Dad's 90th Birthday

Alleyn McCarthy b. 24/09/1918

A Yummy Black Forest Birthday Cake

From Left. Isabella, Naomi, Dad,Rowena, June (Nana) and Mary

It was very sad to see Mary's Dad looking so old and lacking in heart. He is very tired now and does not have the energy to do anything except sit in his chair. But we all had a lovely lunch which was organised by Rowena. It was great that Naomi managed to get the afternoon off work so that she could come with us. Dad was in better spirits after we had all made a big fuss of him and June had a lot of fun too. She just loves Isabella. We hated leaving them as we can not guess how long Dad will be with us. We go back to Fiji today and will not be back to see them until sometime in Nov. June is managing very well and caring for Dad really well. She has a very hard row to hoe now but does it all graciously.
Stephen, Rochella and the boys are visiting them this weekend and so they will have some other visitors. Stephen had to cancel the trip he had planned for yesterday because we had a case in the high court which could not be changed. However it may word out better that they visit seperately.
We flew up from Wellington this morning and are now in the lounge awaiting our flight to Fiji at 1PM.

Back to the garden of the sleeping Giant

Rowena

Beautiful Bella Playing with the stones.

On Wednesday Tony had to head back to NZ for work. We took the boat back to Vuda Point and Mary, Rowena and Naomi stayed for a further three days, flying out of Fiji on Saturday, Rowena and Isabella to Wellington and Mary to Auckland. We spent those days lazily doing some laundry etc, swimming in the pool at 1st Landing, shopping in Nadi and visiting the Garden of the Sleeping Giant. While at Nadi we visited the Hindi Temple. A number of years ago Rowena had spent some time in Northern India and so she was very interested in the temple. We were lucky because the priest there took a real liking to Isabella, playing with her for ages and explaining the paintings and his beliefs with Rowena. Everone there loved Rowena's dreadlocks. Aparently very religious people have them in India and so they assumed that Rowena was one of them. We then did some shopping before catching the bus back to Vuda. Poor Isabella was exhausted after that expedition. On Friday we made a picnic lunch and took it to the gardens. It was a great day because it was a little overcast and not too hot. Isabella had a great time wandering around and picking up stones and leaves. She picked up a long seed pod and chewed it and was very angry when we took it away from her. It wasn't until we were driving back to Vuda in the taxi that Abdul explained to us that the pods were tamerind and perfectly safe to eat. There are several trees at vuda and so Rowena and I tried chewing the pods. They were delicious, tasting of across between raisins and dates. No wonder Bellla loved them.
We packed up and left the boat at 7.30 on Saturday morning. Then Tony picked me up from the airport in Auckland. We stayed there until Tuesday afternoon and caught the plane to Wellington so that we could be there Dad's birthday.

Bella Visits Fiji

Rusila, Staff member at Musket Cove with the small celebrity

Isabella enjoying the freedom of Musket Cove

Walking about the deck in safety

Bath and cooling down time

Bella in the lifejacket ready for her dinghy ride

Well, as can been seen from the photos, Isabella settled in to living the cruising life. She has been on the boat many times before and so the transition was fairly easy, although she did struggle with sleeping in the heat. Tony had to install a fan above her bunk to cool her down. Fortunately he had a spare fan and it did not take long to install. Poor Rowena did not have the benefit of such a luxury in her cabin, but she did sleep the furthest from Isabella's bed and so that when she cried in the night, it was her Grandma or Oupa who got up.
Rowena and Isabella arrived on Sunday evening and were delivered to the boat by Abdul, our regular taxi driver. The next morning we all got up early and caught the 7.30 bus in to Lautoka so that we could stock up on fresh fruit and vegetables. Rowena loved the market and shopping even though it was extremely hot. She and Tony took turns at carrying Isabella in the baby back pack. We had decided to catch a taxi back to Vuda, but while walking past the bus station, we found there was a bus just leaving and so we saved several dollars and caught the bus back to the boat. After settling Isabella down for a nap, we left the marina and set off for Musket Cove. We did not want to travel too far with Isabella but planned a holiday at Musket Cove. We had a mooring booked very close to the yacht club and that one was more sheltered than most of the others. The sea can build up there quite quickly and so it was great to be in good shelter and only a short dinghy ride ashore.
Isabella quickly built up her own fan club. Whenever she went to shore she was picked up and cuddled and sometimes taken away for a while, by the staff at the marina. Before long people would say, "Oh, you are Isabella". She was certainly well cared for, even by the male staff. Fijians just love babies and make such a fuss of them.
We spent lots of time in the pool and Bella had a lot of fun. Tony and I tried to take turns of looking after her so that Rowena could have a lot of fun too.
We hired bikes and rode them around the island, went for walks, shopping and coffee breaks. One afternoon Rowena and Tony hired kayaks and went for a tiki tour while Bella and I went for a long swim and then a walk.
One day while we were in the pool, there was a huge downpour. The water in the pool was warm but not the rain. We had to stay in the pool until the rain stopped and we could then get out and dried.

Belated photos

Caleb listening to the ipod

Ethan and Tony having special time together

Pool time at the Radisson

Now that we have a decent internet connection I can finally post these photos taken while Stephen and Rochelle and the boys were visiting Fiji

The Port of Denerau has changed a lot since we were there four years ago with the addition of a big shopping mall. But apart from that, the area has the normal signs of neglect. It is very expensive for berthing. Little maintenance is done and no rubbish facilities, despite a $5 per day rubbish disposal fee. There is a security service operating but in my mind, fishing off the wharf is not a security chore. It is very noisy and this makes sleeping on board very hard. We made the most of our time there, doing some shopping, eating out at a couple of the restaurants and also viewing the local free cultural show which is on three nights a week in the town centre. It was very enjoyable as there was dancing from around the Pacific. The hula dancing was incredible. Wow! Those women can really shake their hips and it was amusing watching the faces on the males in the audience. There was also fire and knife dancing. They had a good repertoire and involved the audience. The children had a great time.
We left Denerau on Friday morning and sailed back to Saweni Bay for a few quiet days and some boat maintenance. We had a pleasant sail down to the bay but when we furled the mainsail before entering the bay we heard something drop to the deck, which happened to be a long screw. One does not like finding screws lying around because then one has to find where it came from. After a lot of searching, we found another boat part tucked in to the mast. How lucky is that? They had both come from the top of the mast and were part of the swivel for the mainsail. We thought we would need to send Tony aloft but after some consideration, we realised that we just needed to drop the sail and screw the part into the fitting above the sail from deck height. We did this on anchor in calm weather. Tony made sure that he did it very tight.
Tony spent the time here installing the AIS system which we want to have in place for our return journey to NZ. This is a gadget which recognises big ships and lets you know the name of a ship, its course, speed and direction, how far they are from you and whether they are a danger to your course. It interfaces to the newer model Navman chart plotter and needed wires threading etc. Well I can report that it definitely works because I saw a big tanker coming in to Lautoka and we checked out all its details. It is quite frightening when off shore to see a ship on the horizon and not know where it is heading. The radar does help of course but doesn’t give all the details. Tony has also spent time catching up on all his work emails. They take a lot of time because the internet service is so slow. He uses a system called UUPlus which get the emails through a lot quicker.
One continual problem with anchoring near the land is the amount of dirt and ash which is in the air and lands on the boat. At the moment our boat is covered in black ash from the smoke stack of the sugar mill at Lautoka as well as all the fires which are deliberately lit to burn off all the weeds and rubbish in the sugar cane fields. We wonder how much these fires are damaging the ozone layer. Some days the whole area is covered in smoke and at night we can always see the red glow of several fires.
Yesterday we had a bit of excitement when a front passed over us. The wind suddenly accelerated to 25-30 knots and the wind turned to an onshore breeze with the waves increasing in height. Two boats in the anchorage dragged their anchors and after several goes at re-anchoring and close encounters with other boats they headed out to sea. We shut all the hatches, tied everything down on deck, checked anchor chain and strop and then kept watch for the three hours or so until it passed. We have only 1.7 metres of water under our keel and are quite close to the beach and so it would have needed quick work to get the motor going if we had dragged. But our trusty Rocna anchor held firmly. After a brief period of heavy rain, our first in about six weeks, the wind did a 180’ shift and we were again facing in to the bay. The waves took a while longer to settle but by night all was calm again. At Saweni Bay there are protective reefs from each side of the bay so you have to be fairly close to the shore to be inside the reefs.
Today we will head in to Vuda Point to receive our special guests, our daughter, Rowena and her daughter, Isabella. They fly in from NZ to Nadi at 2PM. Tomorrow we need to go to Lautoka to stock up of fruit and vegs before heading out to the islands.

Denerau

This Blog has taken a very long time to get posted because we have had lousey internet service. But at least it is done now.

Well it is easy to work out when the Windspirit Mob are having fun. That is when the blogs don't get written very often.
Before returning to Fiji, Mary flew to Wellington for two nights to visit her Dad and June, his wife. They are really struggling now. Dad turns ninety in September and June will be eighty one in November. But they continue to live in their own home, which is great. We worry about them but would hate to see them lose their independence. Dad has had a couple of blackouts this year resulting in falls which left him with a lot of pain and more importantly they have also knocked his confidence. It is always hard to leave them behind and head north again.
We returned to Fiji on Friday 22 August and it was so good to see Abdul, our friendly taxi driver, waiting at the Airport for us. We were really laden with luggage this time. We had brought our pushchair up, so that it could be available to use for the grandchildren when they visit. Also there were the usual boat spares that were bought and of course, wine, eleven bottles between us. Alcohol is incredibly expensive in Fiji. At the supermarket, a bottle of Gin which one can buy in NZ for about $40 was over $110 Fijian. An average bottle of wine which could be bought in the supermarket in NZ for $10-12 is about $25-30 here. Restaurant prices have an additional premium on this as you would expect.
Windspirit was sitting safely at Vuda but was as usual very dirty from dust and ash. We spent the weekend resting and then doing numerous jobs on the boat, including the normal boat scrub. Tony used the new stainless steel drills which he had bought in Auckland to drill holes in the bow fitting for the pin which is going to be made to hold the anchor snug when we are sailing. We had found that the new 33kg (73lb) Rocna anchor moves and bangs when we hit waves, even though it is well tied down. This pin will prevent that happening. It took Tony a lot of thinking, planning and measuring before he did the drilling. But it looks fine now that it is finished.
We had also bought some new rope which Mary spent a lot of time splicing and fitting it to the dinghy. Our old painter had lasted several years but was looking the worse for wear. This time we made up a bridle arrangement so that it is more secure, rather than just one line. When one does a lot of splicing, the job seems easy but when it is done just occasionally, the rope book, with diagrams is extremely useful. The other jobs which were done while at the marina were the replacement of the faulty capacitor for the genset (it works like a charm now) and gluing new foam on the lazerette hatch covers, which were leaking slightly.
Early on Monday morning we left Vuda and motored to Saweni Bay again. Then once were were sure that the anchor had set, we left the dinghy at the beach and walked to the main road where we wanted to catch a bus to Lautoka. Our fresh fruit and veg's stores were low. We were lucky to be offered a ride by the Postal Delivery Van driver. He dropped us at the main road where we caught the 80 cent bus to Lautoka. We had a successful time at the market and with our bags loaded up, caught a bus which was heading for Nadi. We left the bus at the Saweni Bay turn off but were not so lucky this time and had to walk in the searing heat, the 45 minute walk back to the beach. By the time we got back to the boat we were exhausted but well stocked with food.
We stayed in the comfortable and quiet anchorage at Saweni for several days, the only excitement was when we looked up and noticed that a yacht, which had been in front of us, was now beside us and rapidly drifting towards the reef. We called them on the radio but got no reply and so Tony blasted them with our electric horn. That soon got a response and they let out more anchor chain. The only annoyance for us was that now we had a yacht closer to us than we would have liked. Also they had a noisy wind generator and a very noisy diesel generator and so our quiet anchorage became a loud one. However them's the breaks.
Tony spent several hours reworking the circuit board for the spare auto helm to make it operate with the new hydraulic control system. After some more testing, it does work now but over-steers and we now do search patterns when that is operating. So back to the drawing board for Tony. It will eventually work, we know, and it is only the spare one. But after our experience of sailing from NZ we want to have spares of spares.
On Thursday we had a great sail from Saweni Bay to Denerau, the port of Nadi. The boat just loved the conditions and so did we. Stephen, Rochelle, Caleb and Ethan were due to arrive from NZ at 4PM but their plane was cancelled and they had to go on standby for the 8PM flight. That is pretty hard, sitting at the airport with two children under two and just waiting. They were lucky to get on the flight and had two very tired children but at least they arrived at 11PM. It took them all a couple of days to catch up on sleep though. They are staying at the Radisson Resort on Denerau.
Wow! What a beautiful place, with several pools, restaurants and right on the beach front. They have a two bedroomed apartment there and are staying until Thursday morning. We have been having a wonderful time with them, playing with the boys, babysitting and swimming in the pools. We are so lucky to be able to spend so much time with our grandchildren but by the time they leave we will look forward to a few quiet days before Rowena and Isabella arrive on Sunday to stay with us for two weeks.

Caleb and Ethan ready for a walk