Fahiti ho!

Normally I don’t make more than a mental note when a rock music icon dies.    Normally.    Not today. Christine McVie died today and I am in pain.    I loved her voice.    Most of you have never heard the Fleetwood Mac album ‘Future Games’ where she shines.    This was before Buckingham-Nicks.    And I’ll bet no one reading has ever heard Christine’s cover of the Etta James song ‘I’d Rather Be Blind’ with Chicken Shack back in the ‘60’s.    Call it up on Spotify - you won’t be disappointed. Taking nothing away from Stevie Nicks, I always considered Christine to be the heart and soul of Fleetwood Mac. I put on “Go Your Own Way’ and ‘Songbird’ from Rumours...    Loud.  Yeah I know she’s backup to LIndsay on ‘Go’ but it’s such a great song. ‘You Make Loving Fun’ even louder.   You had a hell of a career,    Christine.    I’ll miss you.

It has come to my attention that there may be people reading this blog who are not fully versed in how I came to be sitting on a sailboat outside Savusavu, Fiji on December 1 while they are shoveling snow. Luck and longevity, my friends. I met Joe back in 1987 or thereabouts.    He was my first GTA in Instrumental Analysis at MTU.    We became lifelong friends, had many adventures together in the Keweenaw (Copper Falls mine - don’t tell the mine inspector).    Joe developed and sold a successful business and he and Michelle bought a sailboat to become cruising sailors.    They have been across the pond, in the Med to Turkey, all around the Caribbean (including Cuba).    Vicki and I spent a week with them in Grenada and I helped them take Peregrine through the Panama Canal several years ago.    They sailed across the Pacific to French Polynesia and wound up in Fiji.    They came back to the states to visit in 2019 and ...

Joe and Michelle left yesterday.    This morning came the first crisis.    The coffee was AWOL.    I looked everywhere, tearing into lockers (found some interesting foodstuffs) even looking in the depths of the fridge thinking that the bag of coffee got somehow dumped in there by accident.    There was nearly a mutiny on board, and since I”m the only one here it would have been epic. Left leg:    You walk the plank. Right leg:    No, YOU walk the plank. I had kind of wondered why that 1 kg plastic container of Tiffin Natural Greek Probiotic Yoghurt (Extra Thick and Creamy) was sitting on the counter instead of being in the fridge where it seemingly belonged.    I had been moving it around looking for the bag of coffee.    I finally opened it, and there was the coffee.    Apparently Joe or Michelle had repurposed the yoghurt container for the coffee.    Mutiny averted. Left leg...

“Master Yoda, I need help.” “Hmmm.    Curse of the Jedi Master, have you?” “No, Master Yoda.    I have the curse of Steve Jobs.” “Hmmm.    Wise one, he was.” “Well his company isn’t so smart.” “Apple, that is?” “Yes, Master Yoda.    The company that has prided itself on user-friendly products that even a non-Jedi Master can use.” “So your problem what is?” “I wanted to take a video that was five minutes long and split it on my iPad into one-minute segments that I could upload to Instagram.    Apple makes this neat video editing package called iMovie that everyone raves about.    You can split video, you can rearrange segments, you can delete segments, you can add dancing can-can girls in the background for all I know but you can’t select a segment to save as a separate movie.” “Much trouble you have. Perhaps a pint of the cold brain juice help would be?” “I tried that, Master Yoda.    For five days I have been drinkin...

Sitting in the cockpit following the Michigan-OSU game on Google.    It’s not even eight in the morning here and they’re in the third quarter.    Kinda surreal. Some of the cruisers follow soccer (football to the rest of the world) live via some streaming service.    One guy even claimed that Prime was carrying sports now.    Ah - I’m not that interested. Had a nuclear physicist (retired) over for pizza last night.    He worked with Seaborg, even Teller at Livermore.    He’s 78 and still cruising Fiji, how about that?    He had a stroke years back and is very hard to understand.    I’m thinking of taking the iPad with me when I visit him so he can write what he wants to say.  End of the third quarter, MI leading.    Time for Dave to swim. Wow.    31 - 20 now.    Michigan came to play!    Dennis must be apoplectic… 45 - 23 now with three minutes to go.   ...

 You asked for it, you got it… Peregrine.  My home for the next four months.  38 foot Wauquiez.  4.5 foot draft with a daggerboard that extends to 12 feet down.  Makes pointing into the wind a breeze.  (Yes, pun intended.). Currently moored. Having a nuclear physicist over for pizza tonight.  The local bakery makes pizza rounds with sauce and cheese - you add whatever additional toppings you want.  Heat them in a frying pan.

 So apparently on Saturdays they slaughter pigs.  On the shore.  By our boat.  Found out last night at Thanksgiving dinner.  And from the sounds of it, the guys doing the slaughtering aren’t particularly good at killing the pig.  In fact, I heard stories of Fijians chasing a wayward pig down the highway.  JFC, guys.  Just stun the poor animals already.  I know the sausage process has to get started somewhere, but sitting here at eight in the morning listening to death squeals is not my idea of how to start the day.  Think I’ll avoid the mooring on the weekends once J&M leave. Other than the pig stories, dinner last night was phenomenal.  These cruisers know how to cook.  And tell tales of being a reef magnet.   I’m goin’ swimming.