Back in Fiji after a whirlwind Melbourne visit, including my eldest son’s wedding (what a gorgeous couple they made), two conference presentations, packing up and renting out my unit and trying to organise moving our life onto a forty foot floating home. Strange that when we left Fiji, the boat didn’t quite feel like home. Yet, arriving back in Australia neither did Melbourne. My fears of feeling too comfortable when we got back and wishing we could just stay a bit longer in the lovely, newly renovated unit were unfounded. We packed it up and I said goodbye to it without a backward glance. It will still be there, at some stage in the future when we’ve had enough of the cruising life. But for the moment, home is now very much on Bright Sea and it was a pleasure to get back to her.
Our first trip was back to Musket Cove to join the annual Fiji Regatta. A snorkel in the clear water allowed me to get a new anode on one propeller but the other one proved too challenging, treading water in the increasingly strong tidal flow. Hopefully I haven’t cross-threaded the bolt in the attempt. With the boat’s existing cruising permit deadline of 27th September looming and no sign of a new permit in our name, we were starting to get edgy about the work that needs to be done on the boat before we would want to do a passage. Thankfully this morning the really helpful staff at Vuda Marina were able to follow up and we now have a cruising permit valid for three months, which will see us through until we leave for New Zealand at the beginning of November. Apparently this cruising permit is not the permit which allows us to stay longer than 27th September; which still has to be cleared by Customs. For which they will need the inbound customs declaration, which we don’t have. So back to the drawing board tomorrow…
In the mean time we’ve finally started sailing the boat. Yesterday there was a lovely cracked sheets trip from Musket Cove across to anchor outside Vuda, waiting for a berth inside. A lesson that obviously needed to be re-learnt; choose an anchoring site according to where you will be sheltered rather than where you want to be the next morning. The water here is deep in most places, unless you’re on top of a reef. In a strong on-shore breeze, choppy conditions and 50 foot of water, we were dragging anchor – quickly proving my complacent confidence over-rated. Up came the pick and a quick trip down the bay to Smuggler’s Cove found us in lovely conditions for the evening; flat water with a depth of 10 feet and less than 5 knots of wind. Another glorious sail back up the bay this afternoon in 8 to 10knots, reaching all the way and finally seeing boat speeds over 6 knots. It was absolute joy sitting on the bow seat with the autopilot doing all the work… the only thing missing was some dolphins.