Year Two
Date: 28/8/2009 16:30
Weather: clear but very breezy (strong wind warning)
Location: Naviti Island (17 04.933' S, 177 16.629' E)
Author: Kylie

Hello everyone. As you may have read our sailmail and navigation laptop died last week. What a pain! We have loaded the software onto my laptop and it is working reasonably well. Unfortunately it means we have lost the last message we sent to the blog and have no idea what we wrote.

So I'll start with Eugene and Izolda arrived last Wednesday. On Thursday we hired a car and drove the coast road south past the Coral Coast and around to Suva. The road was not as scenic as Peter would have liked however it was interesting to see the change in landscape as we crossed the mountain range onto the 'wet' side of Viti Levu. In Suva we did the important things such as a museum, gardens and McDonalds for lunch. mmmm cheese burgers

We spent the night in Suva and the next day returned by the same road stopping at an Eco Park. It was a fantastic park by Australian standards and even more surprising to find it in Fiji. We got up close and personal with the rare Fijian Crested Iguana and Peter and Izolda held a small snake.









Peter was surprised by the feeling of the snake, saying it was "not what he expected". They had a great range of native colourful parrots and we also got to feed some hawksbill turtles soon to be released into the wild.

That afternoon we went fruit and vege shopping at the huge Nadi markets. Here was the largest range of vegetables and fruit we have seen since New Zealand. The prices were very cheap and we went crazy purchasing vegetables Peter and I have never tried before eg. ocra.





The grocery stores are remarkably better then Tonga and apart from chocolate we have found everything we like albeit at a price. Small long life cream was $5, but butter was a good price.

With all the food aboard we had a beautiful curry dinner in Nadi. We ordered some mild and some medium dishes however there was little to no spice in either dish and we could have ordered much hotter. The flavour was nice and I had been craving naan bread which i finally got.

From Vuda Point Marina we did a short hop west to Malolo Island and Musket Cove resort. It was quite breezy and the anchorage was very full so we didn't get off the boat. In a few days they are holding a week long regatta and expect over 100 boats, we can not imagine how so many boats could fit in the rather tight anchorage where it is 20 metres deep meaning you should have out 60metres of chain and enough swinging room for each vessel.

The following day we jumped north to the un-inhabited Navadra Island. We went for a walk on the beach and planned to snorkel the next morning. Unfortunately when our lap top died that evening we decided to leave early the next morning and try and catch up to our friends on Twin Image to seek their assistance. We sailed 39miles that day and went through to the famous Blue Lagoon. Tuesday we had beautiful weather and made the most of it ashore. Eugene and Izolda went swimming and snorkeling and Peter and I paddled the kayak around. I had a wade in the water but didn't want to get my hair wet- what a girly thing to do! but I think I have a fair excuse; on the boat we have a shower every few days and therefore only wash my hair about twice a week (at home I'd do it everyday) so that day my hair felt clean and smelt great so I didn't want it dirty again.

We have spent the last few days at Naviti Island. In the anchorage we have had winds up to 20 knots, out in the open water we can see the wind is much stronger. With all the wind we have had no power issues and today we enjoyed watching a dvd before lunch and then everyone joined in for a few rounds of mexican train dominoes- a great game and much more interesting then normal dominoes. Tomorrow we hope the wind has dropped so we can move a little further south again.

Check out the price

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