New Crew Arrived

In the morning Helen and went ashore for fresh food and bread and to pick up mail. Our credit cards had finally arrived. Having taken Helen back to the boat I returned and made my way to the airport to pick up Lissa. I had to wait a while, as did she, as a result of the previous plane load taking extra time to clear in. Once met we made our way to Immigration to officially put Lissa onto the boat and into my responsibility. That’ll save us one set of paperwork and possible complication on the day we clear out.

We took the busses back to Denaru. In both cases we ended up in mini vans blaring loud music that ply the bus routes offering rides for the same fares – somewhat reminiscent of those we frequently used in the Caribbean.

We arrived in time for lunch and soon after we got out of Denaru. We had a mixed sail / motor sail over to Denaru with the wind starting in the north west and ending in the south. Once the boat was settled on a mooring we cracked open a beer to relax.

I took Lissa ashore so we could announce our arrival and to create our tab. I let Lissa have a little wonder while I headed back to the bar to see if there was anyone I knew there. In fact, I ran into Jock and Lianne from Just In Time along with a number of other Kiwis. We were soon chatting about a bunch of things. People are very much beginning to congregate prior to leaving for NZ later this month or early next.

Back on the boat we decided to BBQ aboard rather than ashore. After dinner Lissa was looking tired from her long day so we all retired quite early.

The weather forecast are continuing to point to an ideal departure on Sunday. Our intention was to be ready to depart at the earliest on Monday with a hope we’d be around for a little longer. There is a temptation to hang around and wait for the next weather window but this one looks too good to miss. I really, really, don’t want to leave Fiji but it looks like we must.

So it looks like we’ll have to make the best of today. We cannot clear out on Sunday so we’ll either have to leave on Monday or be a bit naughty and clear out on Friday and hide somewhere until Sunday. That decision will be based on tomorrow morning’s forecast.