Fahiti ho!

 No, we're not talking another James Bond film.  And M was killed off a few back anyway.  No, Judy Drench is now Category 3 and intensifying.  Still moving south on a path to miss us.  I may have to buy a bottle of gin in the marina shop just in case.  Oh, and did I mention that cruisers get a free bag of ice each day they are at the marina?  It's like...karma. The blue circle at center-right is Fiji.  Wind map from Fiji Meteorological Service.

 Judy's officially a Category 2 cyclone.  Don't know what that means; I suppose I could look it up.  Marina staff are scuttling around taking down furling headsails on unoccupied boats.  Still supposed to miss us, but they're preparing for any contingency.  This would be the closest cyclone this season. Eric wanted to see boats in cyclone pits with tire supports.  Herewith:

 TIL Cary Grant never actually said that.  Another legend dies because of the interwebs... The weather 'system' off to our west is officially now Cyclone Judy.  The good news is it's predicted to pass to our south.  Still, we're supposed to get 55 kph winds.  Think I'll take the foresail off the roller furler this morning.  Don't want to get caught sleeping if Judy takes a sharp hook to the left. Poor Vanuatu.  They have been hit with a series of storm systems in the past week.  Now Judy is poised for a direct hit. So glad I'm at Vudu Point.  Two stern lines to a central mooring point, two bow lines to rings embedded in the concrete wall.  If they have to turn me bow out (standard practice around here for cyclones) I have 200 feet of double braid 5/8 inch line on my stern cleats.  I have enough line to run up the sides of the boat and use the other end for the bow lines.  These are the lines that took us through the Panama Canal locks.  Think they're str

 I don't know, just have a fixation with The Association this morning.  This is a weather update, not a 60s mix tape. Latest prediction from the GFS model shows the systems just missing Fiji.  Still nasty winds out there and I'm glad to be secure.  This is for next Friday.  I left the wind speed scale on the bottom. What else did the Association do?  Oh yeah, 'Never My Love' - the ultimate make-out song.  Maybe I'll fire up Spotify while I cook breakfast.

First set of marina pics.  (Oh no, there's more?) Probably.  It's the price you pay for logging in.  Intermittent rain showers have precluded my venturing far from the boat.  Except for the bar.  And the hot shower.   Peregrine at her temporary mooring.  It belongs to somebody else - they put me here because it was next to Burasari.  Will be moving probably this morning. A good view of the little cantilevered docks.  You haul on the bow lines to get close enough and then step from your boat to the dock or vice versa.  With the tides, sometimes the dock is two feet below the deck making the step up onto your boat an exercise only for the willing and able.    I snapped this pic last night on the way to the bar.  It just seems to capture the vibe here with the harbor, boats, sea in the distance and palm trees. The sun was shining making it difficult to get good pics of the bar.  This is representative but not complete.  The bar has about twenty picnic tables scattered under the pa

 Third day.  Leaving Volivoli Point. Yeah, I know.  As bad as having to sit through your uncle's Super 8 slides of his family's trip last summer, amiright? Well, pilgrim, we got video too!  Can your uncle match that? It was about this time that I said to myself: 'There are three billion people on this planet that wish they were me right now.'

 Hadn't had time to post pics of the trip, so this is the first of a series of posts.  No sharks - sorry. Nasavu, morning of the second day.  I had almost bailed on the trip that morning.  I found my six foot USB cable had given up the ghost the night before.  After going through the passage the day before, I realized how essential it was to have Navionics at the helm.  Without that cable I was down to a single USB cable for the iPad.  Tim generously gave me a spare one of his.  Glad I decided to keep going. Nasavu was a village that I wanted to do sevusevu at.  We had a long day ahead of us and Tim was pretty insistent about getting an early start, so I bailed on sevusevu.  The following pics are as we left in the morning. Nice anchorage.  Exposed to the east, but what the heck,,, Burasari - Tim and Van's sailboat.  My buddy boat.  I owe them so much...

 Everybody knows it's Windy!  Ok, bad pun.  Only for boomers. So...it looks like the boy is stuck in the marina for the duration.  This is the GFS model from PredictWind for next Friday.  Windy agrees.  The little white dot on the blue island in the center?  That's me. Ah, but the little white dot is the acknowledged safest hurricane hole in Fiji.  And it has a beach bar.  With good food.

You ever have that experience of showing up in a city you've never been to, tired and exhausted you drag yourself out of the cab and stagger to the front desk to ask 'Do you have a room?'  And you're so grateful that you don't even care what the cost is - you don't even ask - you just take the room key, thank the clerk and ask which way to the elevator?  Have you ever felt like that, Sparky?  Well, have 'ya? Vudu Point Marina had openings in their inner harbor.  Peregrine is tied with two bow lines and two stern lines.  As Bill would say, I cheated death once again. As I would say:  Always trust your cape. Pics, etc. tomorrow.  Right now I'm decompressing.

 ...sailor take warning. And oh, my, is the sky red this morning.  There are high wind warnings out for most of Fiji.  Thankfully not the western side where we are.  Still, the winds are predicted to wrap around and hit the Nadi area tonight.  Very important to get to Vuda Point and secure a mooring or a good anchorage.  Enough of this mud shit. With luck we'll make Vuda Point by noon or one o'clock.  With more luck, I'll find a mooring.  With no luck they have a nice restaurant and bar, or so I've been led to believe.  

 On the chart it looked so good.  Vatia Beach Eco Resort,  Restaurant and Bar.  We pulled into the cove in front.  Nice beach.  Couldn't see a building - must be back in the trees, eco and  all.  So we anchored about one pm.  Going all the way to Vuda Point today would have put us there at dusk - not a good time to come into a strange marina.  So this stop  made sense.  Anchored in 20 feet, good set. Puttered around the boat for a couple hours, then Tim came by on his dinghy.  I put on my best clean shorts and shirt and got the money belt.  Gotta look nice for the ecos, wot?  Tim motored toward the nice, sandy beach.  At some point I looked down and screamed 'rocks!'.  About that time Tim's motor hit bottom.  Tim lifted the motor and we kept going in about a foot of water.  Then it got a little deeper, then a bit shallower and finally the boat hit.  We were still thirty yards from the beach.  So I hopped over and went ankle deep in mud.  Gooey, clingy mud, trying its be

 "...and always trust your cape."  That's a quote from a Guy Clark song about a kid who's not too bright and thinks he can fly like Superman.  Off the barn roof.  Just because other people claim it can't be done is no reason not to try.  That quote was ringing in my ears the past few days. "So we're heading to Vuda Point in a few days, put the boat there for a few months while we travel," Tim says to me at Planters last Sunday.  "It would be a great trip for you to buddy boat down with us."  Hmmmm.  Vuda Point is on the other island, about 150 miles away.  A multi-day trip.   Hmmmm.   Always trust your cape. So we left Savusavu Wednesday morning.  No sailing wind to speak of, so motoring most of the day. The Nasonisoni Passage was interesting; ugly reefs visible either side of the boat.  I followed Tim through and had Navionics on the iPad in front of me.  Still... Ian had marked an anchorage for Tim on his chart.  (See dipsy-do, above)  We

   Ok, I have learned my lesson.  Seriously.  I pledge on a stack of Analytical Chemistry issues that I will quit trying to be cheap in my purchases.  I had the option of buying the GoPro, I could have bought the slightly lesser quality (see? backsliding already!) competitor that was still waterproof in the rain.  But no!  No, I chose to buy the cheapest shiny offering from Wal-Mart for a great price that worked fine until I LEFT IT OUT IN THE RAIN LAST WEEK.   Yes, the Apeman, of mast-climbing fame, got a pretty good soaking.  I realized my error when I emerged for my morning swim and saw it sitting there happily taking a bath on the glasses rack by the wheel.  What did I say?  All together now:  Oh SH*T!  There goes my dream of taking video of the shark eating my leg. So into the bag of rice it went.  Into the freezer.  Three days.  Three days, man!  I brought it out, warmed it gently to room temp (in the bag to prevent additional condensation) and finally back into the world where I

 ...and I'm holding on... You remember the song.  1980.  Blondie.  But did you know that it was originally done by a Jamaican group in 1967?  No?  Well,  you culturally illiterate bastard.  White privilege shows its ugly side... Ok, second chance:  Sloop John B.  The Beach Boys, amiright?  Yes of course but where did Al Jardine get the inspiration to bring it to Brian Wilson?  You guessed it, Sparky - Jamaica. Last chance:  The Isrealites.  Desmond Dekker and the Aces.  1968.  Rasta, mon.  If you have never heard this song, google the YouTube version right now.  Play it loud, for god's sake.  And yes, I have the original 45 rpm single in the attic. So why am I haranguing you with Jamaican reggae trivia?  Circle back to the title of this post...holy moly was the tide high last night!  As in the locals have never seen it this high.   And no, it wasn't the beers consumed at the Planter's Club that swayed my evaluation.  It really was that high.  And all kinds of stuff came

 Good news:  We found pizza last night!  I had heard rumors of this great pizza place up in the hills away from town.  Last night at happy hour (no copyright, patent not applied for) Wendy said "Hey, I've got a car and I'm going for pizza!"  From her description, it sounded like the place.  So Ian, Lesley and I piled into Wendy's car and headed 15 miles down the road to this undeniably charming outdoor bar/pizza joint run by Max.  Five types of pizza, $20 FJD (less than $10 USD).  Max has a real oven and knows how to make pizza.  Delicious. Equivalent in size to a large pizza back home.  Plus there was a blue heeler named Bear who put his snoot on my leg begging for pizza.  He got fed too. Bad news:  Max's pizza place is only open Friday nights!  There's just not enough business right now during cyclone season.  He said when the sailors come back he'll probably open Sunday nights as well. Good news:  I have measured the exact time it takes for a sunny

 Ok, this was a game for the ages.  And the replay booth.  I think we saw every possible aspect of the game with the exception of the drop kick (hats off to Doug Flutie) which made it fun to try and explain to all the Aussies present.  Man, a two-point conversion to tie the game with minutes left?  It doesn't get any better than that.  Who cares who won?   And we were watching the Australian feed of ESPN which meant...no American commercials.  Yeah, those little tidbits sandwiched between the snaps that can make you laugh or cry and presumably buy.  No we got...Australian commercials.  Included was one of the most cartoonish commercials I have ever seen with a badly drawn cartoon family playing cricket.  It was supposed to be for some broadband provider, but I never made the connection between the cartoon characters and the internet.  And also included (and shown at least twice) was this horrible commercial from the Australian equivalent of the Highway Patrol following this cop thr

 Jose texted me to come over to their boat to celebrate my birthday.  As I was about to open a bottle of wine, I thought this was a pretty good idea.  So I hopped down into the dinghy and bailed out the five inches or so of rainwater.  Meanwhile, the rain let up somewhat. I had been listening to music videos that afternoon and had stumbled across an old one of Peter, Paul, and Mary doing a version of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face."  You will remember it from the Roberta Flack version in the early 70s.  But Peter Yarrow introduced it as being written by a Scotsman named Ewan MacColl.  (It's available on YouTube.  It's a beautiful version.)  Jeff starts to tell the story about how he met Ewan MacColl in Scotland, hung out with the Incredible String Band (who played Woodstock) and assorted other bits of folklore.  Eventually he wound up telling stories about his time as a veterinarian in LA. "Did I ever tell you the story about when I set Dean Martin's do

 

So this powerboat sank to the bottom because somebody left a seacock open.  The owner is a Texas oil man and apparently did not want to do the logical thing, which was to write it off and buy another.  No, he hired a crew to completely strip it, rebuild the engines and put all new fittings and woodwork in.  Along with a huge fridge.  And a goofy covering over the flybridge.  Maybe there's solar panels up there. Sure looks like a Chris-Craft Commander to me, but I can't find a nameplate anywhere on her.   The crew did a pretty nice job of restoring her.   I don't know why the newspapers are in the windows - maybe they're painting or finishing the insides and don't want bugs.  

 I realized that I had long ago promised pictures of the marina dock and shore.  For one reason or another, I had forgotten to take pics every time I went in.  Or it was rainy.  So, herewith:  Savusavu Marina in all its glory. Walkway down to floating dock. Boat in various degrees of storage/repair The haul-out trailer.  If you look carefully, you'll see the 'tires' are actually three-strand anchor line.  Saves on flats, I guess... Another angle of the trailer.  There was a wooden rail system for the 'wheels' to ride on.  It seems to have been disassembled. The porch where we have the full-moon parties and music singalongs.

 You can have hockey.  You can have football.  And OMG, you can have baseball.  There is only one sport worth watching - rugby.  Fifteen players per side, no time outs, no stoppage of play, crazy-ass ball movement, no helmets.  It helps is you're relaxing on a 20M Deerfoot with a/c, drinking beer at 11 am and listening to the game on a French sports channel.  That's Darrel reclining on the settee.   But wait!  It gets better!  There is a version played here in the South Pacific using only seven players per side.  The Rugby Sevens games last only fifteen minutes and you can watch multiple games per sitting.  Personally, I prefer the Sevens.  

 ...fly swatter? Some boats have flies worse than mine.  I can stay ahead of them with my remaining fly swatter.  (Its brother was sacrificed to a too-enthusiastic effort a few weeks ago.)  Not all my fellow liveaboards have fly swatters, though, so I took it upon myself to rectify the situation.  With my naïveté firmly perched on my shoulder I walked from one end of town to the other looking for flyswatters.  I don't know what they're called here in Fiji, so I made swatting motions with my hand onto the countertop in most stores.  From the wide-eyed responses on the quickly retreating clerks I surmised that a different approach was needed. So a few days later I took my existing flyswatter with me.  Walking into a store, I would just point at it and make a questioning gesture.  At least I didn't scare anybody.  I struck paydirt at J Dayram Enterprises, Ltd.  The girl there took me to their display - they must have had thirty of the buggers.  Cheap Chinese flyswatters, but a

 Rainy and overcast.  Tony and Diane had offered to host HH last Friday.  Nobody had their phone numbers so we didn't know if the party was called off or not.  Debbie and Wayne (landlubbers, house renters) texted me at three for the decision.  Ever intrepid, I jumped in the dinghy ankle-deep in water and bailed during the rain.  Then I motored over to Tony's boat.  "I want to drink!" said Tony, standing shirtless with a drink in his hand.  Good enough.  I motored on through the rain, informing the mooring community that happy hour was on.  Back to the boat, text Debbie that I would pick them up at the dock at five.  Feeble attempt to dry off. Tony and Diane are recent additions.  Actually, re-additions.  Their boat has been here for some time; they went back to NZ to visit and just returned.  Their boat is a Lagoon 440 catamaran they bought from a charter company.  Four staterooms, four heads, and a massive covered back deck.  See accompanying photos and drool. So we