It is only a one hour cruise from Denarau across to Vuda Marina. I was lucky there was a spot available in the marina as they do not take reservations and this is their busiest time of year. But I was not eager to be single handling my way through the reefs of Fiji, so I decided I would keep Southern Cross in Vuda Marina until Phil returned in September.

It was low tide when I entered the marina, though the docking crew advised over VHF that if I went down the center of the channel there as enough clearance for our 7 foot draft and I shouldn't get stuck.... I inched my way in and watched the depth slowly decrease until the sounder showed I had only one inch before I would hit bottom! But the boat kept moving and soon I had several feet of clearance into the rest of the marina. So I was able to continue to keep our record for never yet grounding the boat.

The process of tying up at Vuda Marina is rather complicated. The boats tie side to side up to a wall with several stern lines pulling back Mediterranean style to buoys.

Unfortunately, while the dock crew was guiding Southern Cross into its "slip" on the of mooring lines from an adjacent boat got caught on my keel and the boat was stranded. The crew had a diver to go down and release the tangled line, and he asked me if he could borrow a dive mask since he did not have one. So I went to the stern lazarette and opened it to get the mask. Somehow I bumped the rather large and heavy thick fiberglass lazarette cover, and it crashed down smashing my right thumb at the metacarpophalangeal joint (base of the thumb) and causing a gash down to the bone and considerable bleeding. I was lucky the bones were not broken (that I could tell) and that the thumb had not been amputated. I allowed the wound to have some brisk bleeding to help clean it out, and then washed it thoroughly with iodine before bandaging it. The bleeding stopped fairly quickly with only a few pints of blood being lost (just kidding, pressure stopped the bleeding), but the thumb of course became quite swollen and the hand was of little use for a number of days. Fortunately it did not become infected within a week the hand was usable again. Once the boat was ensconced in a secure position I was able to begin my month of land exploration and adventures around Fiji.

Next post will be after my land tour. See you then.