Eco-friendly

 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 best to suck my flip flops off my feet.  Tim hopped over too and we dragged the boat to shore.  Oh, did I mention that Tim hadn't bothered to bring his oars?

We finally dragged the boat up on the beach.  Nice sand.  Turns to mud at the water's edge.  Must be magic.  Oh - eco, that's right.  Walk up the beach and spy a building.  And a horse.  And a dozen herd of cattle.  And broken windows on the building.  And an obviously abandoned eco resort.  There will be no cold beer on shore tonight.

Tim did have some oars that were for emergencies and stored in pieces in the dinghy locker.  They were home made from PVC pipe and some paddle flukes.  Well, this served as an emergency, IMHO.  He put them together and I oared gently out over the sticky, gooey mud flat.  As we made out way out to water deep enough for the motor, we asked ourselves who in their right mind would build a resort here?  There is no place to swim, there's no reef close by to snorkel.  I guess there's plenty of steaks if you want to slaughter a cow or two.  Oh, and you can ride one horse.

Out to Tim's boat for beers and a delicious dinner cooked by Van.  Fish with the heads on, my favorite.


Vudu Point is thirty miles away.  Tomorrow.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

He's baaaaaaack!

 "Zika one, Zika one, Zika two." "Zika one here.  What's up, Goose?" "Maverick - he's back." "Goose, we've been in Fiji now for a couple of years, infected hundreds of people, met all kinds of insect relatives...can you be more specific?" "The sailor guy - you know,  his friend was the purple mohawk-haired woman?" "Oh him.  I sort of thought he was gone for good." "Nope, he's back, Maverick.  Sitting on that same sailboat in Savusavu." "Well, I wonder where he's going to go from there.  Savusavu's nice, but once you walk around a few times you've seen it all." "I'll bet he goes out to the Lau islands." "Well, Goose, that's someplace we haven't been either.  That's a long distance for us to fly with our limited supply of ATP." "Maverick, what's ATP." "Goose - Google is your friend.  Actually you could ask Claude from Anthropic
Read more

Here we go again...

 Chilling in Redwood City, two days to the Fiji flight.  Have a roll-on chock full of stuff for Fiji, including donated prescription eyeglasses that I hope to distribute to locals in need of them.  Also a drone to check for bommies.  We'll see how long that lasts...may not make it out of CA.   Got word that my guitar is at the marina waiting for me.  I will scare the locals with my Jimmy Buffet covers - probably cause an international incident.   Also, my 12V freezer is on the way.  Ice for sundowners!  What a concept.  I may barter ice balls for food while out on the islands.   Bringing Borax for ants, Prevagen for Jeff, a wireless microphone setup for Brian, and weatherproof 12V/USB sockets for Peregrine.  Plus my sports action camera this time is waterproof to three meters without an enclosure.  Also have a spare micro-SD card. And...and...and - I remembered to add 'Exile on Main Street' to my stored music.  The trip is already a success.  I hope the folks at Vuda Marina
Read more

Seventy is the new forty

Image
Stardate Sept 2, 2023 There’s a hill towering above our anchorage.  If you look close at the picture below you can see the path cut into the hillside.  Look to the left of Nick’s mast. So the four of us decide to climb the stupid hill.  I had my Keen sandals which promised to give me good support on the hill.  We met the rest of the German tourists coming down the path.  They were wearing flip-flops!  “Ja, the path gets steep near the top.”  What they didn’t say was that the path was full of rolly pebbles and slick grass.  It took us a good half-hour, maybe forty minutes, to reach the top.  A nice view.  And it was free. Coming down I had visions of slipping and breaking an arm;  That would give a whole new meaning to the term ‘single handing’ a boat.  We all slipped a few times, but managed to get down in one piece.  It was after four pm when we hit the dinghies.  Jen and Den called for sundowners on their boat at five.  A quick swim to wash off the sweat and we made it on time
Read more