Musket Cove

Anastasia
Phil May and Andrea Twigg
Sun 8 Jul 2012 19:38
17:46.3S 177:11.6E
 
After a couple of days at the Blue Lagoon we sailed back to Denerau to compete our maintenance and reprovisioning.  We only had one day left, but remarkably everything had come together.  The repaired sails were ready for collection, and the replacement chart plotter and rigging parts had arrived. 
 
The only slight glitch was that the marina had forgotten to pass on our refuelling request to the fuel company.  They said that they would refuel us at the same time as Sapphire if we could move over next to them, which went fine with some judicious use of a roving fender to squeeze Anastasia into the space.
 
Musket cove is a beautiful resort island just a couple of hours sail from Denerau.  It is here that the ARC yachts are assembling prior to our departure on the leg to Vanuatu and the first time for a couple of months that all crews have been together in one place, which has led to some enthusiastic partying in the bars and on the boats.  We let "ARC youth" party on Anastasia and unfortunately someone put a foot through the trampoline so I had to spend a few hours darning it up, which I could have done without. 
 
The ARC organized a pre-departure dinner at which it was sad to have to say goodbye to the yachts, Seaquest, Luna Verde and Ensemble.  David and Magali, off the catamaran Ensemble, could not make it in person but bought a round of drinks for the entire fleet which was very generous of them.  Their yacht was damaged on the reef in Suwarrow and could not be repaired in time to sail with the fleet to Australia so we will have to follow their blog to see how they get on with the rest of their journey.  Good luck.
The marina at Musket Cove
The yachts at sunset