Another beautiful day. We had a light breakfast on board and plenty of chat, thats the great about having women on board, never a silent second... Its amazing how they can keep talking, non stop for hours on end. Wonderful!
We completed the documents required for our trip to Fiji and sent these to the Fijian authorities via satellite from " Cafe Tropicana". Lisa, the owner of the cafe, was great and did all the necessary copying, pasting, and sending them to where ever they had to go. It seems she travels to Fiji every so often, and keep in touch with the authorities there, and acts like an advance clearing house in Vava'u.
Later, Skipper had coffee wilt Bill, Rosemary and Jim, before returning to the boat. The girls went ashore early and did whatever women do ashore, but they did have instructions to get spuds, and be on board by 12.30pm for our departure from " Neiafu" to " Port Muarelle " a distance of approx 10 miles.
13.00hrs We slipped our moorings and set sail out the neck of the harbor, towards Port Muarelle, the weather is just what the doctor ordered. 10 knot breeze on out port side, flat sea, no clouds, no mossies, & music playing.
15.00hrs We dropped anchor in 6 m of water in glorious surroundings, beautiful white beaches, lot of tiny islands, lots of corals, and lots of bird activity for the twitcher. Of course the boys all jumped over the side for some swimming and snorkeling. The girls went to the beach, and did their swimming there.
Later we washed the windows and cleaned off some of the salt from the boat, that stuff gets everywhere, and at times you could use a shovel to get rid of it. It gets so thick.
The amount of fish and the different varieties swimming around the corals, is wonderful, the colors of the fish is breath taking, from bright yellows to brilliant vivid blue's, and then the ones that are the same colors as the corals, camouflage style. The sea rays are a joy to watch, just gliding over the sand and corals.
As it began to get dark and dusky around 17.30hrs, Scotty went ashore to study the " fruit bats " and skipper got about cooking a roast stuffed chicken, with the usual roast spuds, green beans, some sweet potatoes, rolled strips of bacon, and gravy. Skipper never does gravy, so asked Fats to give instructions... that was a mistake! Once Fats got into the galley, he remained firmly nailed there for a long time, and as a result, the dinner took a lot longer than normal.
We had a great night, in the starlight restaurant ( cockpit ) in a beautiful setting.
Much later, after lots of wine, we hit the scratchers, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZ zzzzzzzzzzzzz
That's it for now
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)