Those of you who have lived or travelled much in the third world will know that travel here is not always as straightforward as things may initially seem. After a great couple of weeks with my Mother on board during which we have sailed back up the Yasawa chain of islands, the sad day arrived when she was booked to fly back to England.  As we are now a couple of days sail away from Nadi and the International airport we organised (buy sat-phone and VHF) for a float plane to collect her from Turtle Island, a beautiful and very exclusive island resort not far from our current anchorage. Not only would the chance to take off and land on water be a new and exciting experience but we were assured that the view from the plane during the flight back across the islands and coral reefs was breathtaking.  Now when I say "exclusive", in this case I really do mean it.  In the course of a couple of very confused VHF conversations with them, I discovered that the reason that the flight time seemed to keep jumping backwards and forwards was that Turtle Island and their float plane don't use the same time as the rest of Fiji but actually maintain their own private time zone one hour ahead of the rest of the country. How exclusive is that? It certainly excluded us from knowing what time the plane was supposed to take off!

 

Anyway. departure day dawned with dark threatening skies and a brisk southerly breeze which increased steadily throughout the morning. Having heard that the plane was on it's way, we set off across the lagoon in "Spot" the dinghy.  By this time the wind was blowing twenty-five knots and still growing so we struggled upwind in the pouring rain to the rendez-vous.  We were now soaked to the skin with both fresh and salt water......just the way to embark on 36 hours of international travel.  It was such a relief to see the plane circling over head and, as the pilot zoomed down to land, we said our soggy goodbyes.  Sadly he did not actually touch the water......and having had a good look at the waves from close up, decided it was no longer safe to land.  With a cheery wave the pilot climbed back out of the lagoon and set off back towards the mainland!

 

Fortunately we did was also a Plan B.  The ferry that departs once a day from the other end of the island had not yet left, so we raced back downwind and were just in time to sling our bedraggled passenger and her waterlogged suitcase on to the Yasawa Flyer. The last view we had of my poor dear Mum was of her waving goodbye from the top deck of the ferry, seemingly surrounded by a crowd of dope-smoking backpackers, as it set off southwards into the freshening gale!