Fiji

September 20, 2008

Early yesterday morning we left Tonga for Fiji.  It rained all night and this morning the winds are fluky, anywhere from 17 to 30 knots.  We are staying below to keep dry and rest.  We are still pumping the bilge an average of 20 strokes every 30 minutes, 24/7.  Mike is sick and throwing up, seasick? Later in the afternoon he is feeling better and the rain has stopped and now we have light winds.  This evening while Mike was sleeping the auto pilot goes off line.  I get a flashlight and turn the wheel while watching the compass for 262 degrees to get back on course.  The winds have change too and all this commotion wakes Mike up.  He comes out to the cockpit and says to start the engine to get back on course and he adjusts the set of the sails.  Back on course and we are both soaked.

September 21, 2008

It was a rough night, so much rain.  This morning we have 20+knots of wind and sailing at 7 knots.  We decided to drop the head sail and only use the stay sail.  Mike is feeling better today but decides he needs more sleep.  At 10:30PM we are in the Lau group of islands, Fijian waters, but we still have 100 miles to go to Lautoka where we must check in.

September 22, 2008

The wind blew hard all night up to 29 knots.  The seas have continued to build and the seas are 8 to 10 feet and we are still making 6 – 7 knots of speed.  We can’t get to our destination by dark, so we thought we would go to Suva instead.  However it is not easy to see the way with clouds overhead and we know there are reefs and we are not sure how accurate our charts are in Fiji, so we continue on, one more night.  Mike is still not feeling well and now the head won’t pump out, so everything smells like you know what!  He still doesn’t feel too chipper but the head now works!  Somehow the topping lift came off the boom, it is not broken just vibrated off, who knows.  Leave it for now.

September 23, 2008

We are close enough to Lautoka, we need to plan our arrival, we would like to go through the pass, between reefs at daylight.  We are going to fast and will arrive at dark, so we decide to take down the stay sail.  Now the wind has picked up so we are actually going faster.  We decided to take down the main sail too and sail on bare poles.  We have no sails up and the wind has picked up to 35 knots and we are shocked to see our speed at 4.5 knots!  We are only one mile off shore, there is a reef between us and shore and many fishing boats and it is dark.  We have to watch carefully and check radar too just to make sure we don’t hit a fishing boat.  We have no idea if they have nets out too.  We arrived at the pass at the same time a ship was leaving, but we made it through, using the waypoints from Curly and the chart plotter, it was uneventful. We still had to motor 2.5 hours to customs.  The seas were much calmer inside the reef.  At Lautoka we dropped anchor and raised the quarantine flag and Mike took the dinghy ashore to check in.  He ended up bringing 3 officials back to our boat in our little dinghy, one for customs, one for health and one for quarantine.  They were very nice and even took off their shoes.  They searched most easy to open cupboards.  Since our food was from Tonga, they didn’t care if we kept it as long as we didn’t take it off the boat.  The Health official asked if he could have one of our DVD’s so Mike said he could have one, but he took two.  I served the guys banana cake, which they bragged about on shore.  Mike took them back to shore and then we had lunch and got some sleep!

September 24, 2008

We had a great night sleep, although it was so hot and there were so many mosquitoes we had to stay covered up or get bit.  We had instant coffee in bed and then a late breakfast.  Then we walked to town since our food stores were low.  We planned to have lunch in town but there are not restaurants on every corner like we are use to.  We did manage to find an outdoor restaurant that served fish and chips and chicken curry.  We couldn’t find a hamburger.  Our big lunch cost only $10.50F which is only $6US for both of us.  We found the Municipal Market which is the produce market, it was fantastic.  When compared to Tonga’s market, it was fabulous and the people seemed much friendlier.  They had much more to offer, the market was 10 times bigger than Tonga’s and cheaper.  One cuke in Tonga cost $2 and 3 cukes in Fiji cost $2 and the exchange rate was close between the US and these countries. There was also a fish market and souvenir shop too.  We walked home along the water front. It was hot and we were loaded down! Back at the boat Mike put screens in all the windows.  We didn’t have a screen for the companion way hatch, so we have to keep it closed to keep out the mosquitoes.

September 25, 2008

We had papayas for breakfast, they seemed a little different than what we were used to but they were great.  We decided to stay another day since we didn’t see much of the town.  So we packed up our computer as we planned to look for an internet connection and brought the camera so we could take a few photos.  We walked to town using a different route this time and stopped at a shop where I could buy a dress.  Shorts were not worn by the local women in town.  I bought a Fiji sun dress for only $19F, great price.  Then we walked by three big guys who said Bula, (hello or welcome) we ignored them and kept walking.  They said we were not very friendly so I decided to shake their hands, I didn’t want to be rude especially in another country where we like to meet the locals.  They asked us our kids and grandkids names and as we told them, they proceeded to carve the names in souvenir sticks.  Then they ask Mike for $50.  We of course didn’t want the sticks and especially for that much money, but they were big guys.  Once Mike had his wallet out they insisted on another $50.  We felt they might take our whole wallet if we didn’t pay so he did.  I told them that was ridiculous and they said ‘you need to support the poor people of Fiji’. Big scam! That ruined our day but we still needed an internet connection, so we found one, only 75 cents Fijian an hour, that’s cheap. We had lunch and went back to the market where we met Mary who helped us find what we needed.  Then we walked back to the boat.  It was so hot!  Later Vari showed up, I don’t think we had seen them since Tahiti, what a nice surprise.

September 26, 2008

We decided to just clean up our boat today.  Mike worked hard at flaking the main sail.  I made banana bread.  Now we are ready to go to Vuda Point Marina to be hauled out.  When we arrived the marina told us to tie to a buoy in the center of the marina, we couldn’t see it though and that was because Vari was tied up there.  They were awaiting a slip, once in a slip we picked up the buoy until they fixed the travel lift that had a flat tire.  Moe and George hauled us out, they were very conscientious.  Mike and I had to stay on our boat and do whatever they told us to, like pull and tie lines to cleats and untie them.  I worked on the bow and Mike on the stern.  When the boat was lifted level with the dock, they told me to jump off.  It was a scary jump, it felt too far and on to a narrow dock.  George helped me and when I jumped I grabbed him.  They power washed the boat and then set it on stands.  They gave us a 12 foot ladder that we had to use to climb on and off the boat.  That was a little scary too!  Now we had a good look at the damage to our hull, it was cracked more than we thought.  Everyone that walked by gave us an opinion about how to fix this problem.  Mike had more than enough feedback.  We went to dinner at the yacht club with Gordon and Janine off Vari, and met Patrick and Mike. 

September 27, 2008

It is a nice day.  We had breakfast and then found the marina laundry where I did two loads of laundry myself.  It was half price compared to Tonga.  Mike worked on scraping off a few more barnacles on the boat hull.  Then worked on trying to get email.  It is $60F for 90 days or 500MB whichever comes first.  We took nice hot showers!  We went to dinner again with Vari, Patrick and Mike and had great pizza for cheap.

September 28, 2008

We didn’t sleep well last night, it was so hot and there were so many mosquitoes.  It has been raining all morning. We braved the weather and went to the marina office to see if we could find out why our internet connection wouldn’t work.  Turns out we didn’t do one step to complete the process, it is very different from other internet we have bought along the way.  You buy MB and time and which ever one is up first is when you have to pay more.  We haven’t heard from Curly regarding who we should contact to fix our hull, tomorrow we are sharing a taxi with Dave on Swan to go to town and buy our own equipment, mostly a grinder.

September 29, 2008

We went to town in Abdul’s taxi with Dave.  It was great as the taxi driver told us where we could buy whatever we needed, he waited, no extra cost, and then we dropped our purchase in the taxi and went on to the next place.  It was great not having to carry everything around.  Our first stop was at the fire protective store where Mike bought coveralls, safety glasses and masks, then to the hardware store to buy a grinder.  I went to the Municipal Market and the HM grocery store, where there were definitely cockroaches, Yuk!  Dave bought mosquito netting, he is tired of being bit.  We invited Dave to dinner to thank him for his help and besides his wife is back in the states for a couple of weeks.  He said he has been eating sardines and cold corn, another Yuk!  When we returned to the boat we went to the marina café and ordered milk shakes, it is so hot, we thought they might cool us off.  We called Bud, Mom and Videen’s from the café as we had a stronger signal.  We met Millie who owns the general store here, she is very nice.  We also met Stu and Debbie on Grace, (by the grace of God) a 56’ Cat, who are Christians.  When we returned to our boat there was evidence that a bird had been in our boat, a piece of pineapple had been pecked to death and bird poop on the steps was a dead giveaway.  I made a nice Taco salad for dinner and Dave seemed to really appreciate real food.

September 30, 2008

Nice morning, Mike got up early before it gets to hot to start grinding the hull.  He put on all his safety gear and started grinding away.  The marina asked him to come to the office, we thought we might be in trouble but it was only a phone call from Tony from the Fibreglass Shop.  He gave us great information about our little project here and recommended that we use Baobab Marine Industries to fix it.  There were mixed reports at the marina regarding the price and work of Baobab.  Mike finished grinding out the hull and then asked Baobab to give us a bid.  It came in pretty fair so Mike decided to have them do the work.  It would be so hard to go to town and be able to find the products we would need, so it was better to use the local business, they have everything they need already.  Mike would just have to keep a close eye on the work.  The experienced guy was Richard, he seemed great, he had done this type of work for 30 years and it showed.  The other guy was a rookie but did whatever he was told.  I took an empty coke bottle to the store to see if they would let me freeze it as the cube ice, did not last long and I was buying 2 to 3 bags everyday.  Millie let me freeze our bottle and I still bought 2 bags of ice everyday.

October 1, 2008

It is raining today but Richard still worked on our boat for 8 hours.  They say they will be finished tomorrow and it looks great.  They glassed the inside of the bilge and the outside hull.  The last repair was barely done on the outside.  So this should be great.  Since we were pleased with their work we ask for a bid to paint antifouling on the bottom too.  Now that bid was high, so we said no.  I experimented with curry for dinner, it was pretty good but something was missing.  Tonight we watched 3 episodes of Vanity Fair before going to bed.

October 2, 2008

The wind blew hard all night, it shook the boat up on the hard stands.  Mike made sure the head sail could not come unfurled or we might sail right off.  Yikes!  Today the hull repair is completed.  Mike decided to grind out the hull blisters and Dave gave him the supplies to fill them.  Dave is a great guy!  We met lots of cruisers today, Destiny Seattle – Michael and Joanne, they told us about the Island Cruising Association who are putting on a free rally to NZ.  The good thing about it is we have a group of boats to check in with on the passage.  Seamor – Jerry who just sold his boat and is awaiting the cash.  Sumatra – Jerry, with John and Mimi who are his crew.  Mike fixed his GPS for him and he was very happy!  We toured his boat, very nice!

October 3, 2008

Today we signed up for the Island Cruising Association rally to Opua.  Baobab gave us another bid since Mike repaired the blisters, total cost with paint was $1000F.  We didn’t want to start the job until we had the bill for the hull repair to see how close the quote to actual cost was, but we couldn’t seem to get it out of them and the longer we delay the more time we spent on the hard which is more expensive per day then in a marina slip.   I worked on the rust on the stainless, it is difficult to do much at any one time as it is too hot.   We met Owen today, he is an AG missionary from NZ.  Very nice guy, he took our water jug home with him and filled it with water for us.  The water at the marina has much silt in it which I realized once I filled coke bottles to freeze at the store.  Tonight we treated ourselves to fish n chips at the yacht club for dinner.  Afterwards we watched the movie Penelope on the lawn outside.  It was cold with the wind blowing, with gusts to 30 knots but at least there were no mosquitoes.  Horst & Julia from Pacific Star and Dave were there too.

October 4, 2008

Mike worked on the hull blisters again and I went to the Marine Store and bought paint primer.  I had to buy more ice too as it was so hot we had no ice left at all.  We received an email that the Chittick’s are not coming to visit us in NZ due to the economy, bummer.  We weren’t sure if we were going to NZ if we didn’t find crew but knowing we would see family kept us more excited about sailing to NZ, and we think we will find crew.  Since it was so hot, I didn’t want to cook dinner so we went to the yacht club for pizza again.

October 5, 2008

It is so hot already this morning.  I went to the store and bought bread, eggs and ham and invited Dave to breakfast, he didn’t hesitate at that offer.  I made French toast and Ham, yummy.  Mike put primer on the repaired blisters today and I did laundry.  Later in the afternoon we took ‘cold’ showers, no hot water.  There was a live Fijian band playing at the yacht club, outside on the lawn so we went and joined other cruisers and listened.  We met Night Cap, Sue and Peter.  Julia was there and invited me to go shopping tomorrow with Liberty and Willow, a girl’s day out.

October 6, 2008

I got up and made French toast, but had no time to eat as I had to catch the bus.  The other ladies had already left for the bus stop, which was about 3 blocks away.  I ran and got there in plenty of time. I met Yvette and I already knew Bonny and Julia.  The bus doubled as a school bus, so there were lots of local kids and lots of stops, it was an interesting ride, about an hour long.  Normally the ride was about 20 minutes via cab to Lautoka.  $1 bus or $15 via a cab.  We got off in town by the bank machine, and walked around until the stores opened, we were about a half hour early.  We had great fun shopping at a seconds and used clothing store.  I bought 2 dresses and a blouse.  Then we had lunch at Sugar City Mall, a rather dark food court with limited choices mostly Asian or Indian food, but cheap, $3 for more than you could eat, I had chicken curry.  We all split up and I went to the Municipal Market again, this time I bought 5 fishbone necklaces for the grand kids.  And of course I had to have more produce, although I was getting too much to carry.  I met the ladies back at the HM grocery store where I bought more stuff, but we caught a cab back to the marina and shared the cost back to the marina, only $4 each.  We were each dropped off right at our boat, so we didn’t have to carry heavy stuff so far.  Cold showers were in order again and pizza at the yacht club again.  Another free movie too, a Steven King movie, The Mist, terrible movie, wished we hadn’t stayed.  They finished painting the boat with 2 coats today.

October 7, 2008

We go back in the water today!  First we met Rhonda, Dave’s wife, he picked her up at the airport early this morning.  He is so happy she is back and she seems happy to see him.  As they were putting our boat back in the water, we had to jump on the boat from the dock, not as scary as jumping off but scary.  Our boat was back in the water by noon.  We tied up med moor and George helped to tie our stern lies to mooring balls.  If I thought the ladder was hard to go up and down the med moor slip was harder.  At low tide you had to climb up the mooring lines and at high tide you climbed down and in between you could just step off.  I felt like a monkey but eventually got used to it.  Now that we are in the water we can run the refer again and not have to buy ice, after 2 hours it only reached 39 degrees, it needs to get down to 10 degrees, so we will work on it more in the morning.  I did 3 loads of laundry today, I only used the washer and hung everything to dry.  There was a couple at the marina looking to crew preferably going west but willing to go to NZ.  They were Lars and Maria and they had very little experience.  They were very nice but we really wanted more experience, and they don’t think they get seasick.  Since we now have discovered Mike gets seasick, I can’t afford to have 3 sick people puking their guts out with me.  So we agreed that if they couldn’t find a ride by the end of October and if we didn’t find experienced crew, then they could come with us.  We met them later at the yacht club, they are a great couple with big dreams.

October 8, 2008

This morning is hot, I am already sweating.  I made breakfast and did dishes while Mike worked on our website.  Later we went through our photos together trying to find the best ones for our website.  Today I found out from the marina that I can order groceries from Cost U Less.  They deliver at the marina, so if I type up a grocery list, the marina will fax it and it will be delivered on Wednesday right to my boat.  So I put together a list, especially of heavy things we don’t want to carry like cases of pop, gallon of vinegar (to clean toilet) etc.  Yvette, Carl and Kyle on Liberty invited us to go swimming at the resort behind the marina.  If you order a drink you can swim for free, or else there is a $5 charge.  It is a big nice pool and we all played volley ball in the pool.  Rhonda showed up and joined our game.  Really fun day.  We watched the movie at the yacht club tonight, it was too slow and too bloody, a waste of time, don’t even know the name of it

October 9, 2008

We got our bill from Baobab today, we need to pay in cash or there is a $115.00 extra charge for using credit card.  So we took the bus to town.  We could only get $1000 out of the bank so that means we have to go to town again to get more.  We went to the market again and this time we met an Indian man who sold spices and told us what spices we needed to make curry.  We bought tin snips and printer cartridge before catching a bus back to Vuda Point.  Only one bus goes back to the marina and only at 4:30.  We had an hour to kill so we people watched at the bus barn.  A lot of school kids going home for the holiday weekend.  We talked to many people, so it was an enjoyable wait.  The bus was very full and made many stops.  We had dinner at the yacht club with Dave and Rhonda. Nice evening.

October 16, 2008

You may have noticed that I must have been having so much fun that I forgot to keep up the journal and I simply can’t remember when we did what.  So during the week we fixed stuff on the boat, like revised the lazy jack lines, fixed the block at the top of the mast that the halyard goes through, it wasn’t rolling so that is why it was so difficult to drop the main.  Mike also finished the sail cover, he did an excellent job.  I made a mosquito covering for the companion way with extra net that Dave gave me, this net has also proved invaluable to keep out the birds, who come in your boat the minute you leave and sometimes join you in the cabin!  We were waiting for mail, doing laundry, cleaning the boat, receiving mail and going through it.  We ended up paying $283US to receive bank and credit card statements that we already view online, however we did receive new credit cards and one had a new account number that we were not aware of, good thing it didn’t get rejected, and were given a new personal banker we were not aware of that either, (we email our banker as we change countries so our bank cards are not rejected, so this is important info.) our Verizon auto pay stopped and our phones were shut off, we can’t use them now but had kept them in order to keep our phone numbers when we return to the states next year.  Our groceries were delivered from Cost U Less and contained things like pancake mix, maple syrup and filter coffee, that are not available in typical Fijian stores, nor were they available in Tonga, Niue or Rarotonga.  Libery invited us and Swan over to movie night with popcorn, a very nice treat.  We learned that Carl, Dave and Mike all previously owned an Austin Healy Bug Eyed Sprite, now that is too weird.  So as you can see I was just too busy to journal. J

October 17’ 2008

Today is cloudy and still hot!  We plan to go cruising to some of the islands but first we have to get a cruising permit to go to Musket Cove.  Fiji really keeps track of you, once you check into Fiji you have to get a cruising permit, check in with the chief of villages before you can go ashore and sometimes bring gifts of Kava.  We are able to fax our request from the marina to go to Musket Cove.  Rhonda had a local newspaper and it had a front page article about a cruising boat that hit a reef and sank.  They tried to get the Fijian Navy and Police patrol boat to rescue them but were unsuccessful.  Five hours after their mayday calls another cruising boat rescued the 3 cruisers off of a reef, the boat had sunk.  We have seen boats on a regular basis get hauled out in Vuda Point as they hit the reefs.  You have to be very careful and only sail when the sun is out so you can see the reefs in the water.  A local gave us ‘snail trails’, places he has been with longitude and latitude so you are sure not to hit a reef.  Later we read the account of SV Timella sinking on the web site, it seems Fiji needs search and rescue training and equipment. Lesson learned “Do not hit a reef especially in Fiji!”

October 18, 2008

It rained all day but Owen came with his car and took Swan and us to tour Nadi.  Good thing he had umbrellas, it rained so hard.  We visited the Hindu temple and were given a short tour for $3.50F.  You had to take off your shoes even in the rain.  The ceilings were painted with murals of their various gods.  They have 6,000 different gods including a 6 headed god.  Interesting, I am so glad I only have one God to pray too.  They had 4 or 5 prayer rooms, with incense burning and we weren’t allowed to enter, the priest was on site and the guide was also one of the painters.  No pictures were allowed inside.  It is not a huge temple but painting is a year round full time job for 2 men.  Next we visited Port Denerau, with a Hard Rock Café, the touristiest area we have seen, next we saw the golf course with 1 to 5 million dollar houses around it.  Fiji has 37% of its people at poverty level and many homeless nearby in town and then you see this area near the golf course. Unbelievable!  In town the poor people line the sidewalks everywhere.  They don’t leave much because if they do someone else will get their spot.  It is really sad.  We saw the local McDonald’s, the schools and nice hotels.  We even went in the Radisson Hotel, beautiful, and we saw the World Mark Hotel where Mark and Yvonne could have met us, if only the airline tickets weren’t $2K US each!  We went to a Chinese Restaurant for dinner is was rather expensive but the food was good and so was the company.  We also had ice cream sundaes for dessert! Great Day! Thanks Owen!

October 19, 2008

Yesterday in all the rain our bed got wet, so today we are putting the mattress outside to dry out.  Didn’t do much today, but they had live music at the yacht club again so we joined the other cruisers and had a nice time.  Liberty went to Nadi on the bus with their boys.  They bought us a pistol and mortar to crush things like chic peas to make hummus.  I tried to make hummus based on their recipe and it just wasn’t that good.

October 20, 2008

Today in an effort to get ready to leave we bought 40 gallons of fuel for $317F, not cheap!  I also washed the bedding on the forward bunk as it was damp and mildewed.  That cabin gets the worst in terms of dampness and mildew.  Since the marina showers are cold we filled our sun shower and it got so hot we couldn’t use it.  We heard from Grace, Sally and Geoff and they plan to come to Vuda Point and leave for NZ mid November.  That is basically our plan, maybe we could buddy boat.  Last night at the club we met Glide from Seattle, Dan, a doctor and his wife Brenda, they are flying home.  I used Skype to call a number in Fiji and it was 30 cents per minute vs. the usual 2 cents a minute.  That makes no sense but I guess that is how it is.  I stayed with Dave and Rhonda to watch ‘Get Smart’ it is movie night.  It wasn’t that great but was okay.

October 21, 2008

Mike is working on getting ready to go. I baked banana bread and shared with Swan and Dulcina, the boat next to us with 3 guys. 

October 22, 2008

We didn’t do much but work on getting ready, it is a time consuming process and you keep finding things that need to be done.  We had Rhonda and Dave over to dinner, a nice time once again.

October 23, 2008

We went to the pool today, another scorcher.  Mike worked on the sail cover some more so he came late.  Since he was cooler in the shade at the pool he didn’t want to swim, it is really not his thing.  I enjoyed myself swimming.  Later we had dinner on Swan.  She made corn bread and beans and I made pasta.  Nice evening.

October 24, 2008

Today Mike completely finished the sail cover and it looks great.  After hearing many weather reports from Commander and McDavitt we decide to leave for NZ on Monday.  Destiny and Happy Monster with Dory and Hans and the German boat Moony are leaving too.  Joanne gave us paperwork to fill out as customs agreed to come to marina and save us a trip to Lautoka, a 2 hour sail, for $46F.  I went to the pool again today and Mike showed up as we were leaving.  We went to get ice cream instead.  It was so hot today we had enough sun power to charge our refer without the generator.  Carl gave us Mong beans in a jar today.  You can water these everyday for a week and then you have sprouts.  They are great in salad and stir fry, the possibilities are endless. Rhonda got some too!

October 25, 2008

It is hot again this morning.  We walked up and caught the 7:15 bus to town.  We tried to get breakfast in town, but pancakes, eggs and bacon seem to be a foreign concept to them.  We settled for fish, sausage and zoya a kind of spicy fritter and it was only $3.70 for both of us together.  We then checked out the shop and save, it was no different than the MH grocery store.  After that we hit the market, I assigned Mike to buy fruit while I bought vegetables for our passage.  Then at MH we bought the rest of what we felt we needed for the passage and then took a taxi home.  I spent the afternoon chopping up the produce trying to make things easy on passage. I bought a chicken and beef at the marina store as well as ice cream, no day is complete without ice cream.  I made a jello salad with bananas and whip cream as well as green beans for a pot luck on Liberty tonight.  Dinner was very fun.  We played name that tune and Rhonda was the first to answer 99% of the time, she must watch way too much TV.

October 26, 2008

It started out nice and has turned cloudy and rainy, I have a load of wet clothes to hang out too.  Today I cooked for the passage, I made tuna pasta salad, potato salad, noodles and ground beef, rice and ground beef, cooked a whole chicken and did all the dishes.  Just received the latest weather report, it may not be best to leave tomorrow after all.  Liberty left for musket cove today, first Yvette came over and gave me a hug and a special bar of soap.  We will miss those guys!  As they were leaving we ask what the water depth was at low tide in the channel, they reported 9’4”, so it is good to know we can make it out at low tide.  We went to the yacht club for live music again and afterwards invited Swan to dinner.  We watched Leap of Faith and all had a good laugh.  We will miss them too!

October 27, 2008

We got together with other NZ cruisers this morning to discuss our options to leave.  We all agree to check out as planned and leave and drop anchor for a day or just keep going.  After checking out, customs gave us approval to leave in the morning instead of today, that was unusual, God’s favor, again!  We continued to ready the boat, reorganized the cupboards so that nothing would fall when we heel over.  And Mike tried to find a place to hang the radar reflector, we had it on a shroud but it won’t stay correctly and wears on the sail, and we can’t have that.  We went for pizza one last time at the yacht club and met Grace, Nosy Be, Bear and Cat croquet and Scratch.  All boats we have seen along the way.

October 28, 2008

We hugged Dave and Rhonda good bye and said good bye to the locals.  Moe untied our stern mooring lines and we left.  Even Delcino said he’d see us in NZ.  It is 8:30 AM and we have 2.1 feet under our keel in the channel, a little close for comfort, but we made it.  It is hot and muggy, commander says to leave tomorrow, maybe a good thing, I am feeling sick, nerves I think.  We prayed for God’s favor, so we are good.  Destiny called us a 9AM and said they are going to keep going based on reports they are hearing.  So we are going too.  We had to motor for 5 hours to the pass and we think we see Destiny ahead of us.  They don’t answer their VHF radio so we can’t be sure.  At 3:50PM we have 15 knot winds and sun, going 5 knots, it is perfect.  Looks like Happy Monster is beside us. Dory says Hans is a ‘Monster’ and she is ‘Happy’.  And it is Windspirit with Tony not Destiny ahead of us.  At 11:30PM the wind picks up to 25 – 30 knots and big seas.

October 29, 2008

Wind has continued all night and Mike is seasick, and throwing up, the man who never gets seasick!  From now on it is Dramamine before we leave!  Winds averaged 24 knots all day and I feel sick too but not throwing up.  Lots of water over the dodger, I had to change clothes twice as I got soaked.  Checked in on SSB 4429 at 6:30AM with Des, had to have a relay, he was hard to hear.  He is out of Opua Offshore.  The winds should reduce per Des.  The Gribe files show the wind should reduce too per Carl.  We are checking in with him every evening at 6PM.  The wind is still blowing and we cooled the refer with the wind generator, this is unusual, it is crankin!  We are both tired, not sleeping too well at this point with all this wind and feeling sick.

October 30, 2008

We had a comfortable night, we both got some sleep on our separate watches.  Checked in with Des this morning and heard Windstar.  They ask us to call them at 11AM on 4417.  The wind generator was making a weird noise last night, we couldn’t figure out why, well this morning we can see that it lost a screw that holds the tail on.  So now we have to tie it down until it can be fixed.  Bummer as that is what allows us to run the auto pilot throughout the night.  Now the computer fell off the nav table and the screen broke, now we can’t use it anymore.  We do have another computer but it doesn’t work as well.   This is a bad day, now the refer motor won’t run and Mike slammed his clothes drawer to try to make it stay shut while heeling and the face cracked in half and fell off.  And so much water is coming over the bow the windows seem to be leaking.  What is next?  The good thing is our speed has been 8 knots for awhile.

October 31, 2008

Steady winds 18 – 25 knots all day.  Northern Wind called us on the radio, he is approximately 10 miles behind us, however he passed us late afternoon.  We checked in with Des and Carl, weather should be more the same.  By Tuesday we could have 30 knot winds from the NW, a downwind run.  We are trying to make miles we need to keep up our speed.  They predict light and variable at the 26 degrees latitude.  The wind steering broke 2 hose clamps tonight, so we had to use the auto pilot and keep watch on the power. Mike was too tired and it was too dark to fix the wheel tonight.

November 1, 2008

It is day 5 and we are half way at 6:30AM, we have gone 543 miles with 528 miles to go. Celebrate!  Mike fixed the wind steering this morning.  The weather is partly cloudy and sunny with 15 to 20 knots of wind, our speed is 6.8 knots.  More bad news, the prop coupler that connects to the shaft to the transmission separated causing the engine to not propel us forward so Mike ‘hove to’ and went below to fix it.  He did put it back together but now we know we either have a bent prop or shaft.  I read in the manual that the alignment on this stuff is critical and often needs adjusted after a haul out.  To bad we didn’t know that earlier.  While we were hove to and relatively flat on the water, I did the dishes and cleaned up.  I wish we could have stayed the night this way, it was so comfortable and great warm weather.  Now the winds are dying so we are motor sailing.  Since we are motoring, I can use the microwave so I made popcorn for Mike.  He enjoyed it.  We decided we need to keep our speed at least 6 knots.  We checked in with Carl and Des, we keep missing Alan.  Mike is predicting we will arrive Wednesday morning in Opua. 

November 2, 2008

Day 6 We have 395 miles to go as of 6:30AM.  We motor sailed all night trying to maintain 6 knots. At 8:30AM the wind is on our nose, not good.  We had only used 5 gallons of fuel all night, which is very good.  But with the wind on our nose we will certainly use more. Mike says he can’t sleep, so he took a hot shower, one of the benefits of motoring, hot water.  Now some breakfast, a bowl of oatmeal and cinnamon toast and then a nap.  While Mike sleeps I am going to enjoy my book in the sun.  We have been sailing several hours at 6.5 to 7 knots.  Mike is trying to understand the weather fax that shows the storm coming. I took a nice hot shower and then made lunch, a rather odd lunch as I was trying to use up produce before it went bad.  Carl called at 6PM and said the front has dissipated – yea!  We don’t need any bad weather!

November 3, 2008

Day 7 We motored most the night, it was rainy with wind on the nose again.  This morning we are motor sailing.  Mike slept most the night.  I made chili cheese omelets for breakfast.  I bought the chili in Fiji and it was more like BBQ beans.  It was still okay.  Mike called Maritime Radio to report our arrival tomorrow.  They make you email them and call them on the radio 3 days before arrival.  We did the email but only gave less than 48 hours notice via radio of arrival.  The wind has picked up and we have just sailed, no motor for hours, very nice.  We had lemonade and chex mix and enjoyed the sail.  We checked in with Carl at 6PM, we did 146 miles in the last 24 hours.  We have been doing 140 – 160 miles per day. Not too bad.  We had dinner, Mike went to bed and I watched a movie.  It is dark and we reefed the sails.  Two reports show no wind and two reports show 25 knots of wind.  Which is it going to be?  Moony called us and said they are 5 miles behind us, they left a day before us.  They believe in the 25 knot wind report, they listened to the German weather report.  We ran the generator and I made popcorn, we need to eat it as they will most likely make us throw it away at customs.  The first bag I cooked 5 minutes, Mike said 4 was not enough, and it burned.  Threw it overboard, nothing worse than the smell of burned popcorn.  The second bag I cooked 4 minutes and hardly any popped.  The 3^rd bag I popped 4.35 minutes and some burned, go figure!  While Mike was napping the clevis pin came out of the boom vang.  I heard it fall and was able to get it off the deck before it fell over board. Mike fixed it when he woke up.  We had a fair amount of wind all night.

November 4, 2008

It is Tuesday and it looks like we will arrive in NZ earlier than we thought.  Maybe by 6PM tonight.  The winds have picked up and we have sailed at 9.7 knots for several hours! Wow!  The winds are only 20 -22 knots but the seas are fairly flat.  Mike saw a ship today, as we get closer to NZ we have to watch more and more for other vessels.  We heard something fall again but we can’t figure out what it was. Later Mike realized it was the bolt that holds the wheel on, it vibrated off! Yikes!  Good thing he was able to fix it before anything went wrong.  It is 2:30PM and Mike sites land!  We are almost there!  I filled out our customs papers and set to eating up the produce and items we will have to pitch once we see customs.  We entered the channel to Opua at 8PM NZ time. It is dark and we are tired.  The wind is blowing over 20 knots.  We called Maritime radio and they said to call someone else and said customs is closed.  We heard them tell 2 other boats to go to the customs dock.  It was too dark to see the way so we threw out an anchor in Russell, a fairly open bay.  It was too dark to tell how much chain we put out so we looked in the chain locker at the next tag.  We had put out a little too much, so we pulled some up.  Today we sailed 182 miles, with an average speed of 6.38 knots the last day.  Passage total miles sailed 1,080.55. Our average speed on the whole trip was 6.19 knots, over 7.42 days.  Now I made dinner and you guessed it, using up that produce, even though I was so tired I made deep fried eggplant and I’m stir fry using all the rest of the vegetables.  Of course we couldn’t eat it all. Oh well, I tried.  Now to bed, we need sleep! We will go to customs first thing tomorrow morning.  After we have grilled cheese sandwiches for breakfast! J