RIP John – svRaj

Peter’s “postcard” photo of the beach

Our plan for this week was to head out to the remote Yasawa Islands for the final three weeks of our cruising season – however, the weather is the master out here – and we needed to high-tail it back to Vuda Point Marina.  The second Tropical Depression (which is the step before it is declared a cyclone) of the season was fast approaching. 

We only had two nights out at Musket Cove, but we made the most of our time there.

These “Christmas trees” only bloom red in late November and December.

Another cool tree on the Island.

When we arrived at Vuda Point, we had to stern tie because of the possible cyclone.  With the large low and high tide variances, it makes it a little challenging to get on and off the boat.

High tide

Low tide

The exciting “event” of the week was the potential cyclone.  The marina took it very seriously and we all had to have our boats fully prepared.  We were all watching the weather very closely.

 

Our friends Dave and Suzie from Sidewinder sent us this photo of how funny we look in the high winds - Einstein move over!

Luckily, the cyclone passed 360 miles south of Fiji, so we didn’t have any serious effects, other than occasional driving rain and high gusts in short bursts for two days.  The weather now is clear, sunny and warm.

Trying not to get sun-burnt

Because we are unable to sail through the Yasawa’s we rebooked our flight home for November 29^th.  We will spend this final week putting QuickStar to bed for the winter.  That means removing all sails and everything from the deck, etc.

Folding up the genny

We had already provisioned for our final three weeks, so we’ll be giving away a fair amount of food.  We also bought enough beer/wine/alcohol – but Peter says we’ll just have to “suck it up” and finish it off.  So our schedule has actually been to work in the morning and early afternoon and then play a few hands of 2-handed bridge, while working hard on finishing off the liquor cabinet in to the evening hours.  Truly though, we appreciate that life can be gone in the blink of an eye, and we try to live each day to the fullest.

This week, we had some more very upsetting news.  One of our fellow cruisers – John from Raj – who we participated with in the Musket Cove Rally week - was making the passage from Fiji to New Zealand.  Tragically he died at sea only two hours outside of arriving in New Zealand.  He was healthy and fit, but had a sudden heart attack at only 64 years old.  His wife was the only other person on board, so the navy sent out a helicopter and offloaded some sailors.  They sailed Raj home and Sue was picked up by the helicopter.  Although this is tragic, Sue was fortunate that it happened so close to land-fall.  It is one of the main reasons, I won’t do a major passage (over 5 days) with just the two of us aboard. 

These sunset pictures from Musket Cove are in memory of John.  R.I.P.

 Until next week….. 
"When you do the things you need to do when you need to do them, the day will come when you can do the things you want to do when you want to do them."

-- Zig Ziglar, Motivational Speaker