17.46S 177.11E
JENNY
Alan Franklin/ Lynne Gane
Tue 8 Jul 2008 12:04
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Hi All
Alan here. Sorry for the late update, but we
have arrived at Savu Savu in Fiji on 4-7-08 safe and sound. Its a
delightful place, albeit a little poorer than Tonga and a little third
worldish in living conditions, but its full of happy smiling people who
seem to really appreciate us being here.
Whilst here we have been taking part in events
organised by Blue Water rallies and associated travel companies. The
weather has been unsettled with plenty of rain - We toured the rain forest, and
it rained , and rained, and rained for 8 more hours, but it was warm!! The
diving here was only really OK compared with Tonga, and apart from the
dive boat "losing" us for 20 minutes and bobbing about in a 2 meter swell just
off the reef, it was quite uneventful, but we saw plenty of lovely live
coral and quite a few fish, and fortunately just the one unwelcome
shark.
The next day in the moorings the local sailing club
organised a fund raising race with proceeds to Fiji's Olympic sailing
hopefuls - racing optimist dinghies - you wouldn't believe the sight
of fully grown men trying to race 6 x 2 ft children's dinghies - great fun and
won by Per of "Pele" - still he did take part in some distant
Olympics!!
We have unfortunately again lost Peter, and
also Jenny who are back in UK for a while for personal reasons, and hope they
can return as soon as possible. whilst in Savu Savu we have again repaired the outboard "Johnson" which again was
causing problems despite being repaired in Tonga (lasted about 30 mins)
Quality repairs seem to be hard to come by in this part of the world. The good
news (touch wood) is that the watermaker seems to be now running OK after a
somewhat crude but effective welding job in Tonga - unbelievable that simple
mechanical problems have escaped quality control in UK and caused so much
aggravation!!
We have taken on another crew member for a while,
Jean from Cairns in Australia. Ellie, Jean, and myself have now moved the
boat on to Musket Cove, a beautiful resort location on the other major island of
Fiji -Viti Levu. A lovely sail down to the south of Viti Levu and overnight to
Cuvu Harbour. When passing Suva, the Fiji capital at 2 a.m. we were confronted with 6 fishing boats, 3 ferries and 2
cargo ships - quite traumatic dodging them as we've grown so used to clear seas
for days on end! The final part of the trip from Cuvu Harbour to
Musket Cove started well but ended with 6 hrs of torrential rain, thunderstorms
and 30 knot headwinds. This was not ideal for the tricky passage in through the
reefs, or the mooring stern to in the very small harbour, the sidewinds
hampering manoevering and a few boats went aground - we were lucky
although at one time there was less than 6 inches under the keel!
We will be here for a while but there is much to
see on this little island off the NW corner of Viti Levu. Lots of walking and
fabulous views of the reefs and surrounding islands. There are many things to do here and possibly its the most
beautiful place I've seen so far. I'm hoping that Peter and Jenny will return
here soon to continue the adventure.
Bye for now
Alan
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