Denerau

Trust
Richard Martin
Sun 15 Jun 2014 01:29
17:46.2S 177:22.9E

Second day at Denerau. Ollie and Paula got off the boat to catch their plane home this afternoon, feeling very uncomfortable at the prospect of arriving in Wgtn after all this heat. It was great to have them on board, even if Ollie's fishing skills deserted him in Fiji. But he made up for it by arranging a local fisherman to take us out in his longboat. So after driving out to what I swear was closer to Vanuatu than Fiji, we ended up catching 10 fish- 7 skipjack and 3 Spanish mackerel (wahoo). There wasn't much art in the chase - he just gunned his elderly 60 hp Yamaha across the ocean until we got bites, often on 3 lines at once.
We picked up the repaired main and got it back on the boom yesterday, so the only remaining job is to figure out why the SSB doesn't seem to want to transmit at full power. Will ask around for servicemen tomorrow, but there may be someone in Lautoka who might know something about it.
Not sure whether I should admit to this, but had a close encounter with some coral getting into Mana Island the other day. I didn't try and use the motor to extricate ourselves this time but asked another boat to pull us sideways using a halyard to lean her over. That worked fine and so the only damage was to my nerves. I dove on the keel and couldn't find where she had scraped on the coral. So that was a relief.
The weather has been pretty good. We have had a few showers and some winds at times (no more than 20 kts) but always in the high 20s. So there has been lots of snorkelling.
The current plan is to head back north Tuesday, stopping at Lautoka, and then following the passage to Northern Vitu Levu and then north across Bligh water to Yanuka. From there we will go west to the northern Yasawas.