The coast of Fiji looks much like Southern California, minus all of the track homes and traffic. The people are very nice and hospitable, and prices very reasonable. We anchored off of Denerau, a nice beach but covered in huge resorts, with many more on the way. Deni's flight on Sunday night was cancelled, giving us an extra day to provision, as of course everything was closed on Sunday.

We spent Monday provisioning and readying for her visit and took the dinghy to pick her up at about 5pm. After two hours in customs, she made it through, complete with the 300 lbs of gear she had lugged with her from the US. Including parts for the autopilot, fishing rod holders, clothes, music, magazines, wine, etc, etc.

We picked up some pizzas from the restaurant in the marina where the dinghy was docked, piled her luggage in the dinghy and set out for the boat which was about a mile away. In the dark.

This was definitely new to her and we could not stop laughing at how different my life has become. We got back to the boat and after dinner we had "Chrismas in August" and spent the evening playing with our new toys.

In the morning we had to take a cab to Lautoka to get a cruising permit to allow us to visit the other islands. I gave our passports and nothing else but the name of the boat and color written down on a corner of a piece of paper to the 16 year old girl and she gave me a typed permit to visit the islands for the next three months. Talk about an unnecessary formality. But with this in hand, we were off to Musket Cove, on nearby Malololailai Island. We arrived and picked up a mooring and set out to explore the island, which is definitely a "yachtie's heaven".