SavuSavu

Well it has been a crazy busy stop here. And, as luck would have it the first 3 consecutive days of sunshine since we arrived!

Thankfully Sunday - the day Dennis did the first stage of the generator replumb was overcast. That project required the emptying of 4 and 1/2 storage spaces - the worst of which was removing all of our real books from their storage space. But, it is all done now. We will have to do a live undersail test, but the replumb is working and the exhaust water leak is fixed and cleaned up after. Still have some things to restow. That is on the agenda for today.

Since Sunday, it has been beautifully sunny which means - hot, darn hot and humid. My only complaint is that we are here at the marina working. No water activities for us. We have gotten a lot done though and plan to leave tomorrow in time for the usual overcast weather pattern to return. We put the sunshades up because of the rain, and have ended up thankful for their protection from the sun!

Josh has been busily doing homework and ferrying me back and forth to shore. SV Far and Away arrived on Sunday evening, so he has spent some quality time with the kids (seven!) over there. Of course he is loving the excellent internet access. Paul replaced the old latches and installed new locks on all my cupboads behind the settees. Nice, no more storage spaces opening and spewing out contents when we are heeled over in rough seas - YAY!! We on boarded 20 gal of diesel by jerry jug and filled up on dinghy gas, so we are good to go - hopefully all the way to Vuda Point. The freezer is almost full, need to pick up a few more things and I have gotten everything on my list that is available here. One thing I haven't found and this is the first place since the US that doesn't have it, is tinned butter. I hate to take up refrigerator space with butter, but oh well -no other choice. Went back to my favorite store (Savu Savu wine and spirits) to pick up blue corn tortilla chips - and they were out!!! They only got 2 bags in their shipment on Saturday and they were gone immediately. So sad here on Evergreen :( . Next shipment is Saturday, but we will be gone - sigh.....

I have also been trying to get a sim card in order to make one of our many phones to work. I need to make some calls to the US for my NZ nursing license. Let's just say that has not been a huge success. We have 4 phones on this boat and none will work with the local sim cards. I will probably have to break down and buy another darn phone - PITA, which won't work in NZ probably.. Oh well, the cost of doing business I suppose. Sure glad i started doing this license thing in APRIL!!!

In another case of "OMG it is a small world", sv AKA (Ed and Fran) came in on Monday morning. They were on the hard next to us in San Carlos Mexico in 2010! They were wonderful about giving us all kinds of charts and information about Fiji - and now they have given us information on New Zealand. Nice folks. I recognized the name, but couldn't believe it would actually be them. The cruising community is really very small. And Far and Away is from Vancouver Island - where we kept the boat before bringing it to SF. As Ed said - there are not 6 degrees of separation in the cruising world - only about 1. Is nice to think of such a small community spread out all over the world.

Not much more to report. Will be busy again today finishing things up - we are out of here tomorrow, and on to more exploration. Namena reef and the Island of Namenalala (say that fast). Supposed to be good diving there, so hopefully decent snorkeling as well.

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