Moce, Sota Tale

In the morning Brian and I went ashore to try and find a memory stick John from Passages had loaned us the night before containing some pictures of us. I’d handed to Helen to look after but it ended up being left on the table. Although the girl working the bar had seen it when tidying up it was nowhere to be found in the morning. We picked up some sandwiches for breakfast and returned to the boat. I popped over to Passages to give our apologies as I felt quite bad. They were just leaving so I said our goodbyes too. They’re planning to leave Fiji from Savusavu so the next time we see them will be in NZ.

Brian and his family spent the day off the boat. Ben completed his scuba certification with Brian and Janine joining him on his last dive. Helen and stayed aboard for the relaxing and reading. I was particularly stiff from the evening games the night before. For some reason the balls of my feet feel as though I’ve been kicking a wall.

Helen’s previous Spaghetti Bolognaise had gone down so well the first time it was a firm favourite for our last night all together. It didn’t disappoint.

This morning Holly and Brian took the Dignity fun ride up the mast – or at least as far as each were comfortable. I’d found a washer on the deck earlier on so I went up to inspect the rigging to see if anything had dropped off anywhere. Everything looked fine so we have a new mystery.

By 8am we were ashore with all the family’s luggage. We had a final breakfast together before they boarded the 9am launch to go ashore. Under the guidance of the staff we all bid each other Moce, Sota Tale (Fijian for Goodbye, See You Again) while a guitar player sang Isa Lei, the Fijian farewell song.

We’ve had a good time with Brian and his family but now we need to detox and rest. First we took a walk around the island to work off a bit of breakfast and we’ve vowed, for today at least, to lay off the beer and wine.

Now begins the end game of our stay here in Fiji. For today this means I have begun the detailed weather watch on the area from Australia over to New Zealand and up to here. As the weather systems travel from west to east I can watch the systems leave Australia and cross the Tasman sea. Over the next few weeks I will become more familiar with the patterns and better able to pick a departure window late this month. This will become a daily exercise.