Sailing around the World,, ( Presently in Savu, Fiji )

A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Sat 26 Jun 2010 06:38
Friday  25th June   2010
 
A very cloudy and overcast morning, it blooming rained most of the night.
We had an early cup of tea and boat made brown bread, with plenty of butter and marmalade.
 
09.15hrs    Skipper, Aileen, Margaret and John went ashore in the rib as far as the Y.C.
Aileen and Margaret went to the meuseum, while skipper went to the custom house, Of course the bloody taxi driver
took him to the wrong building first and wasted the best part of an hour before learning that, and then had to get another taxi back into town
to the right place..............at least the taxi's are cheap,  5 miles for the equivalent of 1 euro.
 
Meanwhile John welded himself to his laptop at the Y.C. but found it frustrating as he could not get connected...
Skipper got the paperwork cleared in 30mins and visited the veg, market across the road,  it was definatly the biggest
and best we have seen to date, The variety of vegitables was awsome, plus a lot of other food besides,
and it was all so fresh, just like as if it was just taken out of the ground............ But , and there is always a BUT,,   no spuds, ohhh a famine.
but they did have some sweet potatoes, so took some of them.....
 
Back at the Y.C. skipper met John and while we were waiting for the girls to return, we made contact with Fr Hannan,
He is related to our friend Barbara Ahern in Dublin and he has lived in " Savu " for the last 60 odd years, 
We keep saying ,  what a small world .....................
The amount of Irish and Irish related people we met on this trip is something else,  there everywhere, and by enlarge,  they are well regarded.
 
13.00hrs,, we lifted the anchor in the rain and nibbled our way out of the harbour again, and set sail for " Beqa" an Island 26.5 miles away
to the SW. the weather improved a little, like it stopped raining, but was still dull and overcast.....but we were able to sail at least.
 
During the trip, we had a long discussion on how to cook the "sweet potatoes"
Aileen and Skipper remembered the super "sweet potatoe" dishes we used to get at the HOW parties over the years,
so of course the conversation was directed at margaret, But of course she said she forgot the recipe . so we had to dig deep into her memory bank
in an effort to get a handle on how to do these " sweet Potatoes"..............  eventually we were able to write down some sort of recipe,,   great
and we have all the ingredients...
 
16.00hrs,, We dropped anchor outside a resort on the Island of " Beqa " and the resort was called the " Beqa resort" and is mainly geared for divers
and fishing, It also has a great Spa. new , just 12 months old, but the Main resort is certainly in the need of a refurb. 
The Manager, " Mark " sent out a messenger to us inviting us to use his facilities and eat there if we wished,
so we sent a scouting party ashore, and the word came back,  Come ashore and lets have dinner.
 
19.00hrs We all went ashore and had a great meal, with lots of attention from Mark and his wife Susan,
there was great music and of course a floor show thrown in,
We met loads of divers from Australia, and had a great night, plenty of wine and so on,
 
At the end of the night, Mark ( the Manager ) invited us to join him for breakfast in the morning, ( thats a first )
Well, as you can imagine, we couldent refuse his hospitality, so we duly accepted...... and returned to the boat
and finished off the bottle of PORT , which Ruie gave " Fats " for his birthday .......
We were splattered at this stage,  but we are in plenty of south pacific fresh air........  awwwwww just all veeery niiiice..
 
Ohhh, its still bloody well raining.... yeah in the south pacific, 
 
Thats it for tonight
 
Signed  :-  Stephen  Hyde     ( skipper )