Position: 16 degrees, 05 minutes south; 179 degrees, 11 minutes west (If you put these coordinates in Google Earth, you’ll see that this spot is a mile from the island. There is a shallow reef between this nice anchorage and the island proper. A long dinghy ride tomorrow-and wet if the wind holds up)

(By Ann) 5:30 am announced itself with an alarm clock. Time to get up and get going. It is time for adventure sailing. As cruisers you often get caught up with where others have gone and find yourself following the trail of other cruisers. Fun but not always really special. On Charisma we sometimes like to do it “our way”! Thus the early wake up call.

A little blue water sailing always lifts the spirits.

After a long day, here's where we ended up. Not bad! (you can see Charisma's shadow on the sand 30 feet down)

We picked up anchor at 6 am from our lovely little spot at Budd Reef and had to retrace our steps back to the opening and around the outside to the Rabi Channel which would lead to….the northeastern most island in Fiji…Nagalalevu or Quelaleu – the spelling depends on the chart or map you are looking at.

We knew it was a 40-something mile trip just to the entrance of a large lagoon that is the home of Quelalevu. Oh, and it took another 8 miles to get across the lagoon. Charisma makes about 6 miles per hour so do the math… to hit both passes with the required visibility to avoid reefs, we needed to get moving early. We were rewarded for the early start with a beautiful sunrise which made it easier to get going.

It was a glorious sail up the Rabi Channel. Bob had fun playing with adjustments on the new sails. The repair to the stays’l held beautifully. Charisma was smiling and the day was full of sun and deep blue water. Well most of the day was.

When we took Curly’s class on cruising in Fiji he emphasized “visibility”. Don’t move if you can’t see! Makes sense. So Bob checks the grib files to make sure the cloud cover is not excessive, rain is not expected, and what kind of wind we should expect. It looked pretty good for heading northeast. We jumped at the chance to go somewhere that no one else usually goes. We heard from our friends on Eagle’s Wings that they came to Quelelevu last year and expected to be lonely. They were surprised by five fishermen who were temporarily using the island as a base. We do not know what to expect this year,but anchored here we have seen smoke on the beach, so we do know someone is there.

But back to Curly’s rules: visibility….yeah, we made it to the pass at 2 pm. Unfortunately we could see a squall and some additional clouds coming our way. Our charts showed we still had almost 8 miles to go inside the lagoon to get to the anchorage. Yuk! Later both Bob and I talked about being prepared to get to the anchorage with no visibility and turning around, heading back out the pass and waiting until morning if we just couldn’t see well enough to avoid the reefs. Not our first choice, but a prudent choice.

As JHam would note, our tattoo mana must have been working. (I was silently praying the whole way across the big lagoon too.) Just as the bottom depth started reading 50, 40, 30…the sun broke out of the clouds and showed us the way! I love a little guidance from above. We circled once and dropped anchor on the second pass in 20 feet of pure sand! The anchor dug deep and Bob let out a lot of scope, so we can sleep well knowing we’re well dug in.

(From Bob: The other amazing thing is that for the whole 40 something miles I had Charisma set close hauled. That is to say we were sailing as close to the wind as we possibly could. I wasn’t particularly trying for a given course, I just knew we had to sail as high as possible given the wind direction. Wilson was steering the whole way as well. With that combination-magically we actually were delivered right, exactly, at the entrance to the reef (which is only a few hundred yards wide). It was as if we were meant to be here).

Just in time to make the traditional Charisma and enjoy the best Fijian sunset yet. Yep, adventure cruising has its advantages! Tomorrow we attack the shore…which had smoke rising from a hut as we arrived! New friends to meet tomorrow!

Position: 16 degrees, 29 minutes south; 179 degrees, 43 minutes west

A nice little anchorage at Budd Reef.

I couldn’t think what else to call this. A full day. That’s kind of what this day has been-along with a few surprises.

Right now, it’s after dinner, dark, a half-moon illuminating a sky that’s about 80% clear. We’re backed into a sweet little cove at Budd Reef (the lee side of Yavu Island which is one of three islands inside Budd Reef) north of Taveuni Island. We motor sailed here-about 12 miles from Taveuni-in 20 something knots of wind and 5 foot waves. It’s supposed to be an atoll of sorts, but the reef surrounding the inside islands is pretty nonexistent. We sailed through the SW corner and just saw a little greenish/yellow water where the barrier reef was noted on the chart. Not much else except the depth changed from too deep for the depthmeter to register, to about 280 feet the rest of the way in. Anyway, here we are.

We’re anchored stern in, about two boat lengths from a hard shelf reef with a little beach another 10 yards in. A couple years ago I never would have attempted anchoring in a spot like this, but we’re learning to be more creative out here where there’s not always “the perfect spot”. We circled in really close to the reef, then turned straight out about 100 feet. I dropped the anchor on a patch of sand and we backed down letting out chain until we were about three boat lengths from the reef. At that point I locked the chain and we backed down hard until we were ½ boat length from the reef and saw the anchor was holding solid. We slowly eased the engine back to idle and the weight of the chain (in 30-40 feet of water) pulled us out as it settled. So here we are. Ann dove on the anchor and confirmed it’s buried in sand. We know that if the wind blows us hard in to the reef we’ll stop before we get there and with the little back eddy we have, we’ll stay about two boat lengths from the reef all night. At least that’s the plan.

The other notable event of the day has to do with Ann diving naked into the cove-but let’s talk about the morning first. Back on Taveuni we awoke to a little less wind than we’ve had the last two days, but the GRIBS showed it was going to increase. Bummer. We would have been boat bound if we had stayed another day. So we took advantage of the lighter morning winds to put the engine on the dinghy and head in for supplies. We were very low on fresh fruit and dangerously low on ginger ale for our Charismas. At very low tide, it was a little dicey winding out way in through the reef from ¼ mile out where we were anchored, but we made it. We left the dinghy anchored in shallow water (the tide was coming in) and waded in to the beach. There’s a little store about 200 yards to the left and a vegetable/fruit stand about another 75 yards past that. Armed with our heavy carry sacks, we bought enough supplies to last us a while (we’re not sure at this point when we’ll see fresh food again-likely not for at least three weeks as we’re on an adventure sailing leg of the journey to some outer islands where there are few to zero people and supplies). Anyway, mission accomplished and back to the dinghy, brave the reef at somewhat higher water, get back to Charisma and get ready to leave the anchorage.

Only problem with anchoring the dinghy in shallow water, is when the tide comes in if you didn't time it right.

Leaving an anchorage means: unloading and storing all the food, putting up the dinghy engine, hauling the dinghy up on deck and securing it on the foredeck, closing all the hatches, plotting the course out through the reef, getting the snubber off the anchor line, briefing the exit plan, turning on the engine and hauling up the chain, all the while watching out that we don’t hit the reef on either side of us and once the anchor is up, and aiming out through the opening. Whew! Then a nice three hour motor sail up to Budd Reef where we’re poised for the next leg tomorrow. That’s the real destination-Nagelelevu, also sometimes spelled Quelelevu. Anyway, it’s the northeast most island in the Fiji chain. Part of the Ringgold island group. Not often visited, but supposed to be beautiful, wild and unpopulated. For many years it was rumored there was only one “old man” living on the island. Seems like he has passed on and now there might be some fishermen occasionally visiting. We’ll see and report. It should be about a seven hour sail there tomorrow. We’ll be leaving at 0600 so we get there with (hopefully) good light to see the reef for entering the lagoon.

OK, so you’ve been waiting for the naked Ann diving story, eh? Well, we had both finished bathing for the day. Ann was doing some laundry in the galley and I was in the head shaving when we both heard a sharp “thunk” on the deck. What the heck was that? After rolling some ideas through my mind I realized it could only be one thing. Our internet thingy. I had put it in a rainproof pouch and hauled it up the flag halyard and darned if we didn’t get internet from the island of Rabi about 10 miles away. Problem is it came loose (how in the world that happened, I have no idea), hit the deck and bounced over the side. Once we realized what the noise was, Ann hit the deck in one bound shedding clothes along the way. Grabbing her fins, mask and snorkel she lept over the side trying to get the thing. The last thing I saw was her lily white bum glowing in the late afternoon light as she slid below the turquoise blue of the water. Problem was the package was sitting on the bottom thirty feet (by the depth sounder) down. “Give me the boat hook!” she shouted while I was changing into my swimming suit. I tossed it to her and she dove for the second time trying to get close enough to hook the thing. Even with the boat hook she came up short. Ann has only really been snorkeling and diving for a year or so and while she’s getting pretty good, 30 feet is a long way down. I don’t think I’ve ever free dived 30 feet before, but our internet connection was at risk, so I now jumped in the water (more suitably clothed) and looked where Ann was pointing. Yipes, that’s a loooonnng way down. OK, hyperventilate three times (no more or you can make yourself pass out-not good) hold the last one and DIVE. Down, down, down-almost there-try to grab it, missed-should I go up, no I’m down here, keep going-one more grab, GOT IT! Now up. You look up at this point and see how deep you are-Charisma looks so far away- and feel your lungs burning out and think, “Am I really going to make it back up?” Go, go, go…break the water-BREATH! Wow, that was a deep dive for me. (Yay, Bob!)

The bad news though is the dongle looks DOA. It got wet and likely is dead. Ever optimistic, we have it in a bag of rice hoping that may dry the thing out. We’ll see, but we may be “off line”, other than this blog which we will continue to post daily via shortwave radio, until we can replace the internet thingy. The earliest that might happen is about three weeks or so when we might get to Suva.

Oh well. We’re going to be out of internet range anyway for a few weeks as we visit some outlying islands, so “that’s life”.

Anyone who needs to reach us can either send to our sailmail account or post to this blog. We’ll get back to you when we can.

In the meantime, we have a beautiful night to enjoy anchored off this deserted island.

What do you do when you catch a Marlin?

...Take out the hook VERY carefully and keep the bill pointed AWAY from your body.

First a Blue Marlin and then the Green Flash. Not a bad day.

It started pretty grey. Ann did he sunrise watch and said the sunrise was absolutely an unremarkable non-event. Overcast and a bit chilly, but as the day progressed it warmed and the sun peaked out to light the water up with its deep blue/purple glow. Then about 1200, the unmistakable sound of a clothespin hitting the deck -thwak! Fish on! When we use a handline, we pin it to a lifeline with a clothespin so we can hear if something hits it. It yanks the line, pulls the pin off and thwack.

Actually it was a bit less dramatic than that as Ann was asleep, so I had to go down below and gently wake her. “Fish on!”, I whispered. Then waiting for her to come on deck, I tested the line. This was a pretty big one, so taking no chances, I pulled in the hydro-gen which trails on the other side of the boat, put the rudder for the wind vane up so the fish wouldn’t tangle that on the way in and then after testing the line, decided I had to furl the jib and heave to as well to slow down as I couldn’t pull the line in while we were moving.

By this time, Ann was up and had put shoes on and came on deck. We were ready and started to pull in the line. It didn’t want to come in. After a bit of pulling we got it close, but it dove under the boat. I was afraid it would tangle on the rudder, but after some coercing, got it to come up from under the boat and to my surprise, a marlin half jumped as it came up from under the boat. He was pretty tired, so didn’t put up too much of a fight other than being pretty heavy. Not a huge one (they grow to over 10 feet); I estimate this one was in the 5-foot range.

The minute I realized we had a billfish, I knew we were going to release it so tried to be gentle pulling it to the boat. The only way I like marlin is smoked and we don’t have a smoker, so lucky fish! Now how in the heck to I get the hook out if we’re not going to gaff and land the guy? I was being extra careful as I have seen pictures and heard of people getting gored by billfish as they were trying to take out the hook. You lean over the side and the fish gives a great tail lunge and faster than you can say, “Zorro!” you have a two foot spear through your side. So, with great care for both me and the fish I maneuvered it to where I could grab the bill with my gloved hand. He wasn’t complaining so I pulled him up high enough to work the hook which came out fairly readily. A quick goodbye and I dropped the bill and he swam away-a bit woozy for the fight but in one piece. As was I.

If catching a marlin wasn’t enough to make a great day, Ann and I were having our Charisma watching the sunset and to our great surprise, as the sun went down we saw the longest green flash we have seen in our cruising. If the conditions are just right, there is a flash of a fluorescent green just as the sun sets. Tonight’s flash lasted about ten seconds.

As I write this the moon is full and following us on one side of Charisma and the Southern Cross on the other. All the clouds have cleared and we have a perfect night with about ten knots of wind on our beam taking us the last 25 miles into Savusavu. I expect we’ll get in about midnight. Not sure yet if we’re going to wait outside or try for a mooring. We’ll see what the conditions look like as we get up to the river.

Yes, a very colorful day.

Entering the pass to leave through the reef.

Here's the reason you have to pay attention leaving through the reef. This is what greets you on both sides. No mistakes please!

Goodbye Fulanga. What a lovely time we had. We hope to see you again!

We’re about 35 miles West, Nor’west of Fulanga and already missing all our friends there. There’s not a place like it in the world that we’ve ever visited before. I hope we get to return sometime.

So for now, we’re looking forward at new adventures and new friends. It’s 1900 and we’ve had a very basic dinner-some bread, cheese and for me a beer since I’m going off watch once this note is sent. Of course we had a Charisma as the sun set around 1700 and now a bright, round, almost-full moon is lighting the way. We have 15-20 knot winds out of the SW and 2 meter swell. All in all a nice night although it’s a bit rolly, or maybe after sitting in a nice quiet lagoon for three weeks we’re just out of practice. Let’s call it a bit of both and look forward to a lovely night of sailing shall we?

Savusavu is about 150 miles to the NNW from our position. We’ll be hard pressed to make it tomorrow while it’s still light. If the weather’s benign, we’ll try and slip in a grab a mooring in the river, but otherwise we’ll have to heave to for some hours in the night and wait for daylight. We also have a possible option to anchor about four miles short of town near the Coustea resort. Depends how many other boats are there. It’s a very small anchorage and I don’t want to try and find the sandy shelf whilst disturbing a bunch of other folks, but if there are only a couple boats there that may be an option.

I almost forgot to mention the excitement of the day. Coming out the pass at Fulanga. We’ve been dreading this for several days now as it’s full moon tides. The high is very high, the low very low and the upshort is roaring tides. All that water in the four mile wide lagoon has to come out this pass (and over the adjacent reef), so it can be a bit hairy. You typically want to go out on “low slack water”. Ideally the water sits still for 20 minutes or so between roaring out on the low and roaring back in on the high. It was realllly high last night too. The beach we were anchored off of disappeared, swallowed by the tide which went all the way up into the vegetation. Gulp!

So, we estimated that sometime around 1230 would do the trick. You never know for sure as there’s no tide station on the island. You’re getting your tide info from somewhere a couple hundred miles away like Suva, then estimating how many hours difference the tides may be at distant Fulanga.

By the way. Why all the drama you ask? If you miss the tide, there can be six foot standing waves and a 7 knot current. Sounds dramatic, but we’ve spoken with folks who have experienced them and never, ever want to do that again.

Anyway, we tentatively nosed out toward the pass. We could see some standing waves but they didn’t look too bad and the current a couple hundred yards inside was doing about 2.5 knots outbound, so we sucked it up and went. Turned out to be not too bad. We were able to go to the side of the pass right next to the reef to miss the standing waves. The current was running about 5 knots out. I had Charisma on idle forward and we were doing about 7.5 knots outbound. Yippeee! A sled ride short of Mr. Toad’s wild ride. The “river” spit us out into the ocean and I breathed a sigh of relief as we roared past the outside of the reef into deep water.

We are going to miss this place.

A final note. About two hours ago just at sunset we got a big hit on the handline. Fish on! I went to check it and alas, fish off. I pulled it in expecting that maybe the lure had broken off. Nope, turns out that some dummy (that would be me) forgot to take the protector off the pointy end of the hook. Fish on, then off. Well, we have a can of pumpkin raviolis for tomorrow night’s dinner. Let’s hope we catch a fish.

Calm before the storm.

Oh joy.

It was an “anchor watch night”. Our cruising friends will have cringed by now knowing what that means. For everyone else, here’s the scoop.

I believe I left off last night’s post with distant thunder and the statement something like: “we’ll take a chance on where we’re anchored”. Or something like that.

Well, our chances became 100% lightning, thunder and a lee shore. The wind swung to the NW which is has not done in the three weeks we’ve been here. Our “bomb proof” anchorage became a trap. The only thing between us the shore was a 45 lb CQR anchor. Fortunately it did a yeoman’s job. BUT…I had no way of knowing how we would do so at 1230 I woke up to the “wrong feeling”. Knowing that feeling means, “Get your butt up and look around”, I listened to my muse (oh, and Ann was tapping me on the shoulder too having been awakened by a wind change) and before I was even out of bed the lightning nearly blinded me. Once on deck I immediately saw that the wind had swung around to the “impossible” position and was now pinning us down against the beach. I don’t think we were more than 30 meters off of the shore, if that.

So, anchor watch. A night cat napping in the cockpit was in order. I sat up here with my cup of tea and some biscuits and made the best out of not sleeping. Which meant I had a first hand seat watching nature’s incredible light show right in my back yard. To be honest, I would rather the light show had been in someone else’s backyard, but it WAS incredible. Bolts of electricity were zinging across the sky from one cloud to another. Thunder would add an exclamation point to my singed eyeballs. And I sat here in Charisma’s cockpit listening to the waves slap the big rock about 30 meters away hoping the anchor was holding. Why do we do the anchor watch? As we cruiser’s say: “Don’t wreak your house.” This was a case of the house being at risk. Sleep is a luxury at such times.

Fast forward to around 0500 when the torrential rain started. Now I had an excuse to go into the cabin. At this point the wind had swung almost 360 degrees from the day before so we were essentially back to where I put the anchor in the first place. Time to consult the gps. Amazingly, we were dead on with where the anchor was when we first got here over three weeks ago. Way to go CQR! And by the way, Ann’s rain catcher in it’s beta test state delivered 5 gallons of fresh water into one of our buckets. If we had rigged it into the water tank deck fitting, I think we would have filled our 100 gallon tank! Ann was thrilled! (Joan, you can stop the rain dance!)

As morning came, the wind eased and it turned into a gorgeous day. The kind of day that makes us want to stay here another three weeks, but we have to go as our supplies are running low.

With no wind and flat water we were able to take a quick run into the village with our dinghy to say a final good-by to all our new friends. Ann made a lovely wall hanging for “Ma” that she brought in and of course we couldn’t get away without Ma and George gifting us with a huge papaya, some homemade bread and a giant pumpkin (note: their pumpkins are shaped more like giant squashes but still have the flavor and texture of pumpkin-you peel it and then bake it to use). You also can never just drop by and leave. You must stay for tea or lunch. We managed to beg off on lunch and just have tea. The one disconcerting thing about staying for a meal of any sort is the Fijian way is to feed you, but not to eat themselves until you have finished. We’ve learned to adapt, but it still feels awkward to our Western mindset to eat while our hosts watch. Once we’re done then they will take some food or drink. It’s different.

We also stopped at Salotte’s to pick up a bowl that her companion Mini was carving for us. It is oblong, about twelve inches with two turtles at either end and carving all around the edge. It is beautiful and we will treasure it. And per Ann, the best part of being in the village one more time was seeing Waes (Wise) (Great grandson to the chief and Mattei’s son). When we were in on Friday Ann was sure she would see him one more time. Nada. But today he was our village greeter and helped us find George and Ma’s house. But his smile made Ann’s day. One of the best parts of Fulanga!

And we finished off the day snorkeling and then having cocktails on the beach, watching the sunset with our new friends from “Lady Nada”, Bill and Sue from Aussie. They have a catamaran, but we’re not holding that against them. The snorkeling was fun. Cocktails on the beach with a big bonfire and a fantastic sunset were a great way to end our stay in a truly magical place.

Magical. Incredible. Falunga.

P.S. By the way, I can’t end this without mentioning the view that we have as I write this. We’re stern to the beach-about 50 meters off. From left to right all we can see are coconut palm siloettes backed by the white of trade wind clouds, puffy white across the horizon behind them. All of this is lit by the almost full moon directly overhead. Such beauty really cannot adequately be described.

If you look closely you can see the full moon rising.

The quilted wall hanging Ann made for Ma and George. (It's embroidered with "Vinaka Vaka Levu" which means Thank you very much.)

OK, Ann keeps saying; “They’re NOT magic beans, they are Surprise Beans”.

In any case, they are dried beans that you boil to reconstitute. (Thank you Unilever, for making beans that are marked as good until sometime in 2014). I guess the surprise is that they are better than canned. Not as good as fresh. BUT…mix them with lobster, and pasta in a parmesan garlic cream sauce and who the hell cares what they are. The results were heavenly.

So, today we pretty much chilled. Another windy day. Our sum total energy expenditure was snorkeling a bit, taking a saltwater bath (you jump in the water, get out, soap up then jump back in to rinse, then you get a teapot of fresh water to rinse in the cockpit). Oh and Ann’s been making a little wall hanging for “Ma” (short for something like Makareeta) since she’s been so nice to us. And she polished the starboard stainless just to keep Charisma looking her best!

I spent a fair amount of time getting weather faxes to try and figure out where the low that’s somewhere near us is, and where it’s heading. The grib files are not accurate right now which generally means there’s a low sneaking around somewhere ready to pounce. I think it’s currently south of us and heading east. The wind has shifted into the NNE, so we’re almost parallel to the beach right now. Four out of five of our neighbors left for another spot. We are hanging here with the cat, Lady Nada. One reason folks left was that it’s full moon high tide and that means our nice sand spit that’s been blocking north wind waves disappeared under water. That means we were getting some bigger waves over the sand in our little paradise. But, the tide’s gone down and now we’re settled back into our nice calm anchorage, but with four fewer boats who went ½ mile across the lagoon. We might have gone as well, but we’re planning to leave tomorrow anyway, so thought we’d just stay the night. It’s always a bit of a gamble in changing weather to decide whether to stay or move. The wind is forecast to go north-which is fine for us-but then shift around to the west before going back to SE. West is the problem. If it goes west in the middle of the night and blows hard, we’ll swing right over to the sandy beach. We’ll literally be 20 meters off the beach given how close we have anchored to get out of the wind and how much anchor chain we have out. We’re betting the swing won’t happen until tomorrow in the daytime when we’re ready to either move to the village anchorage where we’re picking up a carving that they are working on for us or can just leave if the weather cooperates (and tides, but that’s another story). Then it’s either off to Savusavu or stay here one more night for better weather and then off. In either case, we should see some favorable winds by Monday at the latest (knocking wood). We’ll see. In any case, guess what? As I’m writing this there’s lightning and thunder somewhere to the north of us. OH, my favorite! It’s looking to be an interesting night.

The day started with a fund raiser of sorts. We cruisers donated stuff to sell and the villagers bought it. The funds went to a village fund for improvements.

The children enjoyed the event.

Cute!

There was stuff for sale that we could buy as well, like these cakes.

And $5 Fijian would get you a lobster.

Then the whole group moved on the the "Goodbuy Party" Here they are mixing the kava (the blue bucket has water in it to mix with)

Now we know how they pound the kava

There was laughing and dancing and general silliness...

...and then the presenting of goodbye presents (this is a floor mat with the name "Charisma" woven into it).

What a wonderful party!

So unexpected! Let me explain. We’ve been sitting here in Fulanga in the high winds essentially trapped on the boat looking for something, anything to do and out of the blue, the village got in touch and said; “We want to do an event.” What kind of even? Well, no one was really sure. It seemed like it might be a thing where we bring stuff to donate to the school. It also seemed like it might be a farewell to the cruisers event. Whatever, we were game-let’s just go and find out.

So, despite high winds, two of the five boats in the anchorage (Kalida and Lady Nada) volunteered to ferry the rest of us around to the village, about two miles away, so we wouldn’t all have to move our boats (good on ya mates — thanks to Derek and Alison on Kalida for our ride). It was blowing 30 knots as Derek picked us up in his dinghy and brought up his anchor and headed over to the anchorage by the village.

All 14 of us cruisers who are left in Falanga (seven boats) met on the beach and began the 20 minute walk into town asking; “What do you think? What are we supposed to be doing?”

Well it turned out we were all prepared and not prepared for the day.

What we were prepared for was that there was a lot of food that the villagers were selling in order to make some money. Wonderful Roti sandwiches with fish or corned beef went for $1 Fijian (about $0.50 US)-they were delicious. There were also papayas, bananas, plantains, cassava and a variety of cakes for sale at equally amazingly slight prices. We were very happy to contribute to the cause and get some fresh produce along the way. At one point Ann and I split up and I went down the village path to see some carvings that were for sale while she stayed with the “event”. As I was leaving, someone was walking in with two cooked lobsters that were going to be for sale. I saw them and thought, “Boy, it would be great if Ann bought one of those!” Much later in the day when we got back to Charisma, Ann pulled a lobster out of her backpack and said, “Surprise, look what I bought (for $5 Fijian!)!” Guess what dinner tomorrow night is going to be 😉

So, back to the event. We brought some stuff from the boat in as gifts not knowing exactly what the event would be. Turns out part two of the day was that OUR STUFF (meaning the cruisers’) was put out on a table and the local villagers who showed up competed to buy it. It was interesting to see how it was priced and who bought it. We brought some cans of food, three plastic bowls and a couple other things. They all sold very quickly. Fortunately Ann held back a few things for “later” as well.

As things were winding down on part one of the day-the food and auction part-I left the hut and walked down village to one of the better carvers to see what they were up to and to my surprise, they were carving some beautiful bowls that I hadn’t seen before. Oblong, about 14 inches long, with intricate edges hand-carved and two turtles etched into the bottom of the bowls. Ohhhh! How much might these be, I asked and could one for us be ready by Sunday morning (when we’re planning our departure)? There was some discussion but it was decided that they would make the bowl for us by Sunday morning before church-so we may be the new proud owners of a gorgeous turtle bowl. We’ll see.

But I digress from the real story….

While I was gone, Ann and the rest of the group moved from the hut where we had lunch and the auction of sorts. They were done with the fund-raising part and we (the cruisers) were glad to have been part of it, coming away with some nice, fresh food and happy to contribute some of our goods for the betterment of the village. The next step was 100 meters up the village to a large hut that would end up holding somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 people-and importantly a big bowl of kava!

Without detailing every minute of the next two hours, I’ll just say that it was nothing short of amazing and wonderful. Before I go on, I should add that there was dancing. I might even have a picture to add later of me (Bob) dancing with our Fijian friend Sara’s 70-something year old grandma. Just she and I. In front of a village crowd of 50 or so people. It was….amazing.

Essentially the village filled the hut with song, kava and gifts for the departing cruisers. It was a farewell to end all farewells. Most of us who are left here are waiting for the winds to let us out, have been here in Fulanga for some weeks and have made friends with many in the village. Besides the general kava party and music, many of them made gifts for us. Every one of the cruisers got something different, but Ann and I received a beautiful woven handbag and a pandanas mat with our boat name “Charisma” woven into the middle of it. We were stunned and of course will treasure this for ever! Where does this generosity come from? It was wonderful. In fact, given that we have been here some weeks, as were the dozen other cruisers (some Aussies, Kiwis, Brits, Canuks and US) all of whom have formed relationships with the folks in the village, there were a lot of tears from both sides that we were leaving.

Music, kava, and sincere beautiful friendships. We were touched as never before and hope we can visit here again.

I have to end this with one vignette. Ann has noticed in the last two weeks as we have gone to church here, that one girl, about 10 years old, wears dresses that are hand sewn, but don’t have clasps to hold the dress together at the back of her neck. It doesn’t seem to bother her but Ann is a seamstress and I can see her itching every time she sees it. (I’m sorry I don’t remember the girl’s name -many of the Fijian names are unusual and hard to remember unless we’ve seen them written down). Ann found a set of 10 clasps in her sewing kit and brought them into town in the hope of seeing the little girl, even though we knew the kids would all be in school. Fortunately school let out early-it being Friday and a stormy day. The little girl came over to the farewell party and ran up to Ann with a big, “Bula!” Ann responded by pulling the set of clasps out of here pocket and giving it to the girl. I can’t even begin to describe the huge smile and look of thanks on her face. Her lovely but incomplete clothes could now be completed. We were left almost breathless by the joy such a simple gift could bring. If Ann had had a needle and thread she would have followed her home to do the repair herself!

Now the back of her lovely dress will have a clasp to close it with.

Life in paradise can be so simple and joyful and we so enjoy this opportunity to be part of it.

And we’re bored. OK, life in paradise can sometimes have its drawbacks. One of them is when the weather pins you down as it has us for the past several days. And we’re running low on water, so the lack of rainfall EVEN though we have a fancy new rain catcher is a pain since it’s cloudy and the solar panels are just keeping even with the refrigerator AND we’re low on diesel so I don’t want to run the engine more than we have to.

Sooo, we really hoping to catch some rain. It’s forecast tomorrow through Saturday, but the forecast changes every day and I don’t have today’s yet. But…we did get a couple small squalls and the raincatcher did admirably. We were so excited to see drops of water sliding down the fabric into the little spout that Ann sewed into the bottom where it enters the bucket. During the short rain event Ann was so excited she was out IN the rain taking pictures of the rain catcher gathering rain.

Such is life here in the tropics when you’re pinned down by weather on a smallish boat. Little things give great joy. Making a cup of tea in the afternoon is a grand event. You’d think the Queen was visiting. “Would you like one biscuit or two?” “I think I shall have two!”

Anyway, pray for some rain if for no other reason as we’ll be thrilled that the custom-made rain catcher is a success. 😉

Yup, we’re down to getting creative with stuff that lasts a loooong time.

Today we made Smoked Salmon Alfredo. Funny how dried peas come to life almost as good as fresh. We’re tried canned and they are terrible, but dried are actually delicious. You just have to boil them, then simmer them for about 10-15 minutes. I used the last of our fresh garlic (“fresh” after three weeks or so being a relative term, but the cloves hadn’t sprouted), butter, aseptic packaged cream, butter that’s been under the freezer and is still fine and parmesan which never goes bad. Oh and our last package of smoked salmon from New Zealand. Wow, it was delicious!

We always judge our meals by whether we would share them with friends or not. Good thing there aren’t any close friends around ’cause we didn’t want to share! Actually there are five other boats tucked in here waiting out the weather like we are. Noone moved off their boats today. The wind was smoking. You couldn’t really stand up on deck without holding something to keep from being blown off the side. It’s high twenties gusting to mid-thirties. The gusts make the wind look like it is dancing across the top of the water. Sometimes the top of the water is almost being blown into the air. Some of the gusts are healing Charisma over such that you have to hang on when down below. I even let the stove gimbal while I was cooking because stuff was flying all over the place as the gusts would hit and nothing would sit still.

The gribs (weather charts) say two more days of wind including some strong rain as a low approaches. Then as the low passes, we have a nice window to leave and go back up to Savusavu to resupply. Probably three days from now.

I keep thinking I’m going to jump in the water and go snorkeling and then a huge gust hits and I think; “maybe tomorrow”. What I ended up doing was reading all day. That’s nice too and something I haven’t done in a long time. It was actually very relaxing. Ann finished the rain catcher which is now rigged up waiting for rain and then she did some quilting, but the big Sailrite sewing machine is made for thick fabrics and doesn’t do so well with simple quilting material. She’s roughing out some stuff to bring back to the US during the holidays to finish but no quilts are going to get made on our hulking boat sewing machine unless they are made from six layers of Dacron with leather trim.

Life in Fulanga.

That’s the best I can say.

Actually, Ann got a lot done today. She did laundry and started a really cool project to create a rain catcher. There’s a fairly major “rain event” due day after tomorrow if you can believe the forecast. We’re low on water and fuel, so need sun to power the watermaker. Guess what? With this wind comes clouds. There’s not a lot of sun. So…Ann spent part of the day working on a canvas tarp-like thing to funnel rain water down the deck plate where the connection to the water tank is.

Back in the day before watermakers this is how folks would fill their tanks. Many still do -but watermakers are so much easier and more predictable. However, now that we’re in the deep, deep wilderness, it’s useful to have some extra survival skills- such as the tarp rain catcher thingy. We’ll report on how well it works. Other cruisers have said that they have been able to fill their 100 gallon water tanks in very short order in the heavy rains. We’ll see.

Speaking about wilderness sailing. We emptied our jerry jugs of diesel into the tanks today. We figured the weather’s not getting better, so we should do it while we have some fairly benign conditions. It’s windy, but we’re tucked in where there are no waves, so it was fairly easy. I’m now estimating we’ve got 18 gallons of fuel left to get us back up to Savusavu where we’ll resupply and pick up the engine parts that have arrived that we can give back to Bright Angel who so kindly lent us what we needed to get our engine working. We used a lot of fuel coming down here since we wanted to test the engine, but we’ll sail all the way back. At this point the fuel is just for charging batteries when the sun doesn’t cooperate and for the last 1/2 hour of the voyage to get into the anchorage or mooring, so 18 gallons should be plenty.

Speaking of resupply, we have absolutely no more fresh fruit or produce. We used the very last of our supply tonight when I made a Waldorf Salad with the last half head of cabbage and the last apple. I added Ann’s homemade yogurt, blue cheese and walnuts as well as left over corn fritters Ann made yesterday, and we had a great meal. After this we’re into our “long term” supplies. Actually we still have some eggs, some bacon and some smoked salmon so we have some good meals planned for the next couple days including bacon and egg scramble tomorrow morning and probably smoked salmon pasta in alfredo sauce tomorrow night. So, we’re biding our time right now for an estimated departure from Faluga on Friday. Tomorrow is supposed to be very windy and Thursday (remember we’re a day ahead of the US) is forecast to bring heavy rain. Friday looks more settled and good for a departure. The rain catcher is in the “refinement phase” and almost ready to be deployed and then Ann may start working on a quilt! In the meantime if we have a little sunshine we’re going to try and go for a snorkel.