Sailing back to Denarau to meet Tom and resupply we started to realise that for the next few months our life was going to be pretty much moving between base camp 1, (Musket Cove), base camp 2 (Vuda Marina) and base camp 3 (Port Denarau). And we were reliably informed that it was just going to get hotter and hotter and at times that there would be a lot of rain. So when the Down Under Rally got in touch with us and told us that Australia was opening her borders to Yachts to give refuge from Cyclones we were very interested. However it was not decided as yet wether we would be allowed to quarantine on our boats or if we would have to quarantine for fourteen days in a hotel. The later did not appeal at all and I wasn’t that unhappy about being in Fiji but we decided to apply and see what the outcome was. John Hembrow was very helpful and we engaged an agent to smooth the process and then left it in the lap of the gods and got back to life in the tropics.
I had been suffering from several infected mosquito bites, a couple of which had turned into ulcers on my ankles. I hate taken antibiotics and had been using hydrochloride and antibiotic cream, but each time one healed I got another one. Then I got a tropical boil on my leg and a large area around that was very red, hot and swollen, but still I persevered with my own administrations. However waking up one morning with puss running down my thigh I was finally persuaded by Andrew, and some pretty gruesome pictures online of advance cases that can lead to amputation, to go and see the nurse in Musket cove and get some antibiotics. These boils are very common in the tropics and once the streptococci is in your system they will just keep coming back until properly treated, lesson well and truly learnt!
A direct consequence of this was that I could not get in the water, somewhat frustrating as we were in the middle of learning how to Kite foil. So for a change of scene we took ourselves back up the Yasava’s, spending our first night in Manta ray Bay where we found Pantagrual and a lot of our young crew mates from NV and the regatta. They came onboard for a drink, which turned into a few as the heavens opened and we all sheltered below. Chris went on deck and came back ashen faced, the dinghy that he had tied to our transom was no longer there. So off they all went with Andrew in the dark and a large search light to find it. With so many reefs around it could have got quite nasty but they were lucky and the vessel was retrieved in one piece.
We sailed up to the the Blue Lagoon and were rather pleased to find that we were the only boat there. Lots of room to tow Andrew around on the board as he got more and more proficient and at least the breeze kept me cool. He decided it was time to get the wing foil out and had been advised to tie the board on a rope onto the end of the boat to stop him moving too much and try reaching across the stern. Wing inflated for the first time he spent a couple of hours happily engaged whilst I read my book listening to the gentle splashing as he repeatedly feel into the water. Still it was a step in the right direction. To keep me exercised we went on a couple of hikes around the island. One was particularly memorable, a Julia Dallas tours on this occasion, where determined to find the Mangrove walk to the beach I managed to navigate us into the middle of the forest and get totally lost. Somewhat scratched and having fed a good few mosquitoes and other insects we did eventually make it back to the shore.
We headed back to Musket Cove, stopping for the night outside the Octopus resort. Musket held one of their spectacular Sunday Brunches and we availed ourselves of a couples massage which the resort were practically giving away! I could finally get back in the water and could join in the Wing foiling, this learning process being far harder than we thought it would be. Trying to stand on the board whilst stationary in the water was proving rather difficult for me but I was keen to catch himself up, after all I couldn’t have Andrew being better at it than I was!
We had to go back to Denarau for provisions and to pick up and instal our new shower pump, a relief to finally have the aft heads back in full working order. We also serviced the generator and I got a haircut which was long overdue, the last one just before leaving NZ. Then we headed out to the sand bank to the west of Vitu Levi, nick named Zatara flats as this was that boats favourite place to kite surf. So when they turned up we knew we were in the right place. We spent five solid days there practicing, Andrew progressed nicely and managed to foil in one direction and started trying to learn how to ride switch. I however just couldn’t get my head around standing up, relying too much on the wind in the wing to pull me up instead of committing to just stand up!! I lost count of how many times I hauled myself onto the effing board, charging around the bay on my knees wearing them and myself out!! By the end I had just about managed to sail in one direction but not on the foil. The skipper was wining the foiling race and I was getting more and more frustrated with it all, but at least I was getting fitter and sleeping well at night!!
Our minds then turned to the weather and the possible arrival of our first Cyclone that was forming out a sea East of Vanuatu. Trapped by a high pressure system it hung about for days building strength and we just had to wait and see where it was going to head to. We motored over to Denarau to provision, Andrew went to see an optician as his eyes were very dry and sore, the result of a small infection and too much time spent in the water. It became obvious that Cyclone Yasa was bound for Fiji and getting stronger all the time so we made our way to Vuda and began to strip the boat and prepare for the worst.
We were extremely nervous and unsure about the whole process but the staff in the marina were fantastic and advised us on exactly what to do. We had to strip our two foresails off, the Yankee always a struggle to wrestle into the saloon. All the halyards went to the top of the mast, everything had to be tied down, the Bimini and spray hood had to come off, the dinghy engine strapped to the side of the boat, the dinghy itself strapped to the davits and so it went on. We had to take our anchor off and tie it down on the deck and then they took our anchor chain and secured it with all the other boats to a central point in the middle of the marina. We had four ropes leading from the bow to various buoys at different angles and six ropes from the stern to the shore. Two were attached to metal anchor points with chain and then rope so that the rope wouldn’t chaff over the concrete and the others had to have reinforced plastic tubing where they went through the rings, it was like a giant cats cradle. Lastly all the fenders had to be tied under the boat so that they couldn’t ride up if the boats started hitting each other. All done in extreme heat, with lots of mosquitoes pestering us and with the Cyclone now a Cat five and looking like it was going to be a direct hit! And we had no boat insurance for a named storm....
Adam, the marina manager, held a meeting in the clubhouse to talk us through what we should expect. We had decided to stay on the boat for the duration so that we could look after her and I was very reassured when he pointed out that we were all probably much safer on our vessels anyway. After all they are built to weather storms and if they did sink they didn’t have far to go to reach the bottom. In any case the local hotel had decided that it was not safe to take in guests and so had cancelled all bookings and the four rooms in the yard where quite rightly taken by families with children.
Thankfully on the morning the Cyclone was due to hit it started to veer North away from us. Nevertheless they can change course and we were still likely to get some big winds. We pulled our anchor chain up hard and adjusted the lines so that our mast was not in line with either of the boats next to us and the yard put in a the boom barrier across the channel entrance to prevent any surge. Everyone from the marina went home, with the exception of a couple of brave volunteers who were going to remain in case there were any emergencies.The water and electricity supplies were cut off by the government and a Curfew was put in place. Lots of boats were tied up in the mangroves and Fiji was holding her breath.
I had been relatively chilled up until this point. Andrew was now horizontal on the sofa but I couldn’t settle at all. Cheryl, a seasoned Cyclone survivor living in the Marina, volunteered to run a net on the hour during the Cyclone and this was a great help. She kept it all very light hearted, encouraging the kids to sing to us all and kept everyone chatting. In the end the Cyclone made landfall seventy miles North of us and the most wind we recorded in the Marina was only forty four knots. At seven pm Cheryl made her last broadcast, someone said the birds had started singing again near their boat so they obviously thought the danger was past. We had been incredibly lucky and dodged a bullet but we were very aware that a lot of islanders had been badly hit and that there was going to be a lot of damage in other parts of Fiji.
The curfew was lifted the next day, the marina opened again and life was back to normal, for us. Reports of the extensive damage were beginning to filter through although the information was very sketchy at this point. Several boats met in the bar and we all had dinner together, breathing a huge sigh of relief and counting our many blessings. I wasn’t feeling on great form and by the morning I was really rather ill. At first I thought it was food poisoning but I was also completely exhausted and literally couldn’t summon the energy to get up, so then I thought it was just the shock of it all. In retrospect I think I may have had a mild form of Dengue fever as they were other cases in the marina. Luckily it only lasted a day but poor Andrew had to put the boat back together all on his own, including bending the Yankee on which was really quite a heroic feat! The boom was removed the next day and we were allowed out to sea again but annoyingly they ran out of gas in the diving bottle before it was our turn for our anchor chain to be released from the central buoy. So we had to stay in Vuda over the weekend before they could get some more. However apart from that we couldn’t fault the marina and how well they looked after us during the Cyclone. Vuda Marina is a very safe haven in a storm.
Andrew and I felt very strongly that having been so lucky ourselves we would like to do something to help those that had been hit by the Cyclone. Our friends on Pantagrual, a beautiful old 1920,s wooden race boat which had been in the Northern Lau had literally sunk in the Bay of Islands. We thought about going to help them but were not permitted to sail to the Lau islands at this time. So we decided to join Sea Mercy, a charity sending yachts out to the islands taking aid to out of the way places. It was almost Christmas Day and we were feeling a long way from home without our family to celebrate with so we decided this was the year to give something back. The Fiji branch is run by Jonathan and Donna and they soon had us busy helping sort the tools and supplies that we were going to take with us to help the villagers.
We were informed that we were going to go and help the island of Yandua where they had suffered extensive damage and one man had lost his life whilst sheltering in the school house. There were seven boats that were going to set off, our WhatsApp name SR DR Team 1. The first three Catamaran were loaded up with water makers and some solar panels and they set of a day before the rest of us whilst we waited for food supplies. I have to admit to being somewhat frustrated and horrified when we were then told that we would not be taking any food with us, we even offered to finance the purchase of some provisions. I was concerned that the advance team would have told the locals that we would be bringing food. This offer however was turned down, our main purpose would be to supply water to any villages in dire need from our water makers, help install the equipment that had been sent ahead and report back on the situation and the islanders needs.
Tom took me shopping so that I could re provision. I went to Flavio's the local Italian shop and treated us to some Italian meats, cheeses and a side of smoked salmon and I did buy the boat a small Christmas tree, so not a complete bah humbug after all. Then mid afternoon on 23rd December we left Port Denarau with empty buckets with lids, some shiny green and red Oxfam buckets filled with sanitary equipment, 96 plastic water bottles, some back packs, tarpaulins and a few tools. It seemed woefully inadequate but we had no experience in rescue missions so were happy to follow orders. We were not very happy however at the idea of night sailing through the reefs but at least we could follow our old tracks on the Raymarine. We actually had an uneventful crossing across Bligh Water and arrived in Yandua at eight am on Christmas Eve.
We weaved our way through the reef and dropped anchor so that we could have a meeting with the advance party, one of which had not had such successful entry through the reef and had damaged their rudder. We quickly ascertained that they had pretty much things under control in Yandua by installing a water maker and so the rest of us were therefore tasked to go ahead to the island of Galoa to assess the situation there.
Arriving in the bay with O2, Blue Spirit and Vauv’u we all dropped our anchors outside the village. From the water it was immediately apparent that there had been a lot of damage, it looked a complete mess. We made our way ashore with our Cava to make an offering to the chief and offer our services. Even though we were there on a mission of mercy we had been told that it was extremely important that we showed our respect to the village by offering Sevusevu. We were made extremely welcome when we arrived on the beach and were taken to the head man for the ceremony. We were very relieved to see large bags of rice outside all the houses, the Red Cross had got there before us and delivered emergency food items so no one was going to go hungry. The village’s water supply came from the mainland but the pipe had broken, however the boys soon established that there was enough water in the main tank to supply the villagers for about three weeks so water was not an immediate issue. The islanders had all had green plastic tanks outside of their homes to collect rain water in but since the pipe had been connected to the mainland no one had bothered to use them and they were now badly damaged by the winds as they had had no water in them, perhaps an example of how modern technology hadn’t really benefitted them in this crisis.
The girls were shown around the village and it was heartbreaking to see the devastation, twelve houses had been completely destroyed and the families had made shelters under tarpaulins. Some of them had lost absolutely everything except the clothes they were wearing, the seabed must have been littered with crockery and all their personal items. Little children huddled with their mothers on grass mats, all well and good whilst it wasn’t raining. We had to decide who to give our buckets too, full of soaps, detergent, nappies etc they were much sought after but we only had about forty and their were other villages to visit. We were so inspired talking to the villagers who were so grateful to us to come and help them and so cheerful in the face of such a disaster. It was the first time that they had suffered such a direct hit and it had clearly been a terrifying experience, you could see the trauma reflected in the children’s eyes. Some of the village had taken shelter in the church only to have the roof ripped off so they had to cower in the corners, others had gone up to the school the women and children in one hut and the men in another.
They had started to straighten things out and I shouldn’t have been surprised to see that the first thing that they had done was rescue all the pews from the church and arranged them outside on the grass. We had mentioned that we had a couple of tents with us that might offer shelter for a couple of families and they were very excited about having one of them, so that they could protect the priest from the elements whilst he conducted a service. When we did eventually give them a tent that is exactly what they did with it, but the whole village were thrilled so who are we to judge.
We arranged to go back the next afternoon on Christmas Day after lunch with our buckets, a chain saw and some tools. Andrew was awoken at about five o’clock the next morning by the sound of Jingle bells being sung on the beach, it brought a tear to his eye. The next morning we had a meeting on O2 and then went back to the boat to speak to our girls and Andrew’s parents, feeling a long way from home and pretty shell shocked by our experiences to date. Arriving on the beach we were welcomed but as most people were enjoying their very meagre Christmas lunch we decided to go and visit the School that had been pretty much destroyed. As we wondered around the village we were invited into several peoples homes to join them for lunch, such generosity when they had so little and not an invitation that we could have taken up! A few children had a plastic gun that was their only Christmas present, most had none but they were all smiling and enjoying their day, so different to life in the West.
Oxfam were insistent that we filled out a form with the names of each family that we gave a bucket to, took a picture of them receiving it and got them to sign their name. Considering it was only a shiny plastic bucket with some soap powder, ladies knickers, nappies and a comb in them this seemed a bit of an overkill. One proud elder grandfather came to collect his bucket for his family and I just couldn’t ask him to sign the paper, so I forged his signature. We felt though we had made a real difference to the islanders just by turning up and showing that we cared. We were overwhelmed by their positive attitude and were waved off from the beach with many thanks later that afternoon. A large bag of lollipops went down a storm, I wish I could have given each child so much more. We had drinks and nibbles on Hullabaloo for our fellow sailors that evening. Hardly traditional Christmas fair but it looked like a banquet compared to what we had seen the villagers eating.
The next morning Andrew and I were tasked by Jonathan to go and meet Olena and Pogeyan on the island of Yagaga across the bay as there were reports of them having lost twenty eight houses. Arriving ahead of the other two boats, who were making their way form Yandua, we launched the dinghy and set of to find the chief and perform Sevusevu. We explained our mission and asked what we could do to help. After much discussion amongst themselves they told us that they had running water and plenty of food but they would like us to mend the roof of their church which had been ripped of in the Cyclone. Again this was far more important then rehousing the homeless, some of whom were sheltering in the village hall and some in the badly damaged hurricane shelter that had been donated by the US several years before. Unlike the other village we didn’t get a very good vibe from these people. We arranged to come back with some buckets and a chain saw which we did when the other two boats had arrived only to find that they had already had a delivery of similar buckets that morning. A rather awkward situation arose whilst we negotiated how many buckets we would leave considering that they didn’t really need them. This village clearly didn’t have much need for us so we moved on.
Our next task was to go to the private island of Nokubati to meet the owner of the hotel and see what information we could glean about the villages further East. What was becoming more and more strange was the no-one seemed to know what the situation was and yet everyone seemed to have mobile phones. Andrew and I agreed to go and check out the small village on Mathuata Island whilst the others went further east. Arriving in the cut we had to leave the dinghy outside the reef and walk quite a long way to shore, the devastation becoming more and more apparent. After the Sevusevu we learnt about the village, a very small settlement it had been overlooked by the Red Cross so had received no food parcels, but they had a water supply and enough food for a couple of weeks. There had been a lot of damage in the village and the village hall was literally standing on its head! These people needed some help and we happily arranged to go back to the boat and get some supplies. Returning with our buckets, tools and some children’s clothes from New Zealand we found that the chief had come down to the beachfront and got the younger men to make a seat for us and him to sit on out of palm leaves. Two coconuts were plucked for us to drink from and we were all sat on the ground chatting away, apparently we were the first boat ever to visit them.
We continued east and caught up Olena and Pogeyan on Draudrau Island. They were already ashore and we took the dinghy in to meet up with them. We were met with more devastation but again help had arrived before us with both the Red Cross and the department of Fisheries and there was some water. The church had a rain catchment system into a large water tank the connection of which had broken in the Cyclone and no one had bothered to reconnect it. It took the boys thirty minutes to rig a reconnection, only to be handed the missing part by a villager who had seen it on the ground a few days before but hadn’t thought to pick it up let alone reconnect it!
We went to see the nurse to enquire about who was in need of our buckets and discovered that the village had already received some. She was a little aggressive with us pointing out that she needed help as well as she had lost part of her house. Then we discussed their medical needs. The only medicine that they had were paracetamol, for anything else they had to travel to a medical centre on the mainland. There was a young girl with a bandage around her leg and on enquiring after her I was told that she had sustained a large cut in the Cyclone and they were treating her by rubbing paracetamol into the wound! We had only five buckets left on Hullabaloo and I had to give them to someone so I went back to the boat to collect them, arriving back in the Nurses’s hut she was suddenly all smiles and the buckets were all distributed. I also handed her a tube of salon and told her how to administer it, but the buckets went down better.
We had by now reached the North Eastern side of the island and it was becoming apparent that there wasn’t much more for us to do. The other half of our party were in Mali helping put a water pump into the village and the only other request we had had was from the local chief we wanted us all to provide him with drinking water to fill up his personal tank which was the size of a small swimming pool. Considering he had another access to water we all declined. We had learnt that everyone says they need water wether they do or not, they have a strong belief in God and that he will provide. It is part of their laid back way of life and their charm and you cannot fault their cheerful spirit.
Our leader released us from our duties and Andrew and I headed off East sailing around the top of the island stopping for a couple of nights in Albert Cove on the island of Rabi. We had originally planned to attend the New Years Eve party at Musket Cove but we didn’t have time to sail back there. So I cooked us a special meal and we toasted the New Year under the stars hoping that 2021 was going to be an improvement on 2020 for the whole world.
Our destination was Savusavu to visit Ding. We spent a night in Fawn Harbour in the mangroves and got eaten by mosquitoes. We arrived in Savusavu and picked up a mooring ball for the night, very sad to see six yachts washed up on the shore and unsure if the pontoon was safe for us to tie up to. We were assured it was the next morning and so moved across. The town had been hit quite badly and Ding recounted over dinner how awful the winds had been, his boat luckily undamaged. It all sounded terrifying, as did the story of the sinking of Pantagrual as recounted to me by two of her crew members over lunch the next day.
Our freezer was not reaching temperature and so we called in a local man to help, he clearly didn’t have a clue what he was doing so the decision to close it down was made. A trip to the market was a very sad affair as their were no vegetables on the island so provisioning was interesting although the wonderful Sea Lovers Deli did offer up a few titbits and lots of wine, beer and rum as stocks were very low.
It was time to head back to Base camp. A night in Coconut point, a cracking sail across Bligh Water and a stop outside Lautoka before landing back at Musket cove and her beautiful blue waters. By this time I was feeling ill again, a very similar experience to my post hurricane sickness, bad enough not to go with Andrew for dinner with Anna & Martin. We spent some time cleaning the bottom of the boat which I did not enjoy due to the taropon lurking under the keel. Inquisitive fish they are scavengers and can be known to attach themselves to you by sucking onto your skin. I did not like the idea of that and screamed at them underwater every time they got near to me! We also spent a lot of time wing foiling but failed to foil in the light winds. More research on the internet and it was apparent we needed a bigger foil. Australia was still refusing to let us in so resigned to staying in Fiji we duly ordered one.
Whilst we were having a very sociable time the heat in the summer was really getting to us. It was unbearably hot and the sea offered no respite at 32 degrees! We were beginning to feel that we were rotting in the tropics and sitting around in bays not being able to move very far was never our bag. We bought a large fan and sat by that in the daytime but it was still too much. It was time to get of the boat and go and stay somewhere with air conditioning for a respite but before we could do that there was another Cyclone winging its way to us.
So we headed back to the mainland to give us time to prepare the boat and reprovision. On pulling the anchor up the windless gave up the ghost, luckily with only five meters to go but it was still a big job pulling it up by hand whilst trying not to hit the reef. We headed to Denarau because the services are better there than in Vuda and we needed to get the job done pretty quickly as we needed our anchor to chain to the central buoy in Vuda in the event of the Cyclone arriving. A man arrived and took it all apart, the problem was found and the windless sent to Lautoka to be reengineered. We crossed out fingers that it would be back before the Cyclone but of course it wasn’t and by then we were getting a little twitchy.
However it looked like it was only going to be a Cat 1 or 2 so Denarau made the decision not to clear the marina and all the staff went home. Vuda called and told us we had until midday to arrive before they closed the barrier, but with no anchor to tie to the central buoy with we decided we would be safer in Denarau and with everything crossed we hunkered down. Just before the curfew started we went for a walk on the golf course, keeping a beady eye on the creaking coconuts above us as the wind started to pick up. However it was soon obvious it was going to be a non event and we went up to the old Yacht club for a Pool and table tennis party organised by Geoff. Just in case we hadn’t bitten our finger nails near enough to the quick a few days later another Cyclone winged its way towards us, another non event thank the lord!
Finally the part for the windlass returned and after three attempts at refitting it we were back in business. Trying to disengage the electrical lead at the back of the boat I couldn’t get it to budge, eyebrows raised at my incompetence the skipper had a go, no luck. The only real consequence from the two Cyclones had been lots of rain and water had got into the fitting and had burnt out the two connections, we were very lucky we hadn’t had a fire onboard. We were also very lucky that they stocked the new fittings in the shop.
The heat by now was getting pretty unbearable and so we decided to treat ourselves to a weekend in a hotel. We had not got off the boat in almost a year. We headed back to Vuda, had a great impromptu dinner with Martin and Anna and then headed of to the Marriott for some much needed time from the boat. Due to the lack of tourists it was possible to get a really good deal and we were even more thrilled to find we had been upgraded to a Hut on stilts, something I had always wanted to stay in.So that was another box ticked, and we do like ticking boxes! Our hut was amazing and I could have happily have stayed put in it for the whole weekend. The resort was very quiet and as such had no atmosphere at all and with only one restaurant open with limited choices we decided to have room service for our second evening. We also managed to have a great massage and I even had a bath, such opulence!
Returning refreshed to the boat we headed back out to Musket Cove to continue rotting in the tropics. More boat cleaning and more frustrated wing foiling, the water still far too warm to offer any cooling properties. We got our fourth refusal for entry into Australia with no reason given and we were starting to get a little desperate. The idea of spending another year in Fiji with no way home was not looking at all appealing, and there was also the worry that the virus would get into the community at some stage which would be disastrous. So Andrew made one final plea and we crossed everything very tightly.
My birthday was looming so we planned a trip to Suva, leaving the boat in Vuda again and very keen to spend some time in some air conditioning. The new foil had arrived so before we left we went to pick it up in Lautoka and had the usual problem extracting it from customs but extract it we did. We hired a car and set off around the island, avoiding the many pot holes was rather like playing on the X box! Our first stop was a little bijou hotel in a Korotogo which looked fabulous online. On arrival we were rather disappointed with the reality of the accommodation, all a little tired probably as a result of the world circumstances. There was nowhere open for dinner except for a very American diner across the road by the petrol station. It did however do a very good burger, we did manage to get the air conditioning to work and we did have a private outside spa pool to cool of in before bed, so all was not lost.
On opening his emails the next morning Andrew found one from our agent in Australia telling us that we could now proceed to Australia! Hurrah and what a relief. We cut our stay in Korotogo short and managed to bring our stay in Suva forward by a day. Stopping in Pacific Harbour for lunch we found a little cafe and enjoyed a wander around the colourful shops. Arriving at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva we were delighted with our suite that we had treated ourselves to for my birthday as the prices had been greatly reduced. We were the only people on the first floor and as such we had the entire veranda around the hotel all to ourselves! We could have run naked around it and no-one would have been any the wiser. The hotel is very similar to Raffles in Singapore, old world colonial reeking of history and very empty! The park outside the hotel fills up during the day with all the locals playing sports and so there is a lovely atmosphere.
Suva is the capital of Fiji and so we were surprised at how under developed it was. Desperate for some new clothes as mine were all starting to rot, like me, I was very disappointed that there were no lovely shops. We went in search of a handbag for my birthday and finally found on in the only departmental store in town, but no shoes or clothes that we couldn’t have bought in Lautoka. We had a fantastic Chinese meal on our first night, the portions were enormous and i ordered too many dishes despite Andrew’s advice. I then felt I had to defend my actions and was up all night with indigestion! On our second night we had a great Italian where I lowered my order and consequently had a much better night.
My birthday dawned and I had a great day. After a lovely phone call with the girls I went for a morning swim before breakfast. We went to buy some Australian dollars which caused quite a problem. You are unable to buy foreign currency in Fiji unless you have a ticket for a flight and trying to explain that we were travelling to Australia on a boat caused much bewilderment but after much searching we found a man willing to break the rules. Sushi for lunch, such a treat and then back to the hotel for a massage. We were meeting Martin and Anna for dinner but sadly Anna was very unwell so the three of us enjoyed champagne on our balcony and then went out for dinner on the boat restaurant, missing our sickly friend but we had a lovely time nevertheless.
We were supposed to be spending another night in Volivoli at the North end of the island but there was a weather window to leave for Australia in a few days and we decided we should leave before Australia changed her mind and there was another Julien Madden oscillation that would prevent us from leaving. We had arrived in Suva via the Queens road so we decided to head North on the Kings road in the hope that it might be a little better maintained but if anything it was worse and we had to weave all over the place to avoid the potholes.
Arriving back at the boat we set about preparing for our voyage. We drove ourselves into Latouka and provisioned. We would have liked to go to Musket cove and say our goodbyes, and have a go with the new foil board but we sadly didn’t have time. There was a weather system on the North coast of Australia that looked like it could turn into a cyclone and so we couldn’t risk hanging around. We said goodby to our friends in Vuda, Tom and his family came over to the marina and Andrew presented him with the last of our Cava. He had become a real friend over the last few months and we were really sad to say goodbye. Customs came to Vuda on the Monday morning, Timo and Jo bought us breakfast and all the staff sang us a farewell song and then all came to shake our hands and say a personal goodbye, I felt like royalty!
We left immediately feeling very emotional. Sailing out of the marina and towards the reef I looked back and realised that we would probably never again find ourselves in such a special community so far away from home. We had a fabulous time, made many new friends and had some extraordinary experiences. But we are not suited to sitting around in bays for too long, the joy of cruising is all about moving on and in the current circumstances that wasn’t possible. So Australia offered new horizons and hopefully a way to get home and see our family in the not too distant future. In addition we were concerned with what would happen if Covid got into the country, were really struggling with the heat and not keen to experience another Cyclone!
As we motored out of the pass we had a phone call from our agent in Australia, had we left? Apparently Gladstone, where we were headed, no longer had any Quarantine accommodation for us, I told him we were all checked out and on our way. Just as we were about to lose our phone signal he called back to tell us we could go to Brisbane huge sighs of relief all round. Sails hoisted, sliding over the two meter waves we headed on to Australia, better get their quick before the next Cyclone or Australia changed her mind.....
