Saturday 13^th June 2009 – Musket Cove, Fiji.

Weather’s been beautiful for the last week since Robbie and Katrina have been aboard. Time has gone very quickly and been filled with snorkelling at Sandy Cay, swimming, and in Mat and Katina’s case, hanging at the resort swimming pool.

We’re planning an excursion to the Yasawas next week, so made a tip over to Denerau on Thursday and paid a visit to the Nadi Markets top stock up on greens and potatoes to satisfy Mat’s insatiable appetite for carbs. Visited the South Pacific Butchery on the way back to the boat and realised that my usual routine of filling the freezer in NZ with Vac packed meat is something we don’t need to do in future. Excellent meat and way cheaper than the prices I paid John at the Parnell butchery to buy and vac pac before we left. (Probably on a par with some other NZ outlets though.)

We have a little trough approaching, the top of the tail of a big low over NZ at the moment, so we plan an early BBQ ashore at the Island Bar then we’ll huddle around the little (comparatively) TV at the “Yacht Club” to watch the All Blacks v France test in Dunedin. If the weather is clear tomorrow we’ll head off to the Yasawas otherwise the next day. There is no dignity in haste after all.

Vunda Pt Yacht Club bar, a good spot to watch the sunset…

..the night after Robbie and Katrina arrived.

But then on board at Musket Cove isn’t a bad spot to watch the sunset either.. the locals head home to the village after a days work at Plantation Resort.

Mat and Katrina at the pool.

One of the reasons you can’t get bare boat charters in Fiji any more. There’s a right side and a wrong side of those beacons (few though they are) and sometimes it’s difficult to tell which is which. There but for the grace of God … and an inherent fear of reefs, go I.

Robbie and I have been doing a bit of fishing from the dinghy outside the reef. Took these shots at “Wilkes” surf break on the way back one day when the surf was not very big. The first three being Scotty who owns the surf resort there and the other some other unfortunate who is about to come unstuck.