Leaving Fiji - Take 2

Well we didn’t end up leaving today after all. There were a couple of snotty, sneezy, exhausted relapses of colds, and the weather system we had planned to avoid decided to come straight over us so we had a day and night of wind and rain (almost to the point where a light jumper was necessary! Almost…) followed by a day of rain today. So we decided to wait, however we really do have to leave on Friday as we are fast running out of time and we’re conscious of another weather system that seems to be headed our way. While we obviously can’t guarantee a totally smooth run, we can certainly try to find weather windows that will give us the best possible run. We cleared out today which gives us 34 hours before we have to leave, so tomorrow is definitely departure day.


The anchorage is getting crowded with three more boats coming in yesterday. We had a meal with Jim and Mary from one of them and had the usual get-to-know-you discussions. What do you do at home (or what did you do before you retired, lucky long-term cruisers!!)? Jim responded with "Actually, I was a rocket scientist!" We gave a bit of a laugh before we realised that he was serious! Turns out he worked on the Apollo mission! I would have loved to hear more about that - firstly (and mostly) because that's pretty awesome and would be very interesting, but secondly because it would be a conversation that was NOT about boats! Alas Stu was there, and therefore all talk quickly returned to all things nautical...

As I mentioned in my last post we are hoping to arrive in Noumea in about 6 days - the tracker will be on and I hope it works! Fingers crossed for good weather - we are getting further south, and it is winter after all. The weather here is definitely cooler, but still very warm (although wet for the last 2 days) and the sun feels more like the Australian sun. Closer and closer to home :)