Hello and yes we are still alive and well.
We did finally left New Zealand. I know a lot of our cruising friends will think us really crazy when we left on Friday the 13th! Their is a superstition that one should never leave a port on a Friday but where it stems from I do not know. For us we had a relatively good passage of seven and a half days with winds of 20-30 knots for most of the way and they were helping us most of the time but not always. We did have some thunder storms and squalls to work our way through along with lots of heavy rains. It is one of the less desirable passages to or from New Zealand as one is going from the tropics to the temperate zones of the planet which does cause winds and seas to be moving all over the place.
We arrived in Savusavu which is a small little town of maybe 500 and have stayed here for the last 12 days just relaxing and enjoying time with all our friends new and old. It has been very social as most all of the boats have arrived in from New Zealand and not everyone had as easy a sail as we had. This translates into meeting at the yacht club around 4 or so and then greeting all the new arrivals, having a few drinks and then off to dinner with about ten plus every night going out to one of the restaurants. Marian is really liking it here as she is not have to cook as it is just as cheap to eat out as to cook it yourself. We are having great dinners for about $15 for two with drinks and dessert! We may never leave.
Our plan is to sail around Vanua Levu counter clockwise and just stop here and there as we go with no plans of moving the boat more than four hours at any one time. We plan to be here now through the beginning of August when we will head to Vanuatu. We miss the summer that you all will be having but will just have to put up with the winter weather here in Fiji
We did finally left New Zealand. I know a lot of our cruising friends will think us really crazy when we left on Friday the 13th! Their is a superstition that one should never leave a port on a Friday but where it stems from I do not know. For us we had a relatively good passage of seven and a half days with winds of 20-30 knots for most of the way and they were helping us most of the time but not always. We did have some thunder storms and squalls to work our way through along with lots of heavy rains. It is one of the less desirable passages to or from New Zealand as one is going from the tropics to the temperate zones of the planet which does cause winds and seas to be moving all over the place.
We arrived in Savusavu which is a small little town of maybe 500 and have stayed here for the last 12 days just relaxing and enjoying time with all our friends new and old. It has been very social as most all of the boats have arrived in from New Zealand and not everyone had as easy a sail as we had. This translates into meeting at the yacht club around 4 or so and then greeting all the new arrivals, having a few drinks and then off to dinner with about ten plus every night going out to one of the restaurants. Marian is really liking it here as she is not have to cook as it is just as cheap to eat out as to cook it yourself. We are having great dinners for about $15 for two with drinks and dessert! We may never leave.
Our plan is to sail around Vanua Levu counter clockwise and just stop here and there as we go with no plans of moving the boat more than four hours at any one time. We plan to be here now through the beginning of August when we will head to Vanuatu. We miss the summer that you all will be having but will just have to put up with the winter weather here in Fiji
