I know that many of you think we just sail around on “vacation” but I have to tell you there is a fair amount of work involved. And more than just cleaning fishing lures.
We have been in Denarau for four days now and we are exhausted! This is what we have accomplished so far: refueled (always a stressful maneuver but especially dicey when there is so much traffic around), completely washed down Charisma, washed the dinghy, washed and stored the paddleboards, moved food stuff around so that passage meals are easier to prepare, polished the stainless steel, and most importantly….repaired the wind vane.
You might remember that our wind vane broke about 12 hours out of Fulunga. Bob managed to make a temporary repair that has lasted us through the season but neither of us wanted to depend on it to get us to New Zealand. We were able to get a new part shipped to Denarau and Bob spent the ENTIRE day replacing the broken part. I will not even pretend to explain the details of the repair. But I will share that while he was onboard Charisma rebuilding the broken part I was outside polishing the metal which like all stainless steel needs to be cleaned from time to time. We had to unbolt it from Charisma to make the repair so I took advantage of the chance to really clean it up. It took all day. At about 5 PM, John from Orcinius came over and held the reassembled monitor in place while Bob reattached it. Woohoo and Happy Diwali!
Pulling the steering gear off Charisma so we could work on the dock.
On the dock. Now if a little part drops, it won't go "kersplash".
Fortunately I had a bearing puller or I couldn't have gotten the ring gear off (in one piece).
A few of the parts and pieces including over 80 of the little roller bearings pictured.
Getting the pivot vane back on is tricky. One wrong move and 40 little bearings fall out. Helps to have a second set of hands (thanks to Orcinius John for the help)
Four bolts and it's re-attached to Charisma (yay!) And it only took all day!
Did I mention that today is Diwali in Fiji? It is a Hindu celebration of light and boy have we seen lights. Fireworks have been exploding for about four nights and tonight they were spectacular! Light over dark, good over bad, God bless us all!
But you know us, we found some time for fun too! Last night we spent a fun-filled evening on Orcinius with the daughters of our Fulungan host family. It was wonderful reconnecting with Fulunga. We had pizza and songs and laughter and lots of stories of Fulunga. Jui, Tau and Joe’s (our host family) eldest daughter is married to a guy, David, who works on one of the daily pleasure cruise ships here in Denarau. And Raijeli, Tau and Joe’s other daughter is temporarily living with them. Add to that Jui and David’s 3-year old son and David’s two younger brothers and a party is had! (Did I mention that Filipe, the 13-year old stowed away on the supply ship from Fulunga to Suva to see his new baby brother? ). What a wonderful family- and we are part of it!
Here are Tau and Joe's daughters and family. (What a fun night!)
Oh! And we stowed the cannon down below hoping that we don’t meet any pirates in June way to New Zealand!
And we polished up the handle of the big front door,
Chorus – Yes, they polished up the handle of the big front door.
Unless you are on HMS Pinafore and come across the Pirates of Penzance, I think storing the cannon is probably not a problem.
Captain Bob and his mate put in a good days work. Glad the weather vane is functional again. I would have dropped all the dang little bearings into some impossible-to-get-to place.
Wow, fireworks and it’s not even the 4th of July.