The people of Fiji are extremely friendly. ‘Bula’ or even ‘Bula Bula’ is the traditional Fijian greeting and we hear it all the time. People are very welcoming even outside the marina. When we first arrived on the customs dock, after we’d had our Covid RAT, cleared in with customs and immigration a group of 15 or so marina staff arrived on the dock to sing us a song of greeting. Eventually, we were moved to our current location in the inner basin.
Where are we
Tuesday, 24 May 2022
First Impressions Fiji
Wednesday, 11 May 2022
Tomorrow is looking good…
Tomorrow looks like a good departure date. Having had a drop of cold condensation from our aluminium window frames land in me as I climbed out of bed this morning, it’s about time! New Zealand is having a winter blast from the south east.
Picking a departure date needs a lot of patience because weather being weather and there isn’t a darn thing you can do about it.
To help us decide, we use a number of computer based weather models created very various countries GFS (American), ECMWF (European), ACCESS (Australian) and ICON (German). We access these models using an app called Windy on our iPads - no account needed for basic functions.
Wednesday, 4 May 2022
Things to celebrate
We have a number of things to celebrate and be grateful for.
May 2nd, 2012 is the date we left England to begin our circumnavigation. 10 years on and we’ve only made it halfway, though we aren’t completely to blame for that. We are very glad to have the opportunity to spend so much time up in New Zealand and avoid the worst of the Covid lockdowns.
Larus's has benefited greatly from our lengthy stay. Over the 2 and a half years here, she has new sails, sail covers, anchor, stainless steel chain, generator, wind generator, steering pedestal and Tim installed the pre-ordered solar panels. We refreshed the Coppercoat on her hull and replaced the bearing on the rudder.
We have been here long enough for Tim to have two teeth implants and for me to have surgery to remove a pesky benign lump from might right knee that has probably been causing me issues for years.
As you can imagine, Larus is truly shipshape and Bristol fashion and we aren’t far behind her.
Why mention this all this? Bragging? A little. Reassurance? A lot. Satisfaction that our floating home and crew are ready and willing for our next adventure? Definitely.
We are pleased to announce that there is a very good chance that in just over a week’s time we will be on our way to Fiji.
Just as exciting, we have flights booked to Canada and the UK. Flights, I might add, that are fully changeable and refundable. What flights would be available should it be necessary to change them is another issue altogether and we don’t see any need to even worry about that at the moment.
Having been cloistered in Jacinda’s protective embrace, we have little experience of living with Covid in the community. We just head to anchor whenever it raises its ugly head. It’s a little unnerving though as the ‘everyone’s going to get it eventually,’ attitude of the moment could scupper any part of our plans. Getting Covid in no way fits into our timeline so we are taking every precaution.
So far so good.
The cyclone season officially ended on the 1st of May and we seem to have a good weather window in the next week or so.
Our time is now spent preparing for the passage.
Thursday, 27 January 2022
From the Far North, Northland, North Island, New Zealand
All is well for us down here in New Zealand. After booking 2 sets of flight for a visit to the UK and Canada, starting a passsage on Larus to the South Island and having them all cancelled, I have been loath to mention any plans.
We are both double vaccinated, will be getting our booster in the coming weeks, are fit and well, lurking at anchor in some of the more remote cruising areas north of the Bay of Islands, and are keeping very much to ourselves. Prior to leaving the Whangarei area, we stocked up on KN95 masks and all my Bin Inn staples and went out to anchor.
We left Marsden Cove Marina on the 20th of January and prior to Tim going out to yesterday for milk, we have been keeping ourselves to ourselves. We knew it was just a matter of time before the Omicron variant escaped the NZ border quaratine facilities and we decided to put ourselves out of its path as best we could.
We aren't busy now but we had been pre and post Christmas.
Before Christmas we were helping out friends who are stuck in the UK and who's boats are on the hard in Marseden Cove Marina.
We finished a partial completed job of peeling the brown metallic 'wrap' hiding the rather tired hull of Supertramp.
The wrap really wasn’t that keen on coming off. Heat and brute force did the trick.