Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

In the morning we took a walk around Nanuya Island this time going around anti-clockwise. This meant we walked along the beach first, quickly, trying to avoid the passengers soon to disembark from the Blue Lagoon cruise ship. This was all timed for low tide so we could wade through the mangroves between Nanuya and Turtle Island. After a scramble over the rocks we visited the tea shop but found it closed. We returned through the backpackers resort on the east coast and along the path over the top of the hill above the Nanuya Island Resort. There we tried to book a meal for the evening only to find the place fully booked.

Later on in the morning everyone bar me went for a snorkel off the reef near to the beach used by the cruise ship. There the fish appear to be hand fed so are quite abundant and not shy. I had a few things to sort out so I got on with that.

After lunch everyone fell asleep – life aboard is after all quite exhausting. Later I took Brian and his family back to the nearby village to give two photos we’d printed (thanks Colin again for the paper) and a small donation for the church fund. We were again invited into Seine’s home for a short while.

After this we went for another snorkel on the reef off the resort which turned out to be merely ok. In the evening we ate aboard then watched a movie.

Today we’re heading north to Sawa-I-Lau where we’ll visit the caves and take some gifts to the school.

Our friends first full day in Fiji turned out to be fairly interesting although not without it’s comic disasters.

The morning was pretty sane stuff. We took the bus into Nadi where we ate breakfast. We then visited the market picking up some kava, fruit and veg. Next stop was the supermarket. I managed to negotiate two taxis into taking back to Denarau with all our shopping for $10 each. Not bad.

Soon we were off into a windless motor over to Treasure Island. We moored where we’d moored previously and ate lunch before we all went snorkeling. While snorkeling the sea chop began to slowly increase. Not a disaster at all but it took away the possibility of having nice flat seas to bob around in. This gave Holly a few problems with her snorkel but she struggled on.

After the group snorkel Brian and Janine swam ashore while Ben and Holly took the the kayak. The rest of the afternoon was spent resting while the swell built further.

By 4pm we’d had enough of the swell and decided to move around to the moorings on the far side of the island where, although the wind was now up to 20 knots, the sea was a little (but not much) calmer.

Just before 6 we took the dinghy ashore. By now the waves had picked up further. We had to dinghy into the waves to reach the beach which meant we all got pretty soaked, particularly Janine who got most of the deluge. She ended up soaked through and had to buy a new dress for the evening. Ashore we dragged the dinghy high up the beach for protection and opened the drain to let all the water out.

We paid our mooring / landing fees and settle down for a drink by the pool. Although we’d discussed coming to dinner at 7pm with a number of staff we later learned the 7pm slot was fully booked and we had to wait to 7:30pm. We did eventually eat. Three of us order steaks which were supposed to range from rare to medium but all came fairly well done. Tasty but chewy.

We decided to return to Dignity for desert. We got into the choppy water without too much incident but by the time we approached Dignity I realized I hadn’t replaced the drain plug and we were filling with water. Too late to do anything about that. Dinghying down wind was a lot easier than before but turning to land everyone onto Dignity placed us facing the chop again. Helen was first onto Dignity and first off it again as she lost her balance and fell into the water. She flew out of the water fairly quickly and the rest boarded the boat without further incident. We raised the dinghy allowing the copious amount of water to drain out.

Desert was banana flambee using some rum Brian and brought. Everyone was fairly exhausted and we all retired soon after.

Today we plan to sail as far north as we can. Hopefully we’ll reach Sawa-I-Lau but if not we should be able to reach the Blue Lagoon.

From time to time our starboard bilge alarm has gone off. We first noticed it coming up from New Zealand and it reappeared when our friends, Anne and John, were here. It went off again, the other day, after some of Helen’s cleaning efforts. The pattern suggested it was related to the starboard aft shower. I saw something similar to this on the port hull. The shower sump pump connects to a manifold shared with the secondary bilge pump. That means the shower water is only being held back from the bilge by the bilge pump valves. So I decided to take the valves out and clean it all up.

This turned out to be one of ‘those’ jobs. The pump has a good design in that the hoses have an easy release system. Then the bottom of the pump should be easy to remove by undoing the clamp that holds it on. Only it turned out the pump was mounted with the bottom against the inner hull so it couldn’t be removed. So I had to remove the whole pump. No problem. Only there was. To get to one of the screws to remove the pump I had to get past the sump pump for the forward shower which was in the way. So that had to be removed too. All this had to be done lying on my belly reaching down into the bilge which is not overly comfortable.

Having removed everything I disassembled the bilge pump and found it full of crud. I cleaned everything and sanded flat the metal plates and put it all back together. I had thought to rearrange the pumps to make access easier next time but I need a small electric drill, like a dremel, but I don’t have one. Getting the pumps pack on was extremely fiddly and I needed Helen’s help to pass things to me. Even then I needed three hands in spaces where only one would fit. Amazingly I finished the task without dropping a single thing into the bilge. This is extraordinary as I am convinced there are darker forces associated with bilges which suck vital objects into obscure corners and play tricks with your mind to make you flick things at the worst moment in random, unseen directions. Whether this all works or not we’ll soon know as our next set of friends arrive this evening.

One other bit of boat work, trivial in comparison, was to replace a bulb over the forward guest cabin bunk. Turns out these are the only two halogens left in the boat interior. Must have forgotten to replace them with LEDs. Another minor future project.

Later in the morning we went for a walk to the shop near the Sheraton and back. The rest of the day was R&R. I nailed another couple of Euler Problems then ran into a brick wall with a few more. I’m now 5 points away from the next milestone at 200 where I will cease to be classified as ‘Intermediate’. Something to aim for but the recent batch of low hanging fruit have been plucked and a little more thinking will be required to progress.

In the evening we splashed out to watch the England play while eating at the Hard Rock Cafe here. The wazzos had it on the wrong channel so we ended up watching the Fijian ‘wanted’ parade while England scored their first try. The match was rather scrappy and while England ratcheted up another win it was lackluster and shows us in need of significant improvement if we are to progress far beyond this easy group stage.

Today we have a few things to do. Soon we’ll be moving the boat onto dock next to ‘Nobel House‘ a mega yacht. I’ll make a return trip to the airport to try and sort out the paperwork with immigration while Helen gets busy with the hose. This evening our friends Brian, Janine and their kids fly in from Oz. Should be fun.