Salsa af Stavsnas - Another shitty day in Paradise

Another shitty day in Paradise

Salsa af Stavsnas

Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde

Thu 25 Sep 2014 01:44

The hardest part to describe being here is the peace of mind. It is like a retreat. Now Santapaz has left and there are just four boats in here spread out and each doing their own thing. We can swim in our first bathing suit and life moves in a good pace. You would think time went slowly but no, a day feels like an hour. There are always things to attend, small, but important.

Now the wind has picked up for a while and that cools things down a bit. That is nice.

Yesterday I took the kids to the beach with a magnifiyng glass and showed them how to focus a hotspot. Left them on the beach with the portable VHF and after an hour Erika called out with excitement "we have a big fire going here!". Sure enough they had managed to start a fire.

Lunch with Santapaz before they left and then I took a long haul with the kayak. I just love being here in solitude, paddling in labyrinths of standing rocks and white sand. Came to an island that forms a wall towards the outer lagoon. Walked ashore and crawled through a tunnel that took me to the other side, there i faced a strong blue color, crashing waves about 150 meters away from me and a relatively calm water just up to my feet.

I waded out but retrieted instantly when a shark fin came slowly gliding past me, a white tip of pretty good size was checking the shallow waters, what a wonderful animal and how much respect we have for them!

As I came back I worked my way to parts of the island where there are openings with tidal water rushing in, it was amazing, the water was clear as Absolut Vodka and dark blue. Plenty of fish used the current for different purposes. Back in the boat I suggested a late afternoon snorkel tour in one of this small passages. By then the water had come up a bit but not enought to get there with the dinghy. We ended up putting the dinghy on anchor by a paper white sand beach (yes you can get snow blind), walked to one opening that unfortunally was affected by all the sand so visibility was more like Gin & Bitter lemon (have you noticed Im trying to find new metaphors, and no, we do not drink much here).

BUT Andreas and I had a lot of fun, we could swim outside the 5 knot current all the way to the opening, you can always find shades from currents. Then he would hold my hand and off we went! Like a slippery slope. Ellinor was not excited, she called it Fast Forward Diving, and she wants to be able to look at a fish for a while, not just pass it in five knots and in bubbels like a soda streamer.

Erika remained on board and when we came back she had layed the table and made a pancake mix (thats how you take command when you hear that something is going on that you do not like: we had planned on having an indian dish, we are a lot into indian food now, we have learned some from the ladies that sell stuf on the market in Savusavu and we copied some receipies from Windarra).

Today we are working on this and that, as I do not have a computer anymore I have put my writing on a rest.Even though I can use Elinors and I have it all on a backup, we have different versions of the same software, Ellinor being the older. So I keep getting a message that the software is to old to open the newer documents. I'm trying to buy a new computer and have it sent to Suva but believe me, there must be something wrong with people that make offers in these kind of companies.

IF you are interested keep reading, if you just want the paradise stuff, you can quit here.

OK so I write an extensive email were I sort out what I want- the software that needs to be on the computer because Adobe for instance does not

let me restart their software after a crash without downloading it again and they do not understand that there are some parts of the world were broadband means 100kb/sec, broad as a straw...

So Im prepared to buy a newer version to solve the problem, but need it downloaded in Sweden.

So on and so forth.

I would say I had 6 major questions that needed to be responded.

I also explained that I have an accountan company in Sweden that takes care of my expenses and that they can get payed from there before shipment to Fiji.

They could contact my man in Sweden to check my accountability, and check our company so I gave them the company number.

I also explained we are on satellite so pls do not send any pdf files, they will be gone anyway.

OK?

we are talking about an order in total around 3600 Euros with software, extra hard drives etc, not bad?

All companies answered:

One told me he was not going to send anything anywhere because they had been fooled before, so if I wanted to buy I had to send somebody to them, buy the stuff with cash and then that person could ship it to me.

I guess they are out....

One havent responded me but called my contact and asked how fast he could put money on their account...

I guess we will not...

One sent me a pdf file,

thank you.

One answered on just how much a computer was...

AND?...

One answered 3 questions and when I tried to clarify the rest they disappeared from the conversation.

To hard I guess.

One remains, he answered 5 of 6 and when I tried to clarify the last he answered he will get back.

We will see to that.

Now, who is the winner? we will see...

The only one that seem to understand the questions is a company in Suva/Fiji, he even provided me with a qualified guessing on what has happened to the computer. The problem is that I want a Swedish keyboard, but I might end up just giving it all up.

The problem is that all pictures I have taken here are on the backup and the software for that is not available on Ellinors computer.

Sad.

The story continues...