Fiji Time

Sitting poolside at the lovely Musket Cove Resort is not a bad price to pay for the inevitable delays in hauling our boat for painting and some repairs. We arrived in Fiji a week ago Sunday, and here's the day-by-day:

Sunday evening: arrive from Tonga after 4.5 day sail. As we anchor, we bump a reef hidden in the murky waters, and bend one of our rudders; it won't rotate. Sleep comes slowly as we rue yet another mulligan -- telling ourselves that it could have been worse, and we're within sight of a marina that is the only marina between Tahiti and Australia that can haul us out.

Monday: We disengage the port rudder from the rudder crossbeam (thanking ourselves that we have a catamaran, with its built-in redundancy), and motor to Lautoka, Fiji's second-largest city and a bustling melange of Fijian and Indian cultures, with mosques, Hindu temples, and churches everywhere. The city is filled with shops, each one blaring the owners' favorite songs from boom boxes located at their doors. restaurants everywhere, and meals for less than $3 US -- a far cry from French Polynesia. Culturally, we've been on a slow transitional curve from the Westernized world of Tahiti, through the Cook Islands, Niue, Tonga, and now here -- each group seeming more disconnected from Western life. We spend the entire day in officialdom -- immigration, customs, cruising permits, agricultural quarantine, etc. As Jennifer said, it's like the old Soviet Union, but at least everyone here is inclined to say yes. We have a brief moment of concern, as we inadvertently neglected to get our passports stamped in Tonga, leading to a mea culpa and ultimately, forgiveness from the Fijian head of immigration.

Tuesday: We return to town for shopping, internet, and the logistics of boat repairs and painting. I find the Fijian distributor of bottom paint (contains poisonous chemicals to retard marine growth, so not easily available), the Fijian distributor for marine refrigeration parts (we needed a thermometer), and the local machine shop -- for fixing our rudder. I buy a local cell phone ($25 US), and some minutes, and I'm dialing for dollars all morning. Children in green and white walk to the Muslim school; children in blue and white walk to the Catholic school, and other children walk to other schools. Music and traffic everywhere, and it feels like a corner of Delhi and New York City all at once. It rains -- for the first time in weeks -- in buckets, and the taxi drivers charge $6 US/hour.

Wednesday: Some last minute shopping in lautoka, and then it's "up anchor" and we motor sail to Musket Cove, an exclusive resort on its own island about 25 miles south-southwest of Lautoka. We arrive without touching bottom (a good thing) and pick up a mooring. Dinghy ashore, check in at the "yacht club," and return to the boat and catch our breath. It's beautiful here -- a far cry from the industrial harbor of Lautoka, with sandy beaches, gorgeously-clear waters, and palm trees swaying on the rounded hilltops behind the resort.

Thursday: Jennifer connects with Suka, who manages the operations end of the ferry services that shuttles guests to and from the main island to here. Suka has to service the ferries, and has cobbled together a ramp of sorts for the catamarans that he uses -- they're about 70 feet long, and are ideal for the choppy waters. He offers the ramp to cruisers as a favor -- charging a pittance of what we'd pay in Australia. Our labor costs here will be $30/person/DAY-- a generous wage in these parts I hasten to add -- compared to over $50/person/HOUR in Australia. I go back to the main island to buy supplies for painting the bottom -- sandpaper, rags, rollers, etc. I should have bought these in Lautoka, but we were running so fast it just slipped our mind. Ashore, where the ferries land, I encounter a surreal sight: Hard Rock Cafe, Disney-like fountains, golf courses, etc. It's Port Denerou -- a walled-off collection of resorts and upscale shopping and dining facilities catering to wealthy New Zealanders and Australians. I can't get out of there fast enough. It's still raining, as the trough settles over Fiji bringing much-needed water to these parts, so Suka suggests hauling the boat on Monday, since it's supposed to clear up by Sunday.

Friday: A day of rest, after 4 days of near non-stop activity focused on the boat. We take the dinghy to a lovely little sand island -- exposed only at low tide -- where there's a beautiful reef filled with hard and soft corals. Jennifer is tickled pink at being able to snorkel in 18 inches of water, with sand dollars and shells just an arms-length away. We spend the afternoon lazing on the boat, having booked a dive for the next day.

Saturday: The dive boat picks us up at 8:00, and we pick up a few more divers at some of the adjacent islands. We're in Mamanuca group, with dozens of small islands located within a few miles of one another, and many of the islands have small, exclusive resorts on them. We dive two sites -- and at each, we see an amazing collection of hard and soft corals, proof of Fiji's status as the soft coral diving capital of the world. As always, these dives always leave us a bit worse for the wear, and we spend the afternoon resting before heading to shore for a dip in the resort pool.

Sunday: We take care of the boat's weekly chores -- as Jennifer says, "if it doesn't rust, it molds," so we do the routine cleaning that keeps the rust, mold, and dust at bay. That afternoon, we spend the entire time at the pool, swimming, floating, and catching up on email, etc. We meet some other boaters, and then we have a collective barbecue at the hut on the beach -- meet some serious long-time cruisers, most of whom have spent between 5 and 10 years cruising Fiji and Tonga (!).

Monday: We meet Suka, and go over the haul-out plan -- it turns out we need to re-grade the ramp a bit, and high tide comes in the late afternoon. I spend the morning scrubbing the hull, Jennifer does laundry and vacuuming, and by noon, we're ready for a break. I read a James Lee Burke novel, and Jennifer naps, and then ashore for her to swim some laps and me to pen this post.

So that's a week+ in Fiji -- we haul out tomorrow, and, God willing and the creek don't-rise, we leave here on Saturday, sail BACK to Lautoka, meet with all the various ministries for all the requisite paperwork on Monday, and leave for Vanuatu on Tuesday ... not having spent much time in the island group of Fiji, but needing to make westward progress to be in Australia by late November and the start of cyclone season.

Best to all -- pictures forthcoming, and wish us luck.