scott on Starship (www.blindsailing.com) still have about 350 miles to go to Sydney, Australia. Fatty and Carolyn Goodlander on Wild Card are STILL hanging out at North Minerva Reef. Jamie and Lucy on Savior Vivre of the UK should be in Lautoka on the northwest corner of this island by tomorrow. And Jeff and Mollie of Kauila should have arrived in Savusavu on Vanua Levu, the big island north of here, sometime this afternoon. I always enjoy listening to the net to see where boats are headed. By 8:30 AM, I had done the first laundry of the day, had it hanging out to dry, had breakfast, and was doing the second laundry load. That load was left to soak while we went to town to the internet cafe. When we arrived at the Yacht Club, Sylvia and Dillon were there getting ready to go into town as well. Dillon is almost three and has been sailing all of his life. We met Sylvia and Dillon in Tonga and it was great to see them again. We walked to the bus stop together, and there we met up with Gary of Heartbeat. He is a New Zealander that we met back in Panama. He made it as far as Fiji last year and has been here in Suva ever since. He just got back from a trip home to New Zealand and it was fun to see him again. Mark, Gary, and I ended up taking a taxi to town, but Dillon was insistent on waiting for the bus. He loves buses. I guess he has the “blue gene.”

Once we got to downtown Suva we walked to our favorite internet cafe. You might wonder why we spend so much time trekking to town to the internet cafe. Well, we can send emails from the boat, but we have a second email account that we check only when we are on land, we update our finances on Quicken by checking our bank account and any credit card accounts we might be using, we pay bills, we upload pictures to our web site, we search the internet for information, and we call our kids using Skype. The main reason for today’s internet stop was to call the kids, and we had great conversations with Heather, Jed, and Sam, and with Justin and Jo. On both calls we had two-way cameras, so they could see us and we could see them. As we talked to Heather and Jed, we got to oogle at Sam. He is so, so adorable. He is a chubby little guy and he has one fist or the other in his mouth all the time. He is obviously teething and his very favorite teething toy is his daddy’s or his mommy’s finger. Sam is starting to smile and actually laugh. We didn’t get to hear a real laugh this morning, but it was an absolute joy to watch Heather and Jed with him. You can feel the love right through the computer. Then we called Justin and Jo and caught them at home. They both look healthy and happy and very much in love. They are still waiting on Jo’s immigration papers and are not sure they are going to get to come visit us here in Fiji. They think they will know something by mid-June, so we will keep our fingers crossed. Conversations with both kids were great and it is so wonderful to be able to see them when we are so far away. How many ways can I say, “I love Skype!”

After our conversations with the kids, we both spent time on computers updating finances and checking the website. I have to go in and delete all of the spam that is sent to our website and check for any legitimate comments that have been sent to us. We were only part way through those jobs when our favorite little internet spot had “technical difficulties.” We walked down the street and found more internet cafes than I ever knew existed, picked one, and continued taking care of business. We decided to walk home and we stopped by the bus station to check out possibilities for taking a bus north tomorrow. We talked to a guy at the Sunbeam bus line booth, and actually got a schedule. We have to be at the bus station in town by 6:30 AM to start our trek north. It will be early to bed tonight.

We got back to the boat and I rinsed and hung the second laundry load. We then went back to the Yacht Club to get more water and to take showers. While filling up the water jerry jugs, Franz came along and stopped to talk. This is Sylvia’s husband and Dillon’s dad. He and Sylvia are from the Netherlands and are going into their seventh year of cruising. I would say they are no older than 35, tops. Anyway, we had a great conversation about their summering over in Tonga and their previous seasons here in Fiji. They will be heading to Kadava Island next week at about the same time as us, so we will probably see them there again. Kel, a young single-hander from Norway, came along and joined the conversation. He also summered over in Tonga. Again Kel is probably about 30 years old and his boat’s name is Spetakkel.

Tomorrow we are going north to see the scenery and to visit the Naiserelagi Catholic Mission. This church is famous, according to the Lonely Planet guide, for its mural depicting a black Christ. There are also three panels of biblical scenes with Fijians depicted. I think this trip is more about the journey than the destination, but we shall see which ends up to be the more interesting.