Today, leaving Viani, our Mojo was aligned. Not sure what with, but hey, I’m not complaining. What am I talking about you’re probably saying?

I’m talking about the dreaded task of bringing up the anchor and 200 feet of chain after 8 days in the same place over a rocky bottom. The wind shifted about twenty times around the clock (north, south, east, west and back) during our stay, so we were pretty sure the chain had wrapped around more than a few bommies (big coral rocks on the bottom). In fact, it pretty much had done just that. BUT…it was OUR day-we got it up without too much drama. Took about 1/2 hour or so. Jack was watching from our neighbor’s boat-he rowed out early to say goodbye to us and Southern Cross-so we had a lot of incentive to “look good”.

Turned out the chain WAS wrapped around at least four differnt bommies. You know it because you pull the chain up tight and there’s a sickening grinding sound and the whole boat shudders when a wave passes underneath and yanks the “short chain” with a jerk. But we went forward, backed down, went left, backed some more, tried going right and just worked each one loose. Ann did a spectacular job on the helm and I’m proud to say we did it all without a word. All hand signals until the final one where I put both fists together to signify the anchor is up and she can head out of the anchorage. It was a great feeling and when Jack let out a big Whoop! We knew we had “done good”.

Out in the channel between the islands of Tavenui and Vanua Levu, we motored north (there wasn’t a breath of wind) to Matei on the tip of Taveuni. On the way we saw some dolphins, but they were just teasing as they didn’t come over to play. A little later I spotted something that I thought was a turtle. I called it out to Ann who looked in the binocs. A shark! In fact a rather large one just cruising along probably just enjoying the warmth of the (very hot) sun. The length between the dorsal fin and tail was about 4-5 feet, so I imagine this guy was a 10 footer. He passed about 50 yards behind us, so we never got a real close up view to determine actual length. That’s OK with me.

A little later, WHAP!, our hand line slapped on the deck tearing the clothespin off the lifeline. FISH ON! We hoped for a tuna, but a Mahi it was. Oh well, they are delicious and a welcome change from our vegetarian diet of the last week (we’re pretty much down to eggplant and Bok Choy that we’ve been trading with Jack for flour and sugar). I’m going to make some ceviche with the wild limes we collected from our hike and we have about 10 more fillets as well, so fish dinner for the week!

After landing Mr Mahi, we got back under way and in a few more miles saw that there were two other boats in the spot we were headed for. In a past life I would have said: “damn, there are other boats there”, but now it’s more; “hey, there’s “Puddy Tat”- the very nice folks who we met in Viani and who hosted us on the Cabbage Patch snorkel expedition, and “Anni Nad” our friends Uli and Rita from Germany who we became friends with in Whangarie and came to our wedding.

I’ve said it before. Cruising is about the people you meet as much as about the places you go. We’ve been very fortunate to meet so many wonderful people and it’s great that we’re able to catch up with some of them here.