Well it is just under a week and we are back off to Fiji to continue our South Pacific adventures on board Mustang Sally

 

When we last left Sally she was securely packed up in her cyclone pit at Vuda Marina and we had organised for the marina crew to look after her while we are away.

 

 

 

We receive a weekly report and even get feedback via Facebook on the state of play especially when cyclones are close by which happened late last week when Tropical Cyclone Josie passed just to the South of the Fiji Islands but she is still looking happy although a little wet based on the photos we received a couple of weeks ago. 

They even take photos to tell us how well the batteries are doing and we often get a photo of a very nice dry bilge -  A boat owner couldn’t ask for much more!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately there is another Tropical Depression (TD13F) which has just formed up near Vanuatu and the forecasters are predicting that it may intensify into yet another cyclone which may again pass close to Fiji so have our fingers and toes crossed that it keeps its distance.

 

The first few weeks in Fiji will be spent getting Sally all ready for the season ahead.  We have quite a big jobs list to get through but once we hit the water and get on our way it seems all worth while.

 

The general plan for this year is to spend around 3-4 months in the Fiji Islands concentrating mainly on the Eastern side as we haven’t had much of a change to explore this side of Fiji yet.  Mid August we will be departing from Fiji and heading to Port Vila in Vanuatu and from there plan to spend around 6 weeks exploring the outer islands of Vanuatu visiting some of our favourite stops from our trip in 2013 and hoping to explore a few news ones as well.  From there we will depart from Santo Espirito in the north of the Vanuatu island chain and head back to Bundaberg in Australia with a couple of pit stops at Huon and Chesterfield reefs on the way back to Australia. 

 

One other ambition for this season is to further improve our kite boarding skills and there isn’t a better place than Fiji to do this with warm water and regular trade winds conditions. 

We made some good progress last season in Tonga and Fiji and been spending as much time as we can kiting during our stay at home this summer but really looking forward to spending plenty of time this year further improving our skills.

 

For the 2018-2019 cyclone season we will leave Sally in SE Queensland probably back at Royal Queensland YS which is a bit of a favourite and may even look to spend a few weeks on her in January and do some more exploring around Moreton Bay.