While Helen spent the day further cleaning the boat (after all, the polish needs to be polished) I spent more time on shore side efforts. I needed to drop the hire car off and had a broken sandal and watchstrap I wanted fixed so headed into Nadi town, via the car hire depot to fine appropriate services. I was also tasked with finding milk. This is not so easy as Fiji has been very short of milk for the last three months. I found 4 cartons in the supermarket here in the port commercial complex and took my maximum allowance of two. I learned later that although I was looking out for this it was soya milk which we didn’t want.
In Nadi town I found places to have my sandal and watch fixed. While waiting for the latter I found a supermarket with milk. I bought 2 cartons each of low fat and full milk thinking we could mix them. I learned later (arghh) that it was the low fat I should have got. I’m useless at shopping.
At least I got back with my sandal and watch (which can tell me how deep I’m free diving) all fixed.
After my 4-2 defeat on the milk front I decided to tackle a comparatively easy (compared to buying milk) Euler Problem (no 329) which I nailed fairly quickly.
Around this time I received the passport and flight information for our crew member, Lissa, for the New Zealand trip. Unfortunately, Paul, has had to pull out for personal reasons and although he might still be able to come, it’s looking unlikely.
I’ve read that I need to get a letter from immigration to ensure Lissa won’t have trouble getting into the country on a one way ticket. I decided to get this sorted out sooner rather than later so after lunch I took the two busses to the airport to visit the immigration office their. There I learned that the immigration office is open weekday mornings only. In between the two busses back to Denarau I popped back into the same supermarket as before and bought 4 more of the correct milk. I went the to same cashier as before who asked be if I’d drunk the previous 4 litres.
Settling down for the rest of the day I got on a run and tackled a few more Euler Problems nailing nos 347, 346, 323 and 317 making 5 in one day. Made me feel better for the milk fiasco.
In the evening we ate dinner early and went ashore to watch Fiji play South Africa. The first 10 minutes or so were quite tense but soon the match settled into a rout for Fiji. We felt sorry for the guys. But they have an uphill battle as it’s a very poor country. A month ago they didn’t even have the funds to get to New Zealand. One of the guys at our table witnessed one of the team members, a month ago, having to buy his own boots. You had to admire their spirit as they kept fighting until the end even though they were outclassed by the boks. Hopefully Englland can acquit themselves against Georgia this evening.