Well, we're back in Vuda Point Marina after a lovely 6 day stint at Musket Cove. It's only a short 15 mile trek over just about still water I'm sure we will be going back often. It was a just about perfect vacation getting away from any kind of work(well sort of) on Zephyr.

Here was our normal day. Get up about 0730 and have breakfast. Lower Puff back into the water(security though no thefts have been reported) and put on Dragon(outboard). Load all our diving gear into her and set out for Plantation Pinnacle about 1015. Get there about 1045 and get in the water. Scuba dive(anywhere from 30 to 80 feet deep) taking pictures and watching all the fish and live coral around us. We have never been to a reef with so much live coral. Much of what we have seen as we crossed the Pacific has been either dead or dying. It was a delight to see such life on the coral bommie(tall pillar of coral). We'd dive for an average of 55 minutes and then climb back into Puff and head back to Zephyr We'd drop off most of our equipment(except the tanks) and then head for the marina. We'd take the tanks in for refilling at Subsurface Diving and head for the showers. Then on to lunch at the local cafe. A meat pie with salad($10.00), or a hamburger with fries($18.00). Maybe a steak sandwich($18.50) and a coke($4.50)--all prices are in Fijian dollars(about .55 to the dollar) so lunch was quite reasonable. On to the new ice cream counter. It just opened two weeks ago for a $2.00 cone. Now these people never attended the Baskin Robbins school of how to do a single cone. These people first filled the inside of the cone then piled another scoop on top of that and then to top it off, added a third scoop to the top. All for $2.00($1.10US). Wow, what a deal for something that has to be brought over by boat from the main island. Back to the Subsurface Diving to pick up the tanks($10.00Fijian) and then back to Zephyr. By now, it's about 1500. Settle in for the afternoon. Movies started aboard at about 1900 with a nice bowl of Orville Redenbacker popcorn. With internet, we watched back episodes of Big Brother from last Summer. Internet is fast enough to allow us to see it quite well with little interruptions. Off to bed about 2200 and the day starts all over again. So it went for the six days we spent there. A wonderful time away from jobs aboard Zephyr.

Tuesday, we dropped the line to the mooring buoy and headed back getting in about 1230 and backing back into our old space. Moe assisted with the lines off the bow getting them attached to lines from the center buoy and then we backed in. We'd already gotten lines ready for the stern but since none of the staff came to help, Tracy jumped to shore and pulled back on Zephyrs stern. Moe finally came ashore and assisted with the final lines. We were back at the marina again. Electric lines were lead ashore and plugged in and we had power to recharge the batteries and run our air conditioner.

Once we were set, we walked over to the marina's cafe and had a late lunch and then finished getting Zephyr back in marina mode. Yesterday, we got up early before it got hot and got our tarps back up to protect Zephyr from the searing heat of the day. Amazingly, there was no rain in the forecast. First time we've not seen rain in the forecast in several weeks. At 1100, we took off for Namaka, a small town just south of us for a trip to the big hardware store. We still needed the chain to affix us to shore should a big cyclone head our way. The lines are all ready, now we just need the chain and shackles. Chain they had but no shackles so with a very heavy bag full of 20 feet of BIG chain, back we came to the marina. Busy, busy, busy. Today, off for Lautoka to get checked back in with Customs since we had to check out to visit the islands. Paperwork is the life blood of Fiji. Think of a form and they have it.

The picture at the top is one I took while on our dive. More of them to come.