Well, it seems like it has been go, go, go since we arrived in Fiji. Dallas has been busy working on the outboard, which, after another clean of the carburetor and and a change of fuel, is now functional. We are all thankful for that after building our biceps paddling the quarter mile to the yacht club a couple of times a day. Ash has been catching up on laundry on the boat and getting a feel for the nightlife. I have been exploring the city by day with Ashley, James, and Shiroma. It’s bustling and interesting, but I think we are all ready to get out into the smaller islands and villages and experience some natural beauty and proper relaxation.

Shiroma is leaving Pura Vida today. I knew this was coming all along but am really sorry to see her go. However, she is moving aboard our friend Martin’s boat (Anima III), so we will catch up with them in the Yasawas in a week or so. I want to mention that Shiroma cooked an amazing meal the other night to celebrate Ashley’s birthday–masala curry with peanut and carrot, curried dhal with tomato and egg, mixed veggies (eggplant and pumpkin), fried pumpkin, roasted kumara, pineapple chutney. Oh, and yogurt/banana/cake for dessert! It was amazing, and Ashley and James ate up and went right to sleep after 33 hours of traveling! They seem to have recovered from jet lag now and are looking forward to setting sail tomorrow.

Getting ready to eat some very good pizza

"My Shiroma"

Outstanding

Our first stop is the nearby island of Beqa, which is supposed to have some of the best soft coral in the world and is a massive lagoon. There are fire walkers on the main island as well! We are very excited that our friend Colin will get to experience it with us. He arrives tonight!!

After 17 long days on the boat, we arrived in Suva on Thursday morning. I didn’t sleep much the night before. I could see the glow of the lights of Suva from about 40 miles away and started to get really excited about the proverbial terra firma and all of its space and modern conveniences–food not prepared by me, the chance to communicate with the rest of the world, and of course, fresh water showers. We dropped anchor outside Suva Harbor around 10:30 a.m. but unfortunately weren’t visited by customs and immigration officials until after 3:00, so by the time we paddled ashore (the outboard engine is still acting up–I’ll leave the technical explanation to Dallas) it was just about happy hour! Shiroma and I enjoyed nice, long, mostly-hot showers before joining the guys for some hot, inexpensive food and cold drinks. Ahhhh, the little things in life. ;-)

Approaching Suva, Fiji

Today Shiroma and I have been out stretching our legs and exploring the city of Suva, primarily the HUGE market of fruits, veggies, spices, and kava (a root that is commonly used here to make a drink with sedative properties). I have to be brief at the moment in order to get back to the boat for dinner, but I look forward to posting some of the photos I’ve taken today. The Fijian people that we have met so far have been extremely warm and seem to enjoy having their picture taken.

Our first glimpse of the market

Some unusual (to us) fruits and veggies

One man who was sweeping the floor at the market approached us and invited us to the back of the arena where his friends were drinking kava. I couldn’t resist the opportunity, and Shiroma reluctantly followed. It turned out to be a really nice introduction to Fijian culture. The kava tasted a little bitter but not bad and left my tongue feeling a little numb. The kind man who shared it with us said that they tend to mix it stronger in the comfort of their own home.  ;-)

Afternoon Kava

If being in Fiji wasn’t exciting enough, I have the added thrill of being able to see my sister tomorrow!! I haven’t seen Ashley for over a year, but she and her boyfriend James (who I have yet to meet) will be spending the next two weeks with us! It should be more than enough time to catch up, get her some needed R & R after several months of full time work and graduate school, and have some memorable adventures. Let the fun begin!!

Lat: 19 38.117 S
Lon: 178 56.617 W

Not long after writing about light winds, the wind started to pick up off of the starboard beam, and in no time we were sailing. With the wind came dense clouds and more rain. We did a bit of bashing to windward through the night as the winds built. We dropped the main and eventually had to reef the jib as well. Our crossing of the Tropic of Capricorn (23 degrees, 26 minutes South latitude) and formal entry back into the tropics was marked by rain, confused seas, and squally weather from a small but wet low.

The GRIB data had forecasted that we would start to enjoy more traditional tradewind sailing at about 22 degrees latitude, and yesterday morning the sun came up over mostly clear skies and a light SSE breeze was blowing from astern. After rigging the spinnaker sheets and then untangling the twisted sheets after the spinnaker was hoisted, we finally got the spinnaker set nicely for the first time in months and enjoyed an incredibly beautiful day of clear, sunny weather and downwind sailing. I was able to get several projects done, including finishing off the outboard recovery (I hope), and there was plenty of time for showers, drying out the boat, and lounging on deck in the gentle breeze. It wasn’t our fastest day, but we weren’t motoring and it was by far the most pleasant.

Always a beautiful sight

Lauren & Shiroma decided to try a new shower approach — holding onto the swim ladder while underway and dunking themselves in the ocean then climbing back onto the transom for lathering up. Lauren took her shower in about 2.5 knots of current and found it pretty strong. By time it was Shiroma’s turn we were doing about 3.5 knots and the force of the water rushing by the boat was too much for her to fully submerge and still be confident of being able to hold on and pull herself back on board, so she only got a partial dunking. I opted for a bucket on the transom. For some reason, we thought that we’d better buy tons of soap to take along before leaving the US. I can assure you that soap is readily available everywhere we’ve been, but we still have half a dozen bars or so of Zest. I’m not sure if it’s the brand or type of soap or just soap in general, but it won’t lather in salt water so we end up using shampoo as body wash for salt water bathing.

Oh yeah

I hate to ramble about sunset after doing it last blog and just spending a paragraph on showering, but it was really incredible last night. After the sun was completely below the horizon, you could look forward from the port side of the boat and see an orange glow near the horizon that faded into a beautiful dark blue and then into black as the brighter stars shone brightly overhead. The spinnaker was set nicely off the port bow to the right, with the moon just to the left a glowing a clear, bright white over a quarter of it’s surface and showing a pale white over the unlit three quarters. To the left of the moon and a bit lower in the sky, near where the sun had gone down, Venus was brilliant yellowish beacon against the darkening blue portion of the sky.

A brilliant night

This morning we had another wind change (I love it when it waits until morning instead of changing at 3 am). This time the wind was stronger and on the beam, so Ash and I dropped the spinnaker and set the main and jib. The non-sailors can skip this next part, but it ended up being a pretty good sequence, much better than our current level of practice would suggest. We first raised the jib with the spinnaker still up, blanketing it a bit to reduce the amount of wind it was getting while still sailing on the jib, then eased the leeward sheet, pulled the sock down, and lowered the whole thing into the leeward trampoline without a single hitch, which is not something that can be said for every spinnaker adventure. We used another trick to raise the main and avoid having to turn the engine on and motor into the wind. By sheeting the jib in all the way and easing the main out all the way to the edge of the traveller, we were able to sail close-hauled on the jib while the main, pointed directly into the wind, luffed and raised easily. We then fell off, and set the sails for a course10-12 miles east of the Great Astrolabe Reef. We’d managed to change sails without starting the engine or disturbing the autopilot — not much of an accomplishment for the real salty types, but good for us for our second morning back in the trades.

We’re now less than 100nm from Suva and plan to be hailing port control to enter the harbor at dawn. With any luck, we’ll be able to finish clearance tomorrow morning and enjoy the long anticipated landfall by afternoon.

Lat: 24 11.380′ S
Lon: 179 39.244′ W

After an unexpectedly good day of sailing on our first day out from Raoul, we’ve encountered the light winds we anticipated. We spent most of the second day motoring or motorsailing. Things were calm enough that Shiroma was feeling well, everyone was able to relax, and I was able to spend some time working on the outboard. I removed the carburetor, drained the sea water from it and then totally disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled it. By doing it in steps, I was able to get it back together with no “extra” or lost parts. After reinstalling it, I was able to start and run the outboard for a few seconds, so that’s good news. The carb does leak now and the choke is stuck, but those problems should be pretty easy to fix once we have another spell of good weather.

The night before last, we finally got some good wind, but it was more or less on the nose, forcing us to sail off course and pound into confused seas. While it was a bit uncomfortable, at least we were able to make some progress with the engines off. We spent much of yesterday surrounded by squalls, but didn’t actually get too much rain. The wind moved from the north to the west and lightened until eventually we were barely making 2.5 knots with the sails slapping and banging. Eventually we gave in and started an engine again. We’re now surrounded by more squalls and getting a bit of rain. I think we’re all dreaming of sunny days as we slowly make our way north.

Having just come from New Zealand, we have a reasonably good stock of supplies, and Lauren, Ash, and Shiroma have been using it to cook up some really great meals. The other night Ash made a delicious shepherd’s pie and last night Lauren topped our homemade burrito shells with pasta sauce, mushroom, cheese, asparagus, pineapple, green olives, and chicken to make some delicious Italian-style pizzas in a skillet.

Pizza!!

There hasn’t been much to see at sea aside from the Kermadecs, but we did have a good sighting the other day. Mahi mahi (aka Dorado, dolphin) are known to hang out around objects that are floating in the water. Once we had one check out the boat on a Pacific passage when we were drifting. We were all on deck when a good sized log floated by off to starboard. We didn’t have a line in the water, but I was about to open my mouth and say that it would be a good time to find a mahi mahi when one 2-3 feet long shot out of the water near the log and made an arc about 3 feet high in a jump to escape a predator below or the perceived threat of our boat passing nearby.

With all the cloudy weather of late, sunrises and sunsets haven’t been much to look at, but last night was an exception. The sky had slowly started to clear throughout the day, especially to the west, leaving a partly cloudy sky with a healthy scattering of cirrus and cumulus clouds in the direction of the sunset. As the sun neared the horizon, it became a glowing orange. The clouds near the horizon were intense shades of orange, and the many breaks among the clouds allowed the light to shine through and reflect off of clouds much higher in the sky so that even clouds that were almost overhead were glowing in almost transparent shades of bright pink, yellow, and orange. Very nice.

The photo almost does it justice

Lat: 27 17 57
Long: 178 38 50

After four days of being stuck on the boat in the Kermadecs without the possibility of going ashore (the NZ Department of Conservation is very strict about this), we were all getting restless to the point of craziness. It didn’t help that the sun never came out, and with winds gusting to ~60 knots each night from all directions, we were on shifts all night long to assure ourselves that our anchor wasn’t dragging toward the volcanic cliffs. Even so, we got enough sleep to have energy to burn during the day and had to find something to do with it. Beyond the boat maintenance and repairs that Dallas discussed, we ended up doing some cleaning (apparently vinegar works really well to break down salt and mildew), lots of cooking (mmmm, pumpkin bread), a bit of dancing in the cockpit to Ash’s eclectic playlist of highlights from the last two decades (OK, that was just me), and a bit of explaining lyrics from the songs to Shiroma, who just started speaking fluent English 7 months ago while in NZ (very impressive!).

One of the best uses of restless energy for Shiroma and I was taking a bath in the sea in the midst of winds strong enough to flip over the dinghy and dislodge the solar panels. The water temperature was just right, and we just had to hang on to the swim ladder so that we wouldn’t get carried out to sea! Shiroma thought it was especially funny that I decided to shave….”you took your shaver into a hurricane?!” Why not?

Thursday morning we awoke to a sunny, blue sky and calm seas (finally!). The anchor pulled up without too much difficulty considering how dug in it must have been, and we were out of the bay by 7 a.m.. Raul Island looked especially gorgeous as we were leaving, and the large dolphins and sea birds that had welcomed us in came back to see us off.

Good bye Kermadecs!

We were surprised at the size of the dolphins

We weren’t expecting any wind but ended up able to sail along the rhumb line most of the day. We’ve had the bimini rolled up since we almost lost it in the wind, and sitting alone in the cockpit under blue skies with wispy white clouds, surrounded by calm but undulating seas, I decided that sailing is not the worst way to travel after all!

Today (Friday) is overcast and the wind has virtually died, so we are motoring, but we are moving forward. Shiroma hasn’t been too queasy since leaving the Kermadecs and has started doing night watches, which is really good for her morale. She and Ash seem to have called a truce for the moment, but I have a feeling that both of them will be leaping to the dock to get a break from the boat and each other when we get to Fiji. Only 580 miles to go…