On the 8th, we went in to work on the Internet. We had a terrible time just logging on. We then spent some time looking for flights home in October and were able to get that booked before the system crashed. We have also been battling PayPal over our renewal to Seven Seas Cruising Association. They took the money out of our account but would not release them to SSCA. We finally gave up on that one and will deal with it when we get home. The service became so bad that we went to the office to use one of their computers. An hour later I paid $15 USD for the privilege.
On July 9 we put a float on our mooring ball and motored a short distance to a sand bar that shows at mid to low tide. We dropped the anchor and enjoyed lunch. It was a sunny afternoon with just a few clouds so after lunch we loaded up our snorkeling gear and took the dinghy to the sand bar. We walked around it and were able to find some excellent shells, which surprised me considering the number of people that visit here each day. By now it was nice and warm so we put on our gear and snorkeled around a reef that was close by. The visibility was good and the fish were amazing because they were so used to snorkelers that they would swim right by us. After awhile, we were inundated with snorkelers from the resorts, so we packed up, headed back to the boat, and returned to our mooring ball.
On Friday, we went to the dock ashore and took the Malolo Cat II, which is a power catamaran, across to Port Denarau. The crossing takes about 45 minutes. A marina is located there as well as a small shopping mall, which includes a small grocery that stocks items that are hard to find such as A-1 Sauce, Jif Peanut butter, and Honey Bunches of Oats cereal but at very high prices.
We caught a taxi into Nadi. Jack's, which is the big tourist store here, was having a 50 percent off sale, so loaded up on some new clothes. By now it was lunchtime, so we located an Indian restaurant where we enjoyed lunch. After lunch we decided to walk to the Central Market to buy some fruits and veggies, and then we took a long walk up and down streets so that we would know what is available in the stores here. When we were done, we caught a taxi back to Port Denarau, stopping on the way at the Quality Meats butcher where we stocked up on excellent quality meat for our trip up to the Yasawas. We made it back to the dock just in time to catch the 2 p.m. Malolo Cat back to Musket Cove. By now the wind had picked up so the ride back was a bit uncomfortable, but, thankfully, it did not last very long.
Yesterday, we began the morning by hearing on our VHF radio that a sailboat had gone up on the reef at the southwest passage of Viti Levu. It turned out that we knew the woman, who was a single hander. Lisa on sv Magi had been at Riverside Drive Marina with us, and she had done major work on her boat only to lose it on the reef. They were trying to salvage as many items from the boat as they could; however, the most important thing is that she was off the boat and okay. That now makes three boats that we knew personally that have been lost-all since the beginning of June-but all persons on board have been rescued.
I went in to do my last load of laundry, and that took just three hours. Steve was wondering why our wind generator was not producing more power, and he found that two connections had worked lose. After tightening them, the generator was working
very well again.
Yesterday afternoon and through the night the wind was blowing pretty steadily at 20 knots. Early this morning it began to rain heavily, so Steve set up our deck to funnel the rain water into our water tanks. We also had lightening and very loud thunder. The good news is that it rained enough for us to completely fill our tanks.
We plan to leave Musket Cove tomorrow and head north up into the Yasawa Islands. This, as always, all depends on the weather.
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