We were on a mooring in Savu Savu for a week. During that time old friends Carla and Doug on 'Moondance' pulled in. The last time we saw them was in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico in 2011. We were all getting antsy waiting for the right winds to take us to French Polynesia. They boldly motored across from PV on the mainland over to Cabo San Lucas at the tip of the Baja Peninsula and left from there. We, on the other hand, sitting in Puerto Vallarta with no wind waited another three or four weeks. Of course, that sad story again, when we finally got off shore in rather stormy conditions we found water in our engine and had to return to Mexico. We ended up staying for another year and finally did the Puddle Jump in 2012. It was fun to see 'Moondance' again and also catch up with others in Savu Savu. We had plenty of meals out, several Indian curry dinners which are a specialty here. The weather has been very overcast and sometimes rainy periods during the days. It rains nearly every night as well. As the days pass we are both yearning for sunshine. We are in the middle of Fiji's winter. Maybe we'll get more sunshine when we move south and west. Don dinghied jerry jugs of fuel and water from shore to the boat over several days. Then we started re-provisioning for the next leg of this exploration of Fiji. We had hoped to be spending some cruising time with 'Bravo', Adam and Cindy, but they just returned to Taveuni Island from Fulaga and are planning on going to Vanua Balavu next, where we just came from. Alas, once you get on a different schedule you often don't see people again for some time. I'm not sure when we'll see them again...they'll go back to NZ before us so they can fly to the states for Thanksgiving. We, on the other hand will get back to NZ around Thanksgiving, put Buena Vista away again and fly to Australia for Christmas. Next year they will most likely come back to Fiji, then on to New Caledonia and Vanuatu and we'll probably be living and working in Melbourne, Australia. Such is life! Anyway, we met some new friends recently, Steve and Nona on 'Corvidae'. We sailed out of Savu Savu together on our way to Namena Island which is an easy four hour sail. Even before we got out to the open ocean 'Cordivae' had hooked up a fish...a huge fish. We saw pictures of it later that afternoon. A wahoo, about 5 feet long and looked about 80-100 pounds. You should see the size of the steaks we had for dinner - each one the size of a large dinner plate. It was fun to be sailing with another boat again. I do like buddy boating, I always have. Namena Island is inside a massive reef system and the entire area is a marine reserve. We anchored at the NW corner in nice calm weather. It is sunny here! Yippee! There are several world class dives in this area but for some reason Don and I just haven't been that keen to haul out the equipment. The actual dive site is over a mile and a half away from 'Buena Vista' and we don't want to go out that far alone in the dinghy. Anyway, we're snorkeling right off the boat which is very enjoyable and really easy. The coral right next to the island isn't in great shape but after swimming around for awhile we found some wonderful coral gardens. And we saw one of the biggest moray eels we have ever seen, a real mean looking bugger. Lots of different kinds of fish, warm water, wonderful. We also saw our first giant clam, very different than the colorful ones from Suwarrow and Tonga. Steve is setting up his huka today, which is an air pump to an individual hose with a mouthpiece. He uses it for cleaning the bottom of 'Corvidae' but today we'll use it to explore the giant coral bommie that is directly under their boat. That reminds me of a funny story about Don...several years ago we talked about getting a 'huka'...next I see a yellow post-it note on the wall that says, "Hooker". I asked Don...what's this about a 'Hooker'? He said...well you said I could have one! :) You never know what's next with Donny Boy! Back to the present...This island has lots of bird life, the most we've seen since arriving here in Fiji. I've spent hours watching them with our cool image-stabilizing binoculars. There are nesting boobies, blue beaks with red feet and their nests are in trees (unlike Mexico where they were blue-footed and nested on the ground). There's also a few different kinds of cranes, heaps of terns, frigatebirds and also tropicbirds, the flitty white things with the long long white tail feather trailing behind them. It's very pleasant here, I wish we could stay longer. But, alas, the weather is changing again and along with 'Corvidae' we'll be sailing over to the next island of Makogai tomorrow. We'd like to get down to Ono and Kandavu Islands and the Great Astrolabe Reef but we may have to wait out the next weather system in the well-protected harbors of Makogai; we'll see.