Yup, we’re going home to my daughter, Kelly’s, graduation from university.

So…we’ll take a two week break from the blog and resume on July 1st.  We have a friend watching over Charisma while we’re back in the States.

See you all back then when we’ll be back in Fiji and heading out to the islands again for a summer (winter here) of fun.

We had cocktails with John and Lisa on Orcinius, supposedly to watch the sunset, but it was cloudy.  After the sun set all the clouds went away and now it’s a totally clear night, but I digress.

So, Lisa says; “Let’s go to the White Stork Tavern.  I just want to have a beer there”. Hmm.  The Lonely Planet Guide says to avoid the White Stork as it is the most likely place in Savusavu for there to be a late night altercation.  OK, it’s not late night yet, let’s go.

So, we dinghy ashore, find our way up the rickety wharf in the dark and make it to the street.  A right turn, watching out for the broken rebar and potholes in the sidewalk and we’re on our way.  The White Stork is just on the edge of town – as a bar like this should be.

We get to the flashing blue and white electric sign, take a deep breath and walk inside.  Heading for the dim light through the first open door, we start in only to hear a deep voice very close in the dark mutter; “The white man’s kava is the next door”.  Just then a large man steps out and beckons us to follow down the alley to the next door.  As we go by the first door we can see a group of men around a kava bowl.  OK, this is not “the bar”.  At the next door, we turn in.  “This is the women’s, this is the men’s”, our guide directs, then sends us through a door and disappears.  Inside there’s blasting music and strobe lights.  No furniture, just a cement floor and some picnic tables around the perimeter of the room.  The strobes are illuminating a couple dozen – mostly 20-something men and a couple of women – standing around drinking beer.  Sometimes known as white man’s kava.  Some were slumped against the wall.  The night almost over for them already at around 8 PM.

Well, what’s the saying?  In for a nickel, in for a dime?  Something like that.  Anyway, we’re committed here, so we move on up to the bar and order our beers feeling very, very out of place.  But, this is Fiji.  Everyone is soooo nice.  Actually what would have been a not fun experience in a lot of other countries turned out OK.  Folks started shaking our hands, asking where we were from and saying they hoped we liked Fiji and asking if we were having a good time.  “Yes we are!”, we said most emphatically and now we’re best friends with everyone.  We even learned the “cool” handshake and when we got it right, everyone was howling with joy that we made the effort to “fit in”.

While we were talking with our new found friends, we couldn’t help noticing the sign on the wall; “No Spitting Carelessly”.  Well, that makes sense don’t you think?

On the way out they asked if we wanted to stop for some kava.  “Maybe not tonight”.

Fun in the big city.  The White Stork Tavern.  It’s a different sort of place.  Another kind of adventure to add to our bag.  Without exception though, nice people.  It’s what we love about this place.

Or as we say here in Fiji; “Lambasa”.  You add the “mm” before a “b”.

Anyway…We had a lovely day today renting a car with Orcinius John and Lisa for a couple hour drive to Labasa.  It’s one of the larger towns on Vanua Levu – the northern island – and is on the northwest side of the island.  There’s almost nothing between here (Savusavu) and there in terms of towns but the geography is interesting and fun.  For the first half of the trip up and over the mountains (not too tall – maybe 1000 feet) it is lush rainforest.  Emerald green, dense, you can’t see even a hint of the ground.  The second half on the leeward side of the mountain is a completely different country.  It’s like suddenly moving from the jungles of Fiji to farmland in Oregon.  It’s still green, but not nearly as wet  and the land is mostly tilled for sugar cane.

Small gauge train cars carry the sugar cane to the mill (in the background) Each car can carry 2000 lbs of cane which all gets loaded by hand.

Once in Labasa we parked in the middle of town and walked through the large market.  Same as all the towns in Fiji, built around the market.  But we never tire of walking through them, they are so alive and full of color and interest.

Arriving at the market, first we have to find a place to park.

Every Fijian town is centered around the market and the bus station.

Fresh fish anyone?

Watch your fingers though...

An amazing collection of grains and spices as well as the vegetables and fish.

Every type and form of Kava imaginable is available.

Colorful textiles...

After and hour or so in the market, it was time for lunch and we found a place called “Banana Leaf” that advertised that it was a “taste of happiness”.  OK, that sounded good!  Best of all, it ended up delivering (John and I had goat curry)!  How they made any money though, I don’t know as we were almost the only patrons.  The staff outnumbered us about 3 to 1.

How could we resist trying a "taste of happiness"?

It was happy. Might have partly been the beer.

One of the cooks kept "peeking" out to see if we were enjoying our meal. When I went to take a photo, I found four of them sharing this tiny kitchen.

A fun day, which we always have when we go places with our buddies John and Lisa on Orcinius.

It’s Friday here – we’ve now been in Savusavu for five days and we’re starting to feel human.  Actually Ann recovered first a day or two ago.  I just started feeling back to normal today.  We’ve been “plinking” around at little boat projects and Charisma is just about back in shape herself.

So, the recap:

-10 days and 20 hours long

-We could have shortened that because we purposely started slowly, not putting up the main for two days to allow time to get in the passage groove.

-Ran the engine for only five total hours from 0100 to 0600 one very calm night.  Other than that, all our electrical needs for the refrigerator, water maker, lights, navigation gear and charging for sundry cameras, computers, etc. came from our solar panels and hydro-electric device that we drag behind us while underway (it’s a propeller on a 50 foot torque rope attached to a generator on the boat).  That means that out of the 80 gallons of fuel on board, we have so far used only 2.5 gallons for the 1200 mile trip.

-Caught three fish, but only boarded one – which was plenty since we still have a couple fillets in the freezer to finish.

-One really ugly lightning storm (I think I’d live longer if I skipped the lightning storms and just took up smoking instead).

-This was our first voyage since leaving the US where we have no moon.  Every night for the trip it was absolutely dark.  Coming on deck to pitch blackness was disconcerting.  But once your eyes became accustomed to it, you could see quite well until you needed to see some detail.

-Customs, immigration and health consumed over a dozen of Ann’s home made cookies and four Coca-Colas.

Anyway, we had some fun along the way too.  Here’s a few passage shots:

My friend Charlie Pick saw this and called it; "The Cathedral". An apt name for this most stunning sunrise.

The best visuals on this trip were the sunrises. Much of the rest of the voyage - with the exception of some starry nights - was fairly cloudy.

"Cloudy" can make for the interesting sunrises though.

Hoisting the yellow "Q" flag showing that we were in quarantine entering the country and requesting Customs, Immigration and Health to visit and clear us in.

Just one of the forms - got to make sure there's no Holy Water on board.

Beer at 0900 - You Betcha! Couple of happy campers to be on a mooring after 10 days at sea.

Yup, in a couple hours we’ll slip our lines and be off on this year’s 1200 mile journey to Fiji.

We’re just waiting for customs and doing some final cooking so we don’t have to spend time in the galley for the first day or two out.

We woke from a rainy, windy night to beautiful blue sky. Now that the front has passed, we have south wind – supposedly 15 knots, but I think it might be a bit more blustery than that. Main thing though – from the south to push us north.

We’ll post a blog almost daily at around 2200 New Zealand time.

OK, going off the grid…three, two, one…

Looks like Thursday (Wed, US time). We rented the marina car and drove to Whangarei for a final provision trip. Mostly vegetables and a little meat (notably smoked ham hocks for our traditional first day out bean and ham stew in the pressure cooker).

So…we’re more than ready. Ann’s been cooking and we have banana bread, boiled eggs, pasta salad (for the midnight watch) and cookie dough that will turn into fresh cookies at the drop of a hat! We also have our menu for the first four or five days. Mostly bland kinda pasta stuff as we get used to the passage again. Not fun to try and cook something monumental when you’re not used to the motion.

After the first four or five days, we’ll wing it. Maybe we’ll even catch a fish!

So, day after tomorrow. Following a little front that’s moving through. We’re raring to go. One more day and counting.

We went to Great Barrier Island for a week to shake off some of the rust on our skills as well as “break-in” stuff on Charisma after a six month layoff as well as just because it’s such a stunning place.

Well, success was declared on all accounts.  We broke the toilet, found the water maker to need some (minor) repair, made some abysmal choices in anchorages and paid for it in the middle of the night AND we had a fine week!  We really enjoyed the time spent there even though we now have a 28 item list of things we need to do before leaving for Fiji (OK, two of them we have already completed).

Chalk it up to more South Pacific Adventuring.  We both agree we want to go back to this place when we have more time to explore – maybe on our way back in November (when it will be summer down here and not quite so chilly).

To help ease our way back we had a fantastic 40 mile beam reach in 15-18 knots of wind and three foot seas, doing 6 and 7 knots all the way.  Truly a great way to end the week.

The anchorages were so pretty...

...I can't help but posting some.

The oysters, plucked right off the rocks, couldn't have been fresher or taste better with our evening Charisma.

The full moon smiled upon us.

The moonlit anchorages were magical.

Bye, bye Barrier Island. Hope to see you again soon.

And the dolphins came to say "goodbye, come back soon".