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American Spirit II - Day 178; Left Port Denarau Marina for Musket Cove Marina and Rally Rendezvous; Wednesday, July 2, 2014



Chet up 7:15 AM. I got up at 7:35 AM. Breakfast then good-bye to the Port Denarau Marina, where we've been for 2 1/2 weeks.

Departed for Musket Cove Marina at 11:10 AM, about 7 or 8 miles away and on an island to our west. While underway we realized at 12:40 PM that the reason the wind turbine hasn't been turning the last week was that one of the 'on/off' switches in the port cockpit locker had been bumped 'off' by mistake.

We arrived at Musket Cove at 1:50 PM and were rafted up to Saphir, another rally boat. We didn't like that, because I had been told before that we were going to have a 'Med-moor' berth. Plus, the electric box that we were supposed to plug into wasn't working. The dock master Patrick advised us that if they couldn't get the electricity issue resolved, he'd move us to the dock. An hour later we moved to a dock. In Med-mooring you drop an anchor perpendicular out from the dock, then back into the dock. You are secured to the dock by two dock lines off your rear cleats. I had never done this before and backing the boat while dropping out an anchor and chain and trying to line up perpendicular to the dock with a 20 knot wind is not for the faint of heart. However, the bow thrusters came to the rescue. You'd be surprised how easy it is to turn the stern by deploying a bow thruster. Want to turn the stern to the right, press the port or left bow thruster button. Voila! We ended up next to Festina Lente. The next day Folie a Deux moored to our left side.


From 2:30 PM to 4:30 PM Angela and Chet visited the resort and went swimming in one or both of the salt water pools. Joel and I hooked up our new charging system. This is not as simple as it sounds as American Spirit II is a US wired boat. To hook into non-US power, we needed a special adapter, a new 100 foot electric cord; a 40 pound transformer; another adapter to plug into the cord and then the transformer; and then our 75 foot US dock power cord. Voila again! (I like that word). The boat can now be charged using shore power instead of our generator. Doing so allows us to charge at a slower and better rate.

In filling out the registration paperwork when checking in, I signed us all up to be members of the Musket Cove Yacht Club. Doing so allowed us to use the resort facilities and gave us a 50% discount on the ferry to Port Denarau, which we were never going to take anyway.

We attended a happy hour sponsored by the World Cruising Club at 6:00 PM, then feasted at at BBQ hosted by the Musket Cove Resort. There was a measure of sadness at the event as 11 of the rally boats were staying on in Fiji so they could sojourn on to New Zealand in November. All or almost all of the boats leaving us were manned by couples only; and most were from the UK (United Kingdom).

The dinner buffet consisted of salad, sirloin steak, lamb, sausage, baked potato and garlic bread.

After dinner we had coffee on the boat and were visited by Lauren and Brian from Nexus; then Russ and Laurie from Nexus also joined us briefly. Lauren was given a Diet Coke and was in Seventh Heaven while drinking it. (No Diet Coke on Nexus?). Nexus is one of the largest boats in the rally, about 60 feet. So spacious that it could make a person with a single hull sailboat cry.

Later on while I typed one log entry Joel transferred pictures from his, Angela's and my camera to a computer to send to the rally web page the next time we had reliable and quick internet to do so.

Chet and Angela went to bed first; followed by Joel; and then yours truly last.

Brian Fox

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