Friday, 18th June 2010 (presently in Fiji)
We had trouble with our on bord computer, so the blog took a bit of a dive for a while, and nothing was sent to the "World ARC" site as the address was nicely parked in the ships computer which we could not open...
08.00hrs The torrential rain had ceased, but it was still a dull morning with little or no wind. Our two American friends arrived (Crazy Horse & Ocean Jasper). Great to see them again!
We relaxed for a while on board, it turned out that 5" of rain fell yesterday, but now with the sun trying desperately hard to shine, we can hear the local Police band playing great brass music as they marched up the street (today is a national day against crime). We think this is in celebration of a crime free country... not just like at home!!!
10.00hrs The Skipper was doing his head in, trying to figure out how to use the laptop properly and do his emails and the blog and then send them all on Wifi. This is simple stuff for the kids, but for us oldies... ohhhhhhhhhhhh my god, its like climbing a mountain...carrying "A Lady" on my back.
Donal went ashore and did some scouting around, while the girls had already taken off on a tour of the Island on the local bus, its gas and great to see how women work, all go, morning, noon & night, and usually driving the fella's along as well. Its no wonder men die younger, being shoved and pushed around all the time, (and of course its done so subtly, the men never know until its too late, and they have a one way ticket to an underground station).
John has gone to investigate the local national Park, as a twitcher, this is a paradise for him..................
Meanwhile, Skipper after 3 hours typing blogs and selecting which photo,s to send to the blog site, pressed send, this was all being done on his gmail on WiFi. He really still does not understands how all this works, but PRESS GO anyway and see what happens...
Well, Wednesdays Blog got off, Thursdays blog got feckin lost somewhere in outer space, and the photo's were returned by mailasail. Too BIG!
Ahhhhhhh TTwould turn a Saint to DRINK.......but then the skipper is no Saint, so that wont work here.
TAKE A REST ....
13.45hrs Along came Donal, just at the right time, and invited the skipper to lunch in a lovely timber leantoo restaurant across the road. The food was great and the equivalent of 5 euros each including 4 beers, represented great value. The service was painfully slow, but then we were in no rush, and we met a few other sailors, who were all from different parts of the world, and made for great chatting .....
15 00hrs John returned to the boat, where he and skipper set about trying to identify the problem with the on baord computer, this did not take too long. The smaller of the inverters, which services the TV's and the Computers had died, R.I.P ,, well blast. So we then set about rewiring the system and after about 2.5hrs, we had lift off and walla, the computer was back on line again. We wired it directly to the main invertor, and that should work ok.
17.00hrs We all scrambled ashore to the Y.C. all of 30feet away for the happy hour, we had a good laugh with other World ARC sailors and of course we had to describe the "Typhoon" conditions we had on our arrival to Fiji . Using Fats saying, B CUBED (You have to figure what it means).
Later we had pizzas in the marina cafe, and again great value and great food, so big that no one could finish them.
10.30hrs We skyped Stefan on the Laptop. This was a major achievement, a video link, modern technology is great, all we have to do is understand how it all blooming works, and then we will be away on a hack.
23.30hrs We hit the scratchers. A good enough day.
That's it for now.
Signed:- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)