Vuda Point, Fiji
02 October 2015
Our first experience with our waiter Phillipe was so special. I commented on how nice his wooden necklace was and he immediately started to undo it to give to me! I said no, no, I just wanted to tell you how nice it looks on you. So I remarked to Dave and he asks Phillipe if he can buy it from him for me. Phillipe quickly takes it off and says very earnestly he would like me to have it. This was really kind of awkward, so I said tomorrow, I will bring you one that I was given from the Marquesas. When I showed up the next day and gave him the beads, his eyes lit up as the beads were all the colors of his uniform, black, red and brown. They looked fantastic on him. He was genuinely really happy.
We carried on the next day having an awesome day of racing Firefly along the channel between the island and the reef. It was tight downwind racing and we really enjoyed our first "head to head" competition in awhile. They had to stop to reel in a 25lb Waloo, so rolled up our headsail to wait for them and when they caught back up it was "on" again. It was a great, fun day. We stayed in a quiet bay that night and next day headed for Sewani Bay just shy of Vuda Point Marina. We walked over to check it out, about a 45 min hot walk, so we were excited to find that it was the final night of Octoberfest complete with big steins for Mac, Wendy and Dave and my first Cider since the last one I found months before in the bottom of the fridge in Mexico! Happy campers! It was the prettiest place we had seen in awhile, planted up with beautiful palms and hundreds of tropical plants. Theoretically there are a bunch of fruit vines and trees, which we read were free for the taking, but most weren't fruiting while we were there. There were Pineapples and Passionfruit vines by the hundreds and of course the coconut palms so at some point, someone is going to have some serious fruit.
Even in the boatyard in Vuda, while we were "on the hard" the backdrop was enormous mango trees on the neighbouring property. At night we went to sleep with the sound of huge fruit bats coming to life. It sounded sort of like fighting cats, but not so high pitched, more of a low rumble and squeak. We sure knew these were new, weird sounds.... Not in BC anymore!
We found the staff at the boatyard were really friendly and fun also. They worked until dark to get us lifted out on the Monday. I had been planning to make pizza anyway, so I doubled the batch and made 4, feeling pretty sure we could make it disappear pretty easily. I was baking as we lifted out and felt sorry for the guys having to work so late and smell those yummy smells, so gave the guys a couple of pieces each. The next day one of the guys who hadn't gotten any was working on the sanding so we gave him some too. They were all really friendly after that and two of them called out "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!" All week long... Which led to allot of "Oi, Oi, Oi's and Fiji, Fiji, Fiji !" Responses from us. This always made the guys laugh. With the Rugby World Cup on they were all watching and since Fiji was now out, they said they were hoping for Australia to win.
It was a fun week with many long luxuriously hot showers. Such a treat. Also being able to use coin op laundry on site was so convenient! I think washing machines for laundry is the one thing I REALLY miss from home. Washing by hand is slow, tiring and I never feel like I am really getting things clean, as we have only a couple of gallons of water to spare for it.