We arrived in the Denarau Marina yesterday. We feel like we have been transported back to Cabo San Lucas, almost. This marina is full of large party boats that go out to the islands daily, ferries from Musket Cove, huge Captain Cook Cruise Ships, and us cruisers. We look very small next Elvis. Yes, it is true, Elvis is in Fiji and he is watching over Charisma. He is a huge power boat on the dock next to us. At least he is quiet.

The local restaurants, including Hard Rock Cafe, along the water front are in full swing with live music as I sit in the cockpit writing this. We think
Adele is in Fiji and perhaps she brought Alannah Miles, she sings Black
velvet, with her. It is Saturday night here and there are even fireworks being launched all around us.

Fiji is preparing for Diwali, the five day Festival of Lights for the Hindus and apparently light of all kinds, including fireworks, are expected. So I think people are practicing and we are entertained. The actual festival begins on November 4th…maybe to celebrate Bob’s daughter, Christine’s birthday?

Today we went to Nadi, pronounced Nandi, with Jan and Rich from Slip Away. It was so nice to have someone show us the ropes in an unknown area. they were even in their dinghy as we arrived and helped us to our slip and got us settled in! great folks! thanks!

Classic sign at the butcher store.

but back to today’s adventure! We took the little yellow bus. It is called the Bula Bus and only cost $1.35 FJ, about 70 cents. It provided a scenic tour through the upscale resorts in Nadi and made us feel like we were on a Disneyland ride. When was the last time we saw a five star resort let alone five or six of them? The west side if Fiji is very developed.

But I digress…the Bula Bus took us to the Nadi vegetable and fruit market. Joy! I never tire of stalls and stalls of lovely fresh vegetables and fruits. And mangoes are in season! Yahoo!

We also went to the best and newest grocery store, The New World. Shopping for those last few items for our passage, like pitted black olives and good crackers, was easy!

After a quick trip for shopping we returned to Charisma and got going on “the list”. You know, the final list of things to do before we go. Bob topped off the fuel and repaired a few shackles. I got busy on another batch of ginger beer and repacking the refrigerator for the incoming passage meals and cleaning some hatch seals. Nothing like a “To Do” list to take up the rest of the afternoon.

Tonight we are relaxing, we had a wonderful Italian meal at a restaurant watching the moon rise; very romantic. Bob is snoring now, in the cock pit, and I am enjoying the full moon and anticipating our upcoming trip to New Zealand. It looks like we will have a good opening next Wednesday or Thursday so stay tuned!

From Ann
From Saweni Bay, where we are anchored you can see the activity in Lautoka Harbor. We figured it would be a good idea to go get a lay of the land (or harbor) in advance of eventually checking out of Fiji from Lautoka. So we rallied the troops, Bob and Linda from Bright Angel who are anchored very near us, to join us.

The plan was to meet them on the beach in our dinghies at 10 am and “walk” to Lautoka. Linda has often expressed her hesitancy to go for a “walk” with me and this day she was spot on. Bob and I arrived on the beach first because we put on our outboard. Proved to be a good idea.

Bob and Linda rowing in (wasn't as calm heading back out-see below)

While waiting for Bob and Linda to row to the beach we met a young Russian girl coming from the direction we thought would lead to a road. After a brief but entertaining conversation we found out that yes, you could walk just down the beach, out to the bigger road and in to Lautoka. A fifteen minute walk. Perfect!

We got the dinghies pulled way up on the beach and tied to a tree knowing that the tide would be in by the time we got back. And it was a nice 15 minute walk to the highway. A local man cleaning up the side of the road assured us that it was only another mile to town. So we continued.

It was about a mile on this road out to the main road. We had no idea of where we were going, but it was a nice day.

As we walked, large trucks overloaded with cut sugar cane buzzed by taking up at least their lane and half of the oncoming lane. At least they didn’t take up the shoulder that we were walking on.

The cane trucks were loaded to the absolute width of the road.

It is always fun to investigate on land. We found beer for sale at a small store near the gas station. It was offered at two different prices: one price for warm bottles and a higher price for cold product!

Want your beer "cold" or "warm"?

At one point a beautiful young Indian woman in an exquisite sari crossed the highway to our side. We all gawked as we passed her. What a beautiful sari. I had to get a picture so I turned around and went back and asked permission. She blushed and got flustered but did let me take a picture. I told her we were all thought she looked so lovely. She excitedly explained that today was her engagement and she was on the way to the event, taking the bus. I wished her years of happiness and thanked her for allowing me to take her picture on such a special day.

Indo-Fijian woman on her engagement day.

As we got to the next bus stop, which I was willing to bypass and continue our short walk to Lautoka, we were warmly greeted by a young woman named Ana. We learned her name because as we were passing and telling her we were walking to Lautoka she laughed. Oops. She obviously knew more than we did so the forced march was halted in lieu of a $1 Fijian bus ride. Good thing…it was another 20 minutes by bus!

Ana was delighted to meet us and happily showed us the farmer’s market and a good place to have lunch. On a mid-week day the market still was overflowing with bounty of every color and shape. And here they had mangoes! They are just coming into season and we love them.

We just love the markets here. This is how veggies should always be displayed.

Finding the harbor after lunch had the forced march back in action. But we found it and we found our friends Rita and Ulli from Anni Nad who were anchored in the harbor. So we got a guided tour of the dinghy dock and the customs office. It really helps to know where you are going at time of check out.

We ended the trip to Lautoka with some quick provisioning (yes, we found beer, wine, and fruits and veggies!) and a taxi ride back to Saweni. Good thing because the rainy weather was moving in!

Back at the beach we saw that our plan to tie up the dinghies was necessary as our dinghies were now floating in the high tide. Oh, and the wind had picked up and there was a 3 foot chop in the bay. Not good if you are rowing back to your boat. We devised a plan to tow Bright Angel’s dinghy behind ours and it worked. We kept Linda in our dinghy and had Bob from Bright Angel ride in his to keep an eye on their provisions. As Linda so accurately said, “He looks like a cocker spaniel with his head out the car window!” Poor Bob, it was a splashy, wet ride but we all arrived safely.

Bob's ride out.

Our impressions of Lautoka? Lovely people, wonderful market. Nice road trip! Oh, and yes, our feet were sore the next day!

OK, despite the fact that we’re getting ready to “hunker” down in advance of a possible storm, we had a great day today.  A 20 mile run from Musket Cove to Saweni Bay (just south of Lautoka).  Blue sky, turquoise water and 10 knots of wind on a broad reach meant 4 plus knots and five hours of glorious sailing.  One of the great days of sailing!

The wind is going to be building now over the next four or five days until the storm event predicted for early next week.  That’s why we moved over to the mainland for a little protection.

Stay tuned to this one.  It could just go away or get very bad.  We’re watching this very closely.

The "blue dot" is us. The red, yellow, purple is a tropical depression heading our way.

This is a screen shot of the GRIB forecast for early next week (Tuesday).  What you really don’t ever want to see, ever, is a “flag” on these things.  Flags equal over 50 knots of wind.  If you look closely you’ll see a flag in the NE quadrant in the “purple” area of the low.  We’re hoping this dissipates before getting to Fiji.  We’re currently anchored in Saweni Bay, but as of Friday we’re moving about 6 miles south to Denarau where (hopefully) we have a spot in the marina.  We’re watching this closely and hope it will veer off or dissipate.  Stay tuned though, it could be a wild ride!

To New Zealand that is.  Yup, it’s about that time.  The seasons are changing and the weather between here and NZ is changing from a winter (down here) of constant storms spawning from Australia across north of NZ.   Now as we move into the southern hemisphere’s Spring, there is a high pressure zone filling in that is pushing the storms south of New Zealand, leaving better weather between here and there.  We would go right now but there’s a low just north of us that’s floating around between Fiji and Vanuatu. These lows in the warm climate of the tropics have a way of picking up steam and turning into tropical storms.  It’s what we call “no bueno”.

So, we wait and work and enjoy all the other cruisers who are doing the same thing.

In the meantime, it’s boat work time to get everything ready for the 1000 plus mile passage.

I spent the better part of the day down in "the hole" (better known as the lazarette) on the left..

Project number one was under the cockpit in the lazarette.  The steering has been making some funny noises.  I spent over three hours down there and not sure I fixed the noise.  But the time was very well spent as many of the bolts holding the steering gear together were loose.  We’ve had some very tough, long ocean miles and I haven’t gone over them since leaving the US.  Time definitely well spent.  The lesson:  boats talk to you.  Some of the creaks are just happy noises, but some say “fix me”.  Always assume the latter until you’ve checked.

Yesterday Ann got the sewing machine out and sewed some more reinforcing patches on the stays’l that got so beat up in the passage north earlier this year.  The stays’l is our “go to” sail (along with a second or third reef in the main) in winds over 30 knots, so we want to make sure it won’t blow apart when we need it most.

And today while trapped down below because of my mess in the cockpit she made a new batch of ginger beer and a double batch of hummus. Stocking up for the jump!

We’re probably leaving this nice spot at Musket Cove in the next day or so to go over to Saweni Bay just south of Lautoka.  It’s going to get windy later this week-probably at least in the high twenties, maybe more and I would rather be in the better shelter of the bay and on our anchor than here on a mooring.  You never know what condition the mooring is under the water and it’s over 50 feet deep here, so we can’t dive it to see.

Anyway, that also puts us very close to Lautoka where we check out of the country.  So when a weather window comes available we can jump on it.

And to end our day we will join our friends at the BBQ and celebrate our six month anniversary! (Newlyweds get to count monthly for the first year!)

Not much to talk about today.

It was windy. White caps in the anchorage with the threat of rain all day. We pretty much just hung around due to weather.

Ann did boat projects, I took the dinghy in to get some food (we’re pretty much out of fresh stuff) and we read books.

I made Bok Choy and eggplant over rice. We’re getting pretty good at the vegetarian dishes since most of the meat out here looks pretty marginal. We’ll do some fishing on the next leg and see if we can add some protein to our meal plan.

The wind should subside in a day or so and then we’re likely to head out to another island about 20 miles north of here for a while before starting to prepare for the trip back to NZ.

Today…It’s been two years that we have been gone.

Seems amazing and per the cliche it seems like forever and yet it also seems like only yesterday.

Just for the heck of it, or for the two years of it, we decided we would do a retrospective of “Bob and Ann” over the last two years.

So, with full apologies that this post is simply “about us”, here are Bob and Ann over the last two years:

The Baja HaHa. Here we are on the hill above Bahia Santa Maria.

Ahhh. Dock Three, La Paz. A magical place where we made many lasting friendships (and had not a few Charismas at sunset).

Fast forward to April, 2012 and The Crossing. Here we are leaving Mexico, heading to the Marquesas (23 days later).

Daniel's Bay, Nuka Hiva in the Marquesas. Tattoos now commemorate the voyage.

Into the Society Islands (Moorea, Tahitii). How much better can life get? (A lot we found-as you go west, it just gets better).

By the time we got to Bora Bora we found out it's all about the friends you meet along the way. We have been blessed to have sooo many great friends that we've met and shared adventures with.

Aitutaki (in the Cook Islands). A little island where we ran aground going in and out, but had a great time while we were there.

Rarotonga (once you've been here you can call it "Raro"), in the Cook Islands. We perfected our Med Mooring here (well, as much as you can call it "perfected")

Nuie. The biggest little island kingdom. One island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that was its own kingdom.

Tonga. Wonderful people, beautiful islands.

Drinking a toast after 'surviving' the passage (and storm) from Tonga to New Zealand.

We eloped in New Zealand. What a wonderful wedding with great friends in a fantastic location. Just magical.

At first, after a tough passage up to Fiji we thought this was going to be a tough year. Were we ever wrong. Here enjoying some sunshine in Vianni Bay (Summer 2013).

This whole season has been about amazing adventures such as here in Nagelelevu (which I can only spell with my eyes closed).

If you've been following this blog, you'll know we were "adopted" at Nairai (shown here in September, 2013).

...and this morning in Musket Cove on Malolo Island, exactly two years after leaving Berkeley, California, USA

So, have we changed from two years at sea in the South Pacific.  I can say that “inside” we’ve changed a lot.  The people we’ve met-cruisers and locals alike-have made a huge impression on us.  Seeing how simply yet happily people live “out here” has made us very optimistic. Seeing how little people can live with and yet be exceedingly satisfied gives us happiness for today and hope for the future.

The oddest thing happened today.  Ann and I were on our stand-up paddleboards coming back from a little sandy atoll about 3/4 mile away from Charisma, when all of a sudden both of us at the same time fell off our boards.  It felt like someone just grabbed my board and pulled it back.  We were separated by a good 30 meters, so it couldn’t have been a wave.  That would have taken at least 10 seconds to get from me to Ann so we wouldn’t have fallen at exactly the same time.  Also, neither of us has fallen in the six months we have had the boards.  I was suspicious of an earthquake and when we got back to Charisma I checked online.  Yup, 4.2 in Fiji right at the time we fell.

Sitting out by the atoll just before the quake.

Waterquake.  That’s a new one for us.

Pretty lazy days here.  Today we had a couple hours of paddleboarding including landing on a small sand “island” that only shows up at low tide.  I of course claimed it for Charisma!  We named it “Almost Island”.  It shows up twice per day.

Paddleboarding over the reef.

Claiming "Almost Island" for the good yacht Charisma.

Visiting our neighbors Bob and Linda on Bright Angel.

Not exactly a tough day.  It’s going to rain later today, so other tough chores include maybe taking a nap or reading a book, then tonight a bbq on shore.  One of the nice perks of staying here is they fire up a couple bbq’s each night and you just bring in whatever you want to cook or buy something at the little store and throw it on the grill.  Tonight we’re going to do grilled polenta with eggplant and maybe some melted cheese.  Most of the other boats anchored near us come in as well, so it’s a nice party.  Even though we enjoyed the solitude of the “other” side of Fiji (i.e. the east side) more, this is a nice way of winding down the season.

We have about two or three more weeks to cruise around this (west) side and then we need to start watching for a “weather window” to head back.  After two “boisterous” trips to New Zealand and back, we’re hoping for a nice, gentle voyage this time.  But it’s about 1,000 miles and at least 9 days, so hard to predict the weather over that whole period.  You watch, leave and cross fingers.  Ah, but that’s for another day.  For now-onto my nap!

Ann and I have been sick with colds we caught in Suva.  But the good news is they are finally starting to get better, so today we went for a hike around Malolo Lailai Island (where Musket Cove is) with our good friends Chris and Rani from Ladybug who just pulled in yesterday.

Great to see Chris and Rani again!

The island is called Malolo Leilei.

It was a lovely day, nothing but blue sky.  We ended up walking around the whole island as well as up to the two (small) peaks.  Took about three hours and I don’t think any of us stopped talking the whole way.  We haven’t seen each other for a couple months and had a lot of catching up to do.

Tidepooling on the windward side.

Tonight, we’ll meet up with a bunch of other friends as well at the nightly BBQ.  The Musket Cove Marina lights up their BBQs and everyone brings something to throw on.  Good times.

We’re looking to stay here through the weekend to let our colds get better, wait out some weather that’s coming this way and most importantly meet up with Bright Angel who should be in soon.

So, some boat projects, more walks and some sitting on the beach.  Easy days.