Just before 8am we moved the boat onto the dock. It requires a med style tie up where we have to drop the anchor and back in. At the time we had some squirly winds coming through which made controlling the boat in the tight space next to the big mega yacht, Nobel House, a little tricky. Worse still, I’d left the ratchet engaged when testing the manual deployment which meant the anchor didn’t drop. Helen couldn’t figure it out so I had to put the boat back into open water and sort the problem out.
Once secure I made my second trip to the airport. As it turned out, Tom on the boat to the other side of us was also going for the very same reason. We took the buses together and with my foreknowledge of the exact location of the immigration office we were able to make our way directly there. Obtaining the official letters allowing our respective crew to enter the country on a one way ticket turned out to be relatively painless as everyone who had to play a role in producing and signing it were there.
On the way back, via Nadi, we popped into the fruit market to pick up some (who’d have guessed) fruit.
It was midday by the time I returned. By then Helen had cleaned the deck and just about finished. We ate lunch, showered, then rested the afternoon. There were still a few things to do like filling up the spare can of fuel for the dinghy but not a lot.
In the evening Brian, Janine, Ben and Holly arrived. They were a couple of hours late due to complications at Sydney airport. Fortunately they had their luggage with them. We ended up staying up until nearly 1am in the morning chatting.
This morning we get busy. We’re off to Nadi for a look around and final provisioning. Once back on the boat we’ll be off. We have the possibility of half decent sailing over the next couple of days although the outlook is not as good as it appeared yesterday. By Thursday we lose the wind so we need to put some distance in before then.
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