Farewell to Fiji

Since we left Fiji over three weeks ago, we have been out of internet range.  I was able to post the weekly blog from our Ham Radio, but this does not allow any photos.  Now that we are in Port Vila (the major centre of Vanuatu, I'm able to post the photos that go along with the Ham Radio commentary for the first two weeks.  These are the photos from our first week and then our second week follows - the commentary for both weeks follows the photos.

Our final night at the Sunset Bar at Vuda Point Marina - saying goodbye to our friends

Doing the official check out at customs

Sadly....taking down the Fiji flag as we head out to sea

Hooray....landfall in Vanuatu

 Our anchorage for the next week

Raising the Vanuatu flag (and the quarantine flag which we kept up until the customs officer 

came aboard and cleared us in)

Our first evening at anchor in Vanuatu

The local village

A local family dressed for winter (it was about 23 degrees c/75 degrees f)

The elementary school

Unit on turtles

The kids loved the supplies and games we brought them. Flashcards were the big hit! Di in the background

Highschool - we gave them crosswords, suduko and other puzzles.
Most of the students had never seen these before

Other forms of housing in the village

  
Ancient site from the first missionaries

Buying stamps in the village (the only store except for a bank without an ATM)

There is a supply boat that comes once a month.  It arrived when we were there.  It took two days to unload it, as there is only the one boat that does the transfer of supplies.

Although Vanautu is generally a safe destination there was a murder during the week that we were there.  We didn't learn about it until after we left, as the locals were quite ashamed of it and kept it quiet.  A woman was killed by her boyfriend and he dumped her in this river.  He cut out her heart and apparently ate it, which is a sign of black magic.  The murderer is still hiding out in the woods.

 
The beach

Dug-out canoe

Adorable kids

 They caught a little fish and were delighting in playing with it

Missing the little grandkids

Our anchorage

The view from QuickStar

Our parking spot on the island

A short dinghy ride away is the beautiful island called Mystery Island.  It is completely surrounded by a white sand beach.  The island is deserted as the locals believe that it is haunted.  You can have the island all to yourself most days - except for when a cruise ship is at anchor and the island comes alive with markets and tourists.

Walking path

Trees blowing in the breeze

A cool shelter

Outhouses on the island

Playing tourist

Coffee break

Market open during cruise ship visits

 

Just two views  of this great 360 degree beach

 

 

Pretty big spiders

 

Island trees

We had a great first week in Vanautu.  Our next stop was Port Resolution on the island of Tanna.
 Photos and commentary below.

Until Friday....don't take yourself too seriously.

My memory isn’t so good anymore, so I changed my password to “incorrect”.  That way when I log in with the wrong password, the computer will tell me “You’re password is incorrect”.

Vanautu here we come....

Wednesday, July 3rd       Day One

We have officially cleared out of Fiji.  It was sad leaving Vuda Point Marina this morning - saying goodbye to all our good friends here - especially Riki and David and Suzie.  To make it more emotional, as we were leaving the employees all gathered around and sang us the Fiji farewell song.  Our taxi driver even came and joined in.  Very touching.

We spent about an hour at the customs office in Lautoka.  Everything here operates as it did in the 70's.  We even filled out forms using carbon paper for the second copy - some of you are probably way too young to even know what I'm talking about.

As I type this, Peter is loading the dinghy on the deck and then we are set to go.  The weather window looks favourable for our 4 day journey, although that can always change in a moment.

I'll check in with you tomorrow, after our first night out.  That is always the hardest one for me.  I'm just looking forward to arriving in Vanautu safe and sound.  Until tomorrow.....

We are heading back out to sea.....farewell Fiji...we will miss you!

Today is our final day in our favorite cruising spot – Fiji.  It is with mixed feelings, that we leave this wonderful country, although we are looking forward to our next adventures.  We have kept busy these past few days getting ready for our crossing to Vanautu.  We’ve provisioned the boat with six weeks’ worth of food, since there is very limited supplies in the remote country of Vanautu.

Today, we’ve done the final touches in preparation – I’ve prepared four dinners for our expected four night crossing, although we usually don’t eat much the first day or two while we get our sea legs.  I will start with the sea-sickness medication tonight and will stay on it to hopefully prevent it. There is a saying in the cruising community.  “If you get sea sick you feel like you are going to die.  As it progresses you wish you would die”.  (My girlfriend Krys who came with us on the leg from San Fran to Mexico knows this experience all too well!)

We have the life jackets at the ready and all the jack lines and tethers are on.  This is a system by which you tether on to your life jacket and the jack lines attached to the boat, to prevent you from being swept overboard in the event of bad weather.  As a safety precaution we always “clip in” during the dark – which runs from 6:00 p.m to 6:00 a.m. each day.  I still find that everything intensifies during the darkness – the wind seems to increase and the seas seem to build.

We have prepared our “ditch” bag, which consists of our important papers, flares and other safety items.  A “ditch” bag means precisely that…in the event we need to abandon ship we throw that in our life raft (which is already fitted with emergency food, water, etc.).  We also have an emergency beacon that we would set off, which would be able to pinpoint our location.  Hopefully this is all equipment that we will never need.

We will be doing 4 hour watches between Peter and I during the 12 dark hours.   I’m still a nervous “crossing” sailor, so Peter stays in the cockpit and sleeps while I’m on watch. I tend to wake him up more often than I should if something doesn’t “feel right”.  He then “cat-naps” during his watch, (while I’m on high-alert during mine) which makes me nervous, so neither of us really gets a decent sleep.  We’ll make up for it when we hit landfall. 

What is interesting about this crossing is we are leaving about 24 hours before 27 Oyster Boats are heading in the same direction on their round the world rally.  Oyster boats start at about 3 million dollars and are very fast, so most of them will beat us to Vanautu.  I feel somewhat more relaxed knowing there will be that many boats close by, if anyone should run in to any problems.  Peter still scoffs at my nervousness and all he says is “they better not get in our way”. 

As with all our crossings, I will endeavour to do a blog posting every day.  This is dependent on whether we can get a ham radio connection, so if I am unable to do so, please do not be concerned.  As we are going to the remote southern islands of Vanautu, we also won’t be in regular email or internet contact for close to three weeks, but as soon as I possibly can, I’ll update the blog with our safe arrival.

Hope you all had a wonderful Canada Day weekend.  We celebrated aboard QuickStar. 

 

Until tomorrow…….Stay safe and have fun!