Sailing back to Deanaru

Around the world with the Aqualunies
Jonathan & Gabrielle Lyne
Sat 25 May 2013 08:17
MUSKET COVE  25TH MAY, 2013

It has been a week since the last blog.   On our return we dropped anchor in Likuliku Bay (Octopus Bay) for the night.  On our way there we caught a Wahoo weighing nearly 6lb.  We arrived in time for lunch and then took the dingy ashore to snorkel off the reef.  The waves coming into the beach were beginning to become quite large and thunder clouds were building.  So after a Pina Colada ashore at the small resort where we left our dingy we headed back to the yacht.  I decided to make a Kokoda (a Fijian version of Ceviche)  made with lime juice, coconut milk and a few red chillies, tomatoes chopped, red pepper chopped and some of the Wahoo diced.  The Wahoo is 'cooked' by the lime and coconut juice for a few hours.  It was delicious,  we had it as a first course before having Rack of Lamb, roasted veg'  and new potatoes.  We had time to eat on deck before the storm hit.  Thunder and lighting coming closer and closer and the the heavens opened and we had over an inch of rain.  We hope to return to Octopus Bay and have dinner ashore, the little resort with a few cabins and a lovely beach side bar is privately owned, we were very welcomed and the owner says he hopes to put out mooring buoys for the dinghies in the future, although the part of the beach we came into did not have breaking waves.

Early the following morning we set off as we had to be in Denaru before midday so that Jenny and David could jump ship for their flight.  We set off and suddenly a few shouts from the bow and the engine made a hell of a noise as we went into reverse quickly, we were about to hit a reef.  We headed back to where we were at anchor and gingerly picked our way out around the reef.  The light was not good as the sky was still cloudy and it was early in the morning so quite difficult to see reefs.

Back in Denaru we called the Fridge engineer called 'Allie'  he arrived when he said he would and set to sorting it out following the instructions from Jonathan who had downloaded the 'Frigeboat' instructions they had sent through.  There are no 'Frigeboat' agents in Fiji so we had to just go with the flow and have a general fridge person.
We think it was lack of gas pressure causing the fridge not to get down to a low temp'  so it was replaced but it is a fine balance between replacing too much and too little gas.  He spent all day on the yacht........  Meanwhile I did a huge laundry so the washing machine was going full pelt all day, I also took some of the beach towels up to the two washing machines available for yachties, but both were in action, so I left the laundry there to put in when they had finished.  I went up 45 mins later and they had so I removed the other person's laundry from the machine in a neat pile on clean space and started my laundry..... another guy with his laundry was in the Q behind me.  Whilst I was loading my laundry a big, fat German guy arrived and looked furious that I had dared to remove his laundry so I apologised and said I had waited but he had not turned up to remove it and there was a que of people waiting  ' I DON'T LIKE PEOPLE TOUCHING MY LAUNDRY'  Well tough, he shouldn't be a yachtie, selfish or arrogant.  The next guy in the que removed my towels just before I arrived and as far as I am concerned that was fine, maybe he was embarrassed about his pink frilly knickers and dresses, he was on his Cat on his own.  

The Fridge dropped in temp a little but no further so Alllie came back again this morning and put more gas in... we thought he had solved the problem until we noticed this evening it is just not dropping quickly enough.  Bother.

Now we are in Musket Cove, which we had visited 2 years ago with the Blue Water Rally, and watched the full moon rise over the hill whilst having our evening cocktails.

More photo's to follow of Kokoda which Sam took.


A Wahoo we caught on our way back with Gilly putting a bucket under it.

 



Closer view of the Wahoo

 



Full Moon rise in Musket Cove

 



Moon rising in Musket Cove about to be covered by rain clouds.