What's up.
29 August 2012 | Bay of Islands, Suva, Fiji
Cloudy
Not much really. We've been back and forth to Suva($1.15 Fijian each way) and have continued resupplying for our up coming trip. Now as to where we are going, that's sort of up in the air. If the weather cooperates, we figure to make it to American Samoa. If it doesn't then perhaps the Marshall Islands. At worst, we will head for the Federated States of Micronesia. As of now, that would be the last place we want to head to. This time of year, they can get racked by one storm after another. We need a nice place to sit for a couple of months. It's supposed to be much better by December. Right now, we sit and wait to see when and if the weather will cooperate. We need winds from the south or south south east for a run northeast to American Samoa. As with most cruisers, our plans are written in sand at low tide.
We've been back and forth to Cost U Less getting lots of goodies. They even carry the 15 pack of paper towels so if we spill something, we covered.
We went to a movie in town on Monday. Saw the Bourne Legacy. Lots of action as you would expect. Unfortunately, the sound was so loud we had to put pieces of tissue in our ears to deaden it a bit. They also had cranked the air conditioner on high and it was quite chilly. We both wish we had brought sweaters.
Other then that, we've taken Zephyr out of the harbor and emptied the black water tanks. There's no way we would empty them in the harbor as I'm sure other boats do. Knowing this, there is no way I'd fire up our water maker so I've been ferrying jugs of water from shore to refill our tanks. At just 10 gallons per trip, it took several hours and7 trips back and forth to get them sort of back where we want them to be. Tracy did laundry on Monday so that used up a good bit of water. I'll be refilling them again before we leave. Yes, once we leave the bay I can use the water maker but it uses a bunch of energy so unless the engine is running(which we prefer not to do unless we have to) we don't make water. Plus, it's free(can't beat that).
On one of our trips around town(in a taxi!), we passed the new American Embassy. Wow, what a compound. It's huge compared to what the last complex was. It's quite a ways out of town so it's doubtful we will be out there again.
Other than that, we listen to the morning radio(SSB) for weather forecast. The local station only broadcasts the weather at 0700. Just once per day, that's it, no second chances at 0800. Go figure.
Here we sit and here we stay. Oh, I forgot to mention that we have worked out a way to get our $400.00 back from Vodefone. It's a security deposit that we had to pay them when we got their internet service. They were willing to transfer it to our bank for just $25.00 plus another $25.00 at our bank. Or, we could ask for a check which takes 5 days. If we did that, we wouldn't have internet to check the up coming weather so that was no good. They did offer to sell us a prepaid dongle at a huge price for little usage($35.00 for 1.2 gigs of use). Heck, we only pay $91.00 for 20 gigs. We finally worked it out that we would pay for September(as we know we will be here till then) and then they can cut us a check since we have already prepaid for the month and then shut off service on September 30 since our visas expire on the 29th and we have to be gone. With luck, we should have that money back by Friday of next week. Guess we will see if the check shows up at the branch office we stopped in at. I'll let you know.