Some of the beauty of the gardens

Some of the plants didn't even look real

And it was HOT. Here's Linda from Chesapeake taking a break (and kitty)

Bob and Linda (our benefactors on the engine project) from Bright Angel on the walkway through the gardens

This gives a little impression of the enormity of the place. Behind me is the crown of the rainforest part of the gardens. This place was huge!

Our big event for today, now that we don’t have any major boat projects, was a tour of the Floral Gardens. Just 5K out of town an expat Aussie bought some land and developed it into the most fantastic haven for endangered palms. Its basically a rainforest with all this palms artfully planted within. OK, if this sounds geeky, it is and isn’t. He is actually protecting a number of species that are no longer found native in the wild. Many have been used up either in the face of resort development or gourmet food. We’ll certainly never eat hearts of palm again without ascertaining how it was sourced.

Anyway, this was a spectacular, beautiful and educational tour over a period of about three hours of walking through his park. And we enjoyed sharing the adventure with Bob and Linda from Bright Angel and Jim and Linda from Chesapeake.

There was no wind or cloud cover for most of today, so it was also smoking’ hot! We took a cab in the morning to get there, but walked the three or so miles back in the noonday heat and humidity. Wow, I needed a nap by the time we got back to Charisma.

So, light dinner and now we’re sitting in the cockpit enjoying a gentle evening breeze and the subtle glow of our citronella candles to hopefully keep the bugs at bay. So far so good.

We ran the engine again today. We now have a little more than two hours since the new parts and she’s still purring, so I have my fingers crossed that we caught the problem before it did too much more damage deeper in the engine (i.e. bearings, crankshaft, etc). That would be major no bueno. In the mean times she’s actually running more smoothly than I can ever remember.

Our plans are now to wrap up things here and get ready to leave to start exploring Fiji as early as Saturday, but more likely on Sunday. We’re thinking we might hire a cab to explore this island a bit more tomorrow and that will take at least half a day-probably more. Then, jerry jug some fuel on board (probably three trips in the dinghy times 10 gallons per trip), get fresh vegetables, some meat, beer and kava for Sevu Sevu (more on this ceremony in future blogs as we explore some of the outlying islands and villages-in the mean time you can google it to get some idea).