Despite the fact that we haven't been out sailing for half a year, going back to sailing felt natural.

17th May

The wind is 15-20 and great sailing coming from Sou east and we were heading just over North, so on a nice fast beam reach. We noticed a swell coming from nor east but wind still Sou east no worries. The swell increased and it is getting lumpy in the boat, but we hit the record for 24 hrs of 168 miles. 

19th May

I noticed that a shroud was loose (it holds up the mast), I checked and found that the bracket had broken. The next hr was spent doing a make shift fix. 250 miles from Fiji, we were concerned for the mast and as the wind had shifted to nor east, we decided to alter course to   Noumea in New Caledonia 550 miles away to the west. Now we had wind behind us, which was easier on the boat. With just the Gib up we were still going fast, but the swell was just throwing water everywhere. Worst still to come. Couple of hours later the seas started to tower up reaching frightening proportions. Rough waves were knocking us off course, the wind was hauling, making horrendous noises as it went through the rigging. We got caught in a the middle of a  huge tropical low. Nomad Life is not normally wet but this trip. The first electrical item to suffer was the 2-week-old gas shut off solenoid, now we had no gas. I ripped out the solenoid and put back the old fitting. This meant leaning out of the cockpit for an hr in the dark with a torch. With a nice hot coffee all was well.

20th May

Early morning  Judit noticed that the wind started to shift, in a space of 3 hours turned 180 degrees, followed by becalmed seas and no wind. Now we were in the centre of the front. The seas got choppy, waves were coming from all directions and the wind has completely died down. To our horror we noticed that a little blue sky soon would be shadowed by a tower of black clouds, bringing the wind back with full blow. So we decided to blow out New Caledonia and set sail for Fiji again,  300 miles away. The instruments were going potty turning lights on and off changing the settings. Located the problem to be the head unit for the Autohelm, lucky we managed to get the course set and it lasted till Fiji. Otherwise we would have had to hand steer not nice given the weather conditions.

22nd May

Exhausted, finally we made landfall. We had to clear in with customs. This entailed so much paper work, I could not think straight so Judit completed this. We bent the truth a bit on declaring our alcohol and then we were told the customs were coming on board! Whoops!  We ferried him out on our dinghy. Then came the search, well, he left with 2 half bottles of vodka (bad vodka from Panama) I had wanted to throw it away in NZ. Lucky escape, as he did not find the other 6 litres or the 9 litres of wine or the extra 15 cases of beer. Now we are in Vuda Point marina trying to find the parts we need. Could be a bit of a wait but luckily we have a friend, Boyd, who is in a race from NZ to here arriving in 2 weeks, who offered to bring the parts.

25th May

This is one of the nicest marinas we have been in. It has a picturesque Sunset Bar that overlooks the Mamamucas Islands, a huge canvas set on the garden to show films and a hotel adjacent with swimming pool- that costs $5 , too expensive for us! It is also a hurricane hole, no wind at all making a very hot spot. Then also adding the cockroach problem, we were out of there in 4 days! These tiny roaches flew in from  a long distance landing on deck. We found and killed 2 inside the boat, hopefully we don't have an infestation.

26th May

We took the rickety old bus into town for a last provisioning before setting off to do some cruising. Lautoka is one of the main towns of Viti Levu. Chaotic with buses and taxis. Most of the population is Indian . Fiji has a mixture of Polynesian - Melanesian and Indian population, the latest bought here to harvest the sugar cane, an industry now in decline. What the "Sugar City" lacks in attractions, it makes up for curry houses. All very cheap, with wonderful aroma  inside, they are called "fast food" (no McDonalds here). The market is amazing with hundreds of variety of spices, dhal, nuts and tropical fruits. We got the cruising permit in one of the governmental buildings, while waiting one of the girls got chatting to us. As it is winter here, she asked if we are not finding Fiji to cold. In fact, after that we noticed the Fijians do walk around with winter jackets at night, despite being a cool 20 degrees!

27th May

Malolo was our first stop in the Mamamucas. Navigating around can be a bit demanding, most of the islands are fringed with reefs, markings are non existent and the water is not that clear to spot the reefs. This was the first night at an anchorage after many months being land tied, also our wedding anniversary 8th year. We sat on deck for hours looking at a perfect sky, cloudless and full of stars, wandering how lucky we are.

28th May

Malolo didn't have much that enticed us ashore. Motor boats were coming and going throughout the day  to the nearby resort, water planes landing, so it felt a bit like being anchored in a motorway. We lifted the hook early to catch the morning sun and be able to spot the reefs better. We passed Tom Hank's Castaway Island, the setting for the film, conveniently chosen as it is next to another island with a luxury resort on it. Although the Mamamucas do have an infestation of Sheratons, many of the islands are uninhabited and inaccessible, it is largely unspoilt by tourism. Now we found the anchorage with a WOW! Vanua Levu and Navadra Island formed a very pretty bay. Waterdragon was in the bay , they had caught a huge Wahoo that fed all boats in the anchorage. Later we caught up with them during a BBQ on their boat. Teryn and Graham, both on their early 30's has been out for 6 years. With no budget to cruise, they worked in Auckland then on a diving boat out of Pitcairn and Gambier's, but managed to see a lot of the Pacific.

29th May

Vanua Levu is uninhabited apart from a few goats, an abandoned bar - like little Fijian burre-, hundred of shoes awash on shore, a shrine and a cave that is clearly marked Tabu, bizarre! Sundowner was at the beach together with the only other 2 boats around, Waterdragon and Alk, a German boat .

2nd June

Sun came up as a cruise liner appeared in the horizon. It got closer and finally entered the bay, picking up a buoy not far from us. After a lot of palaver they managed to drop the dinghy which was  wildly swinging barely missing to hit the side of the liner, then proceeded to prepare to offload the eager tourists. In the mean time a luxury motorboat was also approaching, to our horror that was also coming into the bay, anchoring even closer to us. Now this idyllic bay has turned into a crowded seaside resort with boats zooming around us , swimmers passing and glaring at our boat and the cruise liners loudspeaker's shouting out today's program of "diving, sunbathing in the beach and relaxing". Anyway, it was time to head back to Musket Cove to wait for Boyd, but instead of going directly we decided to stop at Mana for the night. According to the guide this island was one the few with markers into the reefs and had an easy entrance. We have seen the markers well in advance but once approaching it was quite difficult to work out the channel as it has a dogleg shape. Graham, in the bow, saw the stick to the entrance we just couldn't work it out which side of the stick to go. Now he'd seen the other marker and shouted " right!" The depth got swallowed underneath the boat. Now Graham was frantically shouting "left!". To late, Nomad Life came to a sudden violent holt. We had hit the dammed reef! What Graham took for the marker, it was in fact a rock and I wasn't quick enough to turn around. As we found out latter, diving the bottom, we had hit the solid steel keel, so more then damaging the boat we damaged our pride. And it did hurt! We sat the rest of the afternoon , in a sour mood, cursing the Fijians for their bad seamanship manners. As consolation we had a NZ steak for dinner , kept for a special occasion. We settled in for the evening hopping that we haven't anchored in the middle of the water runway of Turtle Airways.

4th June

Coming into Musket Cove is again tricky, dotted with reefs all the way, the usual sticks were there as navigational markings but not so visible. We arrived there at low tide. Musket Cove has a very interesting feature, at low tide the whole bay dries up and masses of sandy beaches emerging from the sea, the reefs also dry out, some forming swimming polls, very picturesque, but also one of the busiest places we have been so far here. Soon we found the 4 dollar beer bar, that also had a wood BBQ where you can bring your own meat!

5th June

The first boats from the Auckland- Musket Cove race started pulling in, 5 today. These boats made it in 5 days and were the elite of the racing community of NZ, some were part of the Royal Squad, we went over to the bar in the evening to soak up the atmosphere.

7th June

Now most of the boats are already in and what was a nice atmosphere , slowly is turning into a drunken obnoxious crowd, it seems for us that it has been non stop drinking for a few days for these guys.  We are coming to a conclusion that they are a different breed, although all of us are into sailing... Oh wow, still waiting for Boyd to arrive in the race with our Autohelm.

11th June

Finally Boyd arrived, we got the autohelm and that is up and running now. Caught up with Boyd and the crew , just couldn't keep up with their drinking habits, now we were ready to leave to Vanuatu. When sailing, things never go as planned, a low front was approaching and forecasted to pass between Fiji and Vanuatu, that wasn't the time to leave. We pulled into Vuda Point for provisioning and to monitor the front on the internet. Here we found Aaron, the mad Hungarian sailor on his 19ft boat Carina. He has spent the cyclone season here weathering 3 cyclones in the marina! One of those rainy evenings there was not much else to do then to have a few drinks and listen to Aaron's stories of life in Fiji. The last of a series of coups happened in 2006 which resulted in the actual government, but still not accepted by all parties. The riots and coups are purely political movements, on daily life Fijians and Indians live together. Prove of this is the amount of half cast people around. We were very intrigued to find more about the hey days of cannibalism in Fiji, but that seems to be a Tabu subject...

17th June

Finally the trade winds came back, it was time to leave one of the friendliest places we have been in the Pacific. We left together with Galduz- with Gerard and Regina, a French couple we have met last year in the Cooks. The plan was to leave through Wilkes Passage, whilst approaching the exit we had 20knots of headwinds, adding to that we found out that Wilkes is a famous surfing spot, that was enough to put us off. We detoured to Musket Cove and anchored for the night. The idea was to get up very early and try then, when usually there is not much wind. The waves breaking on the reef were huge, dozen of surfers were taking advantage of it, while we squeezed through a narrow pass in between the breakers, it was amazing also frightening.