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.