Tuesday 18th was a sail away to Namoto Island, which was a pretty little sand cay island and resort about 7 miles away. We went on our friend's beautiful 78ft yacht Moonraker as we would have had to anchor in 20 meters and as we haven't picked up our new anchor windlass motor yet (it's at Vunda Point Marina waiting for us) it wouldn't have been pleasant.

Lunch was ashore at the resort and straight after that, the games began. First the beer race, crazy, as you can imagine. The wet T-shirt and the Hairy Chest have continued to be the glamour events for the past eighteen years. The Hairy Chest contest gives the men a chance to show their better side as it usually degenerates at the urging of the females, into a men's "Best Bums" debacle. First Prize: $100 in pieces of gold for the ladies and a dead fish for the men.

Not being the showgirl I used to be and NOT having the figure I used to have since I turned about 45, I wasn't going to enter in the wet T-shirt competition, as I knew there was a lot of competition out there. We stood on the beach and I was amazed as friend after friend donned their donated T'shirts, undid their bikini bra tops from underneath and threw their tops to husbands and friends. I walked past the registration desk and I only needed a bit of prompting and they threw a T-shirt at me and I was in. There was a big crowd already all frolicking in the ocean getting there T'-shirts nice and wet, so I threw my bra to a friend and joined in.

Our lovely crew Amy won first prize as she was the youngest and prettiest at 20 yrs old. The veteran's prize went to someone's 80 year old grandmother who was visiting - wow, was that a sight! Then the Quality and Quantity prize was won by a very attractive, voluptuous lady, all curves with huge boobs and a very tiny white bikini bottom. Good times were had by all.

Wed 19th Sept....A huge day. It was the Fiji Water Round Malolo Race, followed in the evening by a 3 minute Ladies only competition to tell "Why I hate Sailing", for a Bottle of Moet plus 2 crystal champagne flutes. Well, we had lots of wind for the race and we had 6 silver haired sailors on board Volar� from 3 different parts of the world. Look for the photos in the gallery of us overtaking a 52 foot catamaran and getting further and further ahead of him. Then overtaking a very competitive Vaan de Stadt 47, on which were our friends from Baja Ha-Ha and Puddle Jump days. They had been invited to sail onboard Volar� but took the other spot instead and as we screamed past, David from Talerra was screaming Go Volar�!! and we were screaming back that he should have come on Volar�. Shows that grey headed sailors can still show up the supposedly faster and sleeker boats, although I have to say Greg is a marvelous skipper and Volar� a fast boat.

Later that evening, the ladies only competition to tell "Why I hate Sailing" was hysterical with quite a number of cruising children entering and they were amazing having written their own scripts. These children certainly grow up quickly!!!

Last night (Wednesday), was the Prince and Princesses competition, role reversal. Can you believe there were 50 guys there dressed up as girls? Greg was Princess Diamante last night and he was absolutely gorgeous, he definitely was an elegant Princess with all my diamond and jewels on. His hair had grown a little, so whilst many of the other guys had to resort to wigs and scarves, I just had to blow dry and gel and spray Greg's hair and it was a mass of curls. He wore my beautiful pink Peacock tasseled top and my beautiful brown velvet and lace skirt accompanied with my jeweled handbag. He looked a dream on the catwalk with big full skirt and handbag and twirled around to the themed music. There should have been a prize for Elegance as the winners wore huge artificial bustier bodices with thongs (not the ones you put on your feet) underneath their tiny weenie shorty dresses. They looked fabulous, although it does help when your friends wing in from America, all well and really prepared, straight from the costume shops.

Today was the finals of the Hobie Cat challenge. We had worked our way through the fleet over the past three days of match racing competition. I was a little slow out of bed for the first day's racing and Greg sailed with Janet off Moonraker as forward hand. Unfortunately, Janet had a costume malfunction at the start (her bikini top fell off as she was jumping aboard) so they had a slow start and were eliminated in the first round. However, all was not lost as they qualified for the plate competition (all the losing boats from round one). I crewed with Greg for the remainder of the series (with my top on) and we kept winning our races until we reached the finals this morning. We were in front for the first lap but unfortunately got stuck going around the windward mark on the second lap and our competitor managed to get past. It was a great race to the finish and we lost out by a boatlength.

Well, tonight is the last night, Prize Giving, Pig-on-the-spit dinner, followed by Fijian Show by the staff of Musket Cove and dancing till the wee small hours?
The night was fantastic, a Sulu (sarong) and Bula Shirt night. The staff and doen a marvelous job of transforming the beach into a huge tent and we all had our own tables. We ate and danced on into the night but heard this morning that we left before the real party began. A bunch of middle aged Aussies (who else!!!) decided to go skinny dipping in the pool at about 2am and the Management had a hard time getting them out as they were having such fun.

We are now on our way back to the mainland, rather late as we had our little crew member go AWOL, so spent the best part of the morning looking for her and calling all the possible boats she could have slept on. Finally after worrying everyone else, we came back to the boat after about 2 hours and she was happily fiddling around and waiting for us, having stayed on the one boat with a girlfriend we didn't call.