Rover

Welcome to Vuda Point!

07 September 2023
Ben
Today dawned with Rover silently bobbing at her mooring in Vuda Point
Marina, with all nav systems offline and everyone onboard in a deep
sleep for the first time since we left Nuku’alofa. Folks gradually came
to and we had the traditional underway breakfast of coffee, shipmade
yogurt, and homemade granola (thanks Mom!). Alas, no Colebook oranges
were on the menu because Fijian biosecurity prevented us from bringing
along any fresh fruit or vegetables so we had to settle for a can of pears.

We did a few chores in the morning and prepared for the big event of the
day�"a drive into Nadi, the smaller of the two towns that the marina sits
between. In Nadi, our goals were to check out the handicraft market,
check out the produce market, visit the Hindu temple, find something to
eat for lunch, find a cruising guidebook, and acquire beer. We
accomplished 5 of the 6 goals.

Nadi has a compact downtown that is jammed with shops of all kinds, and
crowded with Fijians going about their day. We were met with countless
greetings of “Bula!” from various random passersby on the street, and
everyone we spoke to was quite friendly and willing to help us out. On
the recommendation of our taxi driver, we ate lunch on the 3^rd floor(!)
of the small mall, where a handful of restaurants form a food court. The
curries and dumplings were quite good!

Nadi is famous for its brightly-painted Hindu temple, and it did not
disappoint. Everyone had to don a sarong as our shorts were all too
short to be polite, and we padded around the magnificent structure
barefoot. The outside is painted in many different colors, and inside on
the ceiling were dozens of vibrantly painted scenes. Small plates in
front of some of the statues contained offerings of fruit and flowers.

The produce market is large and has a pretty good variety including
tomatoes, cabbages, pumpkins, carrots, oranges, corn, small apples,
pineapples, and bananas. We all snacked on freshly carved pineapple
halves while wandering around for a bit. We also wandered around the
craft market and the crew picked up some mementos. We looked in vain for
a proper bookstore, but every bookstore we found was a book/stationary
store and had no books to speak of. Luckily a decent cruising guide is
available for download.

After a final stop at a grocery store for beers (we bought them out of
cold Vonu), we crammed into a taxi and headed back to the marina.
Sugarcane is the main crop out here, and we saw the narrow-gauge train
and many trucks loaded with canes bound for processing at Latoka. There
were also fields set on fire scattered around the countryside. On our
way home from Nadi, the smoke from one of these fires got more and more
intense and traffic on the small road slowed to a crawl. Large pieces of
ash floated past the car and we could hear the sound of the crackling
flames. We finally rolled past a partially overturned bus headed the
other direction, in the ditch, which apparently failed to stay on the
road as it was driving through the smoke cloud. Soon enough we were past
it, and it was our turn to drive through the smoke. Our driver let the
car ahead of him drive ahead for a few seconds then we plunged in.
Visibility went to zero and we could see nothing outside the windows
except for the brown haze for one, two, three, four seconds that seemed
to stretch on forever. Then we were out of it, and traffic cleared, and
we continued on our way back to the boat.

We rounded out the day with another excellent dinner at the marina
restaurant and a round of sea shanties in Rover’s cockpit afterwards. I
head home tomorrow, very grateful to have been part of this adventure
and also excited to see my loved ones back home.

Morale remains high!

--
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Comments
Vessel Name: Rover
Vessel Make/Model: Valiant 42
Hailing Port: Seattle. WA
Crew: Eric and Linda
About:
We're making a big change to a cruising lifestyle. Eric retired in 2012 after 32 years in R&D (mostly) at HP. Previous passions included flying and bicycling. Linda will retire in 2013 from Oregon State University. She's been active in Zonta, was a Scoutmaster, and is a champion baker. [...]
Extra: Linda was barrel master and Eric participated in the Jackson Street Vintners; a group of friends that made wine from 2000 to 2013
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