First shower in a month for that matter too. We’ve been taking teapot showers in the cockpit and eating fish or whatever veggies we can cobble together from the islands. Today, first thing we hit Fiji Meats for steak and “streaky bacon” (If you don’t order “streaky” you get Canadian bacon. Nothing against Canadians, but that’s NOT bacon). Tomorrow morning, I’m getting a bacon and egg sandwich!

The other highlight from today was just checking in with some of the other cruisers here. A couple of them we haven’t seen since Mexico almost two years ago, but really fun catching up with “the community”.

Our disappointment for the day was that the Vodafone place didn’t get a new internet dongle as promised so we are still “Facebookless” (and “NYTimesless”). But we have hopes that the thing will make it down from Lambasa tomorrow as promised (yeah, right. This is Fiji, we’re on island time. We’ll be lucky if it makes it here before we leave in a couple days)

That’s it for today. Can’t believe it’s “Labor Day” already, but can tell because NOBODY IS RESPONDING TO THIS BLOG. Uh, OK, I’m feeling better now.

😉

Yep, we’re back in Savusavu. I was looking at the weather and thinking, “Do we want to sit in an exposed anchorage (albeit with very good holding) and get beaten up with wind and rain for three days, or do we want to go to Savusavu and stock up from a real market and most importantly in this modern world, replace our broken internet dongle so Ann can play Words with Friends” (OK, and so I can read the NYTimes). Hmmm. That took about 30 seconds of thought when we woke up and saw a break in the clouds.

Well, they fixed the hole in the dock at Waitui. Now about that marina sign...?

So, after 9 ½ hours (at an average of about 7 knots motorsailing) we’re back in the Savusavu. It’s nice sometime to be in a familiar place. Waitui Marina answered on our first call on the VHF said they had a mooring and Isiri came out in a dink to guide us, as he put it “to our old mooring”. Nice to be remembered. We got in around 5:15 local time, very efficiently dropped the dinghy in the water and got the outboard on, so we had time for a Charisma to watch the last of the sunset. Then we jumped in and took said dinghy ashore to our favorite Chinese restaurant, the “Savusavu Chinese Wok”. As we were sitting out on the porch listening to the cars and people we realized it’s been weeks since we’ve heard “noise”. We really haven’t been around either people or cars. It’s comforting in a way to be back here, but we’ll be over that by the time the dogs on shore start barking at 0500. Anyway, we’re here long enough to a) stock up and replace our broken internet thingy and b) wait for favorable weather to head to Koro Island-which is more or less south of here, then on the Nairai. We’ll see when the wind will cooperate. Certainly not for a couple days at the earliest as there is a low bouncing around just to the north.

Stay tuned…

That’s really about all that we can say about today (except that I can’t believe it’s already September!).

A blustery day anchored at Mattei, Taveuni.

We were hoping to dinghy in to the beach for breakfast at a little resort with a very cute, tiny restaurant. We walked by it yesterday on our way to our failed attempt to have lunch at the little pizza place up on the hill. Failed on both accounts that these are literally the only two places on this side of the island worth visiting for a meal. The pizza place, after a 30 minute hike, was closed! Grrr. So we called our friend Wani, the taxi driver (who is also the Chief of his village on the NE side of the island) and he picked us up and took us into Somosomo to resupply. You think a place with a name like that would be at least a township, but it’s not much more than a ferry stop. There’s a couple stores, the only ATM on the whole island, a market where you can get wine, rum and beer (but they were out of reasonable looking meat products, so we’re pretty much going vegetarian for the next “some” weeks until we get to Suva or catch more fish). And there’s a great outdoor market. Actually a series of stalls along the roadside with some of the nicest vegetables you’ll ever see. We stocked up on cabbage (very long lasting), potatoes (ditto), eggplant, bok choy (very short lasting) and some other stuff that will get us through at least a couple weeks of fresh food.

Yesterday we made it into the outdoor market at Somosomo.

Today was a bust of a different kind. We really wanted to go to this little breakfast spot. We walked in yesterday to look at the menu and were taken by how sweet the proprietress was. She was delightful. There were only a handful of tables and it looked out at the water where Charisma is anchored. We had visions of pulling in to their beach on our dinghy and walking barefoot up the path. But…the wind was howling this morning. The reality of cruising sometimes is you just have to stay on the boat. We would have been soaked if we had even made it in without capsizing. “Maybe tomorrow” is our mantra out here. We have nothing else to do, right? We’ll take a look at the weather report tonight and see what tomorrow looks like. Last night’s report showed a brief respite before more rain and wind, so who knows.

Our other highlight for today; Ann called her good friend Chuckie (Charlotte, but she doesn’t like that name-sorry Chuckie) and we called my folks. My Dad was out doing errands, but we had a nice chat with Mom. Good to be able to touch bases from home.

So, that’s my story for today.