Salsa af Stavsnas - Le Vin, Le Pain, Le Burseine 14S 178W

Le Vin, Le Pain, Le Burseine 14S 178W

Salsa af Stavsnas

Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde

Fri 7 Nov 2014 02:39

About 9 I took down the Fiji flag on our starboard spreader and up went the French flag and the yellow Q.

At ten we were inside the reef and in the bay, anchored in splendid solitude.

The first thing everybody did was jump into te water to be coooooooled. There is a strong humid heat and a build up of thunder and lightning.

That is one reason we really worked on getting here by lunch at the latest. The weather files show that we will have some

"Sturm und Blitz" this afternoon.

The dinghy was next to jump in the water, engine mounted and off we went to the local Gendarmerie for checking in.

There, in an air conditioned room we met a French Gendarmeria with a big gun on her belt. Andreas was so fascinated he almost

took it from her. "LOOOOOOOOOK SHE HAS A REAL GUN!"

"Andreas can you be quite"

"How often does she shoooot people!?"

And so on....

After check in we bought some baguette in a local store that has everything from wine to chainsaw (almost same price range).

The store itself does not look like anything we have seen before. There is nothing like "how do we showcase this products?", no it is more like, "you want some hose?" Here is a lot of hose! - kind of pile" "Oh here we got a shipping of screws! Shall we open the box?"

"Well I guess if you just tear it open people will see what's in it, put it over here by the Vespa"

What about having all the refridgerators on one wall?

Or how do you design the STORE?

"Actually this pillars in concrete do not look fancy, let's take some old plastic wrapping , it is glossy at least and just wrap it as high as the ladder can take us"

"Let´s see, I have seen in other countries that they have cashiers by the exit, lets make a pile of boxes and it will look like a Carrefour"

Honestly, they are the only store on the island (Fotuna is about 14 km long and 4 km wide) it is the only pile of lava (well there is one just nearby called Alofi, but nobody lives there) in the vicinity, you know they have the same view we have when sailing over an ocean; -water, water, water. And then there is this store that has to cater everything you can think of for 5000 souls that live here.

And that store has a pile of make-up articles just next to a pile of beds, a pile of fresh baguettes next to home appliances.

You think of a country store and make it times 1000, and think what it would look like i Andreas did all the sorting...

We need some cash, of course that is the STORE who can make it, by using your Visa card and take out some money, BUT they charge us 1000 Pacific Franc for taking out 4000... Thank you very much.

The Fiji prices are something to enjoy for sure...

We will obviously not shop around here but we will stay and wait for a good weather window. The winds are all confused because of a high and the moist air that is covering this area.

In the heat we are seing the kids in the water all the time now, but tonight we will go and see what kind of party they are throwing on the island gym...

Oh you did not know that? In Fotuna the Gym is the party place....