atahualpa domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home3/aboarddi/public_html/blog/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114Helen and I stayed on the boat for the rest of the day. Sam went ashore a couple of times to hang out with some of the folks he’s met. He returned the second time around 10:30pm. His arrival woke me up so I went upstairs and chatted with him for a while.
Today we head west on our first leg to Lautoka. I have 5 legs plotted which we’ll more or less follow.
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I was able to contact the doctor fairly [...]]]>
I was able to contact the doctor fairly quickly and soon had an appointment. I went ashore and visited the doctor. I don’t think he had a clear idea of what was wrong suggesting possibly scurvy. He gave me a number of supplement, mainly vitamin C. I’ve started them and, oddly enough, am beginning to feel a little better.
While in the anchorage we got in contact with Inspiration Lady who we’ll probably meet up with tonight. We also ended up chatting with Evi on Wonderland who is here in the creek. We also noticed Endless in the anchorage and on the way back from the doctors I went over to visit. I ended up going aboard where Petr gave me a beer. We chatted for a while and agreed to go out together that evening along with George and Claudia from Dreamtime. I was able to collect the battens he’d brought up from New Zealand.
At 6pm we went ashore to the Coprashed meeting up with everyone there. It was nice to get back together again and catch up. We then went to the Back Deck to eat and have a few more beers. A good evening all round.
Sam met up with some locals and may end up staying out tonight. Apart from that we have a few chored to do around the boat which we’re not doing just yet due to rain. We’re back in Savusavu.
]]>I had a morning trip out in the rental car. I visited the auto shop and picked up 3 x 5 litre bottles of distilled water – one to give back to Peter [...]]]>
I had a morning trip out in the rental car. I visited the auto shop and picked up 3 x 5 litre bottles of distilled water – one to give back to Peter on Nymph. Next I picked up a stiff 5 litre container for my water maker project. Final stop was the other side of town to visit scrap metal merchants who picked up my old motors (not the ones I first visited). NZ$127 is not a fortune but it all helps. A good bit of news is that they offered $5 per kilo for my old battery cable – a lot better than the $1.20 the first lot offered. Still not a good price but it’s not an insult.
Back on the boat I took a look at the placement for my new container for the water maker project. I realized it wouldn’t be high enough and my current idea won’t fly. I came up with another couple of ideas for placing the container but both require a fair bit of extra work. Not sure how badly I want this done now.
Dan, who’s helping build the battery box, was interested in a lot of our old battery cable ended up taking quite a lot. This will help pay for his time on the box and gel coat work. It’s not an easy task fitting a strong box to a curved hull and I’m glad we’ve hired him for the work.
Just before lunch I lowered the dinghy and fit the outboard to test it out. It started ok but the throttle had seized. Specifically it looked like the cable (very much like a bicycle brake cable) had seized. I sprayed in some WD-40 to see if that would sort it out over lunch. Unfortunately it didn’t. When I started to take things apart a screw head sheared off. At that point I decided I needed a professional on the job.
So I drove round to the folks who serviced it last year and discovered they’d moved elsewhere. The folks next door turned out to service outboards and I told them of my dilemma. They told me to paddle over in the dinghy at the next high tide so they could take a look. That turned out to be the following day. Given that they may have to order parts and every day counted I decided to bring the outboard over in the car. Which I did. All fingers and toes have to be crossed on this one as this could delay our departure until next week.
I’m a bit peed off by this. I should really have tested the dinghy as soon as we were in the water and perhaps saved a day or two on this. Oh well. We needed the weekend off.
Joel and Bertrand popped by on the way to the airport to drop off our warranty and to say a final goodbye. It was nice to see them again. I gave them a DVD of the pictures I took while they were working.
We still turned out to have a couple more slow leaks on our fresh water circuit. I decided that enough was enough and put in our pressure reducer. Now the leaks have all gone but the showers aren’t so much fun.
I reread the manual for our sail drives resulting in a return to the auto shop so I could buy a foot pump and hoses necessary to blow the oil out of the sail drives. Got all this done for about $30 so I was quite pleased.
A couple of successful tests. I managed to send and receive email over the single side band radio in the evening. So that’s looking good. Even better, the radio doesn’t interfere with the new stereo. The last one used to make all sorts of buzzing sounds when I used the short wave. There’s even signs there may be better reliability at lower frequencies. In the past the USB serial device used to disconnect when I used lower frequencies. It hasn’t happened yet. Could just be luck but who knows. Something to watch over time.
I also tested our final handheld GPS (previously buried in junk) on my new nav station setup. It powered up and communicated fine. Great stuff.
Helen continued to clean and reorganize the boat. It’s hard work. She even made me reorganize my cluttered desk top by the nav station.
In the evening we had (Division II) Amy and Dan’s kids over to play on the XBox/Kinnect. They’d given us a lot of their monthly internet bandwidth to download one of the games that came with the kinnect. I didn’t realize it had to be downloaded as otherwise I would have sorted it all out in the Uk. Here it is a pain. I’d done the download along with everything else on Monday. Unfortunately the USB stick I’d put the 4.6GB game onto had gone corrupt so that turned out to be a waste of time. Because the kids will get a little less video for the next 3 weeks I had promised to make up by letting them play. Despite the setback I still owed them this. They had a fun time jumping around in front of the kinnect and they ended up going back nearly an hour late. With the way things are going we may have them back again before we leave.
We had a nice surprise after they left when Petr from Endless popped by to say hello. He was visiting the next door boat and saw us. So he came over for a quick meet and greet. Turns out we have similar plans for this year so that should be good.
The last set back for the day came when I headed down to our berth at the end of the day with my laptop. I dropped my wireless mouse and now the buttons are a bit stuffed and the wheel won’t turn. I’ll have a go at fixing it today but I’m not sure about it. We’ll see.
]]>In the afternoon Helen and I decided to walk to Abbey Caves, about three to four miles out of town. It was a very pleasant walk through rural countryside and a bit of a climb giving us good exercise. About a mile from the caves we were passing a home and just arriving was Neil, who we’d last met when he was a guest aboard Endless and joined us on the river trip at Likuri Island. What a pleasant surprise. We were soon chatting and it didn’t take long before we were invited in on our return from the caves.
We eventually found the caves area further along the road though much further than our map suggested. Unfortunately there was no information whatsoever available, not even a map of the area to give us an idea of what to expect or find. We followed the path in and found ‘Organ Cave’ into which we descended and waded along an underground stream to where there was no light whatsoever except for our torches and that of the glow worms when we turned the light off.
We explored the area a little further finding an interesting rocky zone called the Rock Garden. Little did we know, we’d completely missed two other caves but at least we’d seen the biggest one.
Heading back we stopped by Neil’s home and met his wife, two kids, dog and cat. We sufficient arm twisting we reluctantly agreed to a few beers too while we chatted about our experiences in Fiji and other things. Neil then took us over half the way back showing us a great view of the town. He would have taken us all the way in but we insisted we were out for the exercise. From there we walked back to town and ate out at a Thai restaurant in the town center.
]]>On the subject of weather, yesterday morning we saw signs of a ‘big fat high’ predicted to form and leave Australia. [...]]]>
On the subject of weather, yesterday morning we saw signs of a ‘big fat high’ predicted to form and leave Australia. This is often the herald of a good sailing window down to New Zealand. This mornings forecast reinforces the picture and, being a day later, gives us an extra days forecast on it and making the forecast more accurate. Had we been sitting here waiting to go we would be watching this one very closely, perhaps to leave in a couple of days. For now, we will watch it, and it’s aftermath, to learn something of the local weather.
We had a few visits in the morning. Petr from Endless popped by to say goodbye as they were off. Arnold from Drifter popped by to return our hard drive and lend us his. Don, Hannah and cat visited from Coramandel for a chat. Don’s a long time cruiser and Hannah is his current visitor/crew. He’s a jack of many trades including chiropractics. We agreed a swap of some of our surplus wine for some bone crunching later in the day.
Later in the day was around 4pm when we headed ashore. Don gave us both a good session on the massage tables here at the resort. The right hand side of my back was stiff. Apparently this was due to tension on the left hand side of my back which was caused by my left leg being shorter than the right which in turn was caused by my preference to step down onto my left leg. Plenty of action was taken on these causes and symptoms. It’s wasn’t overly painful but some strange things were done.
The Ireland v Wales match was on at 6pm but we forgot the summertime switch in NZ which hadn’t happened here. Therefore the match started at 5pm and we missed most of the first half. A few of us congregated around the resort TV to watch the rest of the match.
It turned out that Wayne, one of the resort owners, had Sky TV in his home within the resort. He let us go there to watch the England v France match. What a load of rubbish. England are now out. The second half had it’s excitement but we watched with our usual despair at our home team.
We are anticipating today’s match between South Africa and Australia with much excitement.
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I was fairly listless for the day surfing the internet at very slow speed. Every now and then we pick up a 3G signal and we’re off for a bit but it never lasts that long. I decided my brain needed some real exercise and went back to Project Euler and nailed problems 172, 153 & 158. It’s such a weird feeling as each time I go back to this kind of activity I feel at first as if I’ve gone senile. The questions look impossible to answer and I wonder if we’ve had one too many parties. But soon the gears become unstuck and the synapses start to shake and ideas flow. Not all at once. Sometimes I have to walk away, have a snooze, read a book to distract myself and then come back with new ideas. Always satisfying to answer a few more as I’m continuing to feel as though I’ve run out of ones I can do.
In the evening we went ashore during a period when the rain had eased off to have a meal with Endless. There we met Paulo from Supermario who we’d not seen since the Galapagos. We had been told that dinner would be sausages and mash but it ended up being pasta again. Deja Vu!! Helen ended up going back with Endless while I stayed for a while drinking cava with the staff and guests. I didn’t return until midnight. I slept very well but now I am in that post cava haze. No Euler problems this morning.
This weekend we’ll be watching the rugby quarter finals. They don’t have Sky TV here which means we can only watch the matches that are shown on the Fiji One local TV station. So today we get to watch Ireland v Wales but not England v France which we really wanted to see. But tomorrow we get to see South Africa v Australia which should be an excellent match.
]]>Once we’d selected all the wines we wanted to keep/couldn’t part with, we laid out all the rest. I dinghied over to Drifter to pick up Arnold so he could come over and pick which wines he wanted. He snapped up all the reds we had spare.
Later I visited Endless to discuss windlass relays with Petr. They’d had a problem raising their anchor but the problem had now gone away without action. An intermittent problem with raising ones anchor is not a good thing as one never wants to be delayed when raising the anchor, particularly in an emergency. We discussed a few options which I hope was helpful.
While there we decided to all take a trip up the nearby river. With Petr, Ola and Neil from Endless we were soon in our dinghies motoring the 5nm to Natadola Harbour to our south. The trip took us up the river amost to the dock where we’d gone to visit Sigatoka a few days ago. On the last bend there is a turn off to the right where a small creek winds it’s way through the mangroves where it finally widens to a very small lake which ends pretty close to the beach there. As a result of all the recent rain the main river was chocolatey brown. Worse, when we entered the creek we quickly encountered a log jam where a mass of bamboo and some trash had collected and wedged up. There was a nasty smell too which was soon attributed to a dead pig floating in the mass.
Not wanting to be put off our goal I started pushing the log jam with the dinghy hoping to push it further up river where it could break up. We were partially successful in this. The dinghy also created a path halfway through the mass. We were beginning to ride up over the mass so I backed off to rethink. Petr then gave a go in his dinghy. He powered in and rose over the last section. The mass was again pushed forward and as it did so closed in behind them, dead pig and all. There were nearly through though and with use of their oars made it the rest of the way. With the mass now much looser we were able to push our way through too. Helen had to use a bamboo pole to push the floating carcass aside as we didn’t want it touching the dinghy.
Once we were all through we were back to heading up the last stretch of creek. As we gained confidence we powered through almost at full speed occasionally slowing wary of potential submerged hazards. When we could go no further we tied off our dinghies to the mangroves and went ashore. A short way along the dirt track there we found a path to the beach and walked along that towards the resort area. This section of the island boasts a couple of hotels, has a fine beach and great surf.
We stopped for lunch and beer at the less posh hotel before heading a little further to visit the Intercontintal. Neil went for a brief swim while we had a brief walk around the grounds.
Soon it was time to return. Back in our dinghies we raced back up the creek. The log jam was still there and needed a bit of effort to clear but not as bad as before. Better still, the pig had floated off a short way so the stink wasn’t so bad.
Back down the river we decided to explore a side creek. We worked our way along it, at one point having to duck low to get under an old railway bridge. We pushed on slowly as the mangroves closed in over us. Eventually we decided enough was enough and turned around. Knowing there were no submerged obstacles we raced back. It felt like a scene out of Live and Let Die as we sped through the narrow channel through the mangroves.
Here is the track of our trip.
View Likuri Dinghy Ride in a larger map
We ended up on Endless for coffee/tea and biscuits before. We agreed to meet up on Dignity at 6pm for a few games of Fluxx which Petr really likes. Ola and Niel also enjoyed the session – perhaps a few new converts.
]]>Endless showed up just before all the rain. We made contact on the radio and agreed to go ashore for the evening meal/show. This turned out, again, to be very enjoyable. Similar but different to the last time.
]]>After lunch and a rest we cast off the mooring ball and had a very pleasant blue sky sail to Port Denaru where we found a mooring ball close to both Endless and Attitude.
We agreed to all meet up ashore for a meal out. Cathy and Neil were off to the airport with their grandson so they just stopped for a drink while Petr joined us for dinner. We went to Cardo’s which promised both Chinese food and meaty dishes. The boys all went for steak ribs and the girls went for Chinese. Unfortunately, being handled by different kitchens the Chinese arrived long after we’d finished our steaks.
Today is Anne and John’s last day aboard. We’re planning a shopping trip into Nadi this morning and no doubt a certain amount of time will be spent packing.
]]>Back on Dreamtime we warmed up while we waited for the others to return. Petr, having a more powerful outboard, headed straight back to the anchorage. Raising Dreamtime’s anchor turned out to be a problem as it had become tangled in coral/rock. I ended up free diving down the descending chain to take a look. I almost got it untangled before I ran out of breath. I didn’t enjoy the 40ft ascent to the surface but I was motivated. I put on my dive gear to finish the job off, forgetting to put the weights back on which made my descent a bit harder than it should. Once I’d freed the chain from the coral I used the chain to slow my ascent.
Back at the anchorage we relaxed the afternoon before going ashore at 5pm for the cooked pig. The few villagers remaining (some had left for Suva/the other side of the island) had cooked the pig along with taro root, taro leaves, plantains and casava in a ground oven covering everything over with leaved. The pig had been dismembered and the various parts intricately wrapped in woven leaves.
The food was delicious. The pig must have led a good life as it was pretty fatty but that was all at the surface and could be removed. We’d taken a lot of beer ashore to share with the villagers which pleased them no end. We also took some toys and balloons for the four small children there. The balloons never lasted long so I was kept busy inflating others. The children also had a lot of fun chasing my laser pointer around the place.
Our general plan is to wait here for a day or two for a front that is approaching. The front bring northerlies, then westerlies, either of which will be good for a sail down to Gau which will close the distance between here and Suva. The front itself will likely bring rain so we’ll leave once the worst is past. That’s the idea anyway.
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