Motoring east toward the mainland on flat, calm water under a high overcast, the air cool, our brains in 3 places at once and nowhere at all. We're off to Denarau Island, a tourist resort mecca south of Nadi where all the major hotels have set up camp. 2 years ago when United Airlines had a temporary contract covering Air Pacific's 747 routes while they did some scheduled heavy maintenance on their planes, I was fortunate to get the Nadi flying and had some great layovers at the Sofitel on Denarau. It'll be fun to go back and see it again. But the real reason we're going is to see our friends Rod and Elisabeth on Proximity, who have made an unscheduled stop in Fiji. We'll spend a little time with them and then head up to Vuda Point and prepare to leave for New Caledonia on Tuesday morning.

We've had steady rain the last few days, heavy at times, and took advantage of the weather to hole up aboard Fly Aweigh and get some work done. Curious and Mary Powell had left, and it was just us and the rain. We did some research on renting camper vans in New Zealand, checked weather for our next leg to New Caledonia, read our books, did crosswords, and in the afternoon jumped overboard for some boat-bottom cleaning. Good exercise, when you do it without scuba tanks. Allan has the lung capacity of the Hindenburg, and mine is getting better. We knocked furry growths and scraped scum off the blue bottom for about an hour together, then Allan stayed in another hour and did some serious work on the prop, which was being taken over by barnacles -- which creates drag -- which slows the boat down -- which is bad -- since sailing is slow enough without barnacles to impede progress. So now the bottom is smooth and the prop is clean and we should slip through the water at breakneck speeds.

Our heads are slowly shifting toward Australia and all that selling the boat might entail. We're trying to stay focused on the last month of our cruising but it's a bit like brackish water, the merging of worlds is beginning and we need to let that happen. It's a mix of feelings, of course -- excitement at moving on to the next phase of our adventure, a land-based series of trips that might include some time in Australia and more in New Zealand, sadness at ending the fabulous cruising part of our trip just as we're really getting the hang of it, and trepidation at selling the boat -- will it sell? Will it sell for what we want? We're trusting that it will all work out, as things consistently have since we first came up with this crazy idea over a year-and-a-half ago.

For now, we'll enjoy our last few days in the Fiji Islands, then we'll rattle our sleepy brains and try to drum up what little French we might remember from our time in French Polynesia, since New Caledonia is a French colony. Which also means back to the expensive world of South Pacific France, and, I assume, the land of fresh baguette and brie.