^Drone picture of the over water bures at Likuliku Lagoon.

Well last night was a sticky one and there was a fair bit of movement in the night. Matthew descended from his deck hammock around 2am claiming to be too cold!! Josh slept in the cockpit and Joy slept on deck for a little while before coming back into the cockpit to join Josh.

Around 6am the starry night was giving way to the morning sunrise and most of us slowly made our way out of sticky beds into the morning air.

Hot drinks were made and we slowly came to life. The skipper got us going through the usual morning tasks on the boat: running the genset for an hour and a half to recharge batteries, making water at the same time with the water maker and letting the dinghy down off the back of the boat.

Joy and Jade had a quick paddle board around the beautiful bay before making the boat ship shape to lift the anchor and head south.

We departed the picturesque anchorage of Nevadra/Vanua Levu around 9.30am.


^ Traveling to Monuriki Island

Very little wind meant that it was another day of motoring which wasn't too unfortunate as it happens because we needed to run the engine to get the fridges running. The heat really is making it hard to keep those temperatures down.

Our route today took us via Monuriki island which is where Castaway (Tom Hanks film featuring the ball Wilson) was filmed! The skipper kindly anchored very close to shore in around 14 metres so we felt within touching distance of the beach.


^ Monuriki Island

The water was such an aquamarine blue and the sand looked so powder white. We could hardly wait for the anchor to hit the seabed before we were throwing ourselves overboard. After the initial rush to swim, we soon found ourselves frantically clawing at the dinghy as we realised the sea was teeming with jellyfish.

Charles remained with the boat while the rest of the crew hopped in the dinghy and went ashore. We wandered on the soft sand into the shade of the palm trees and over to the other side of the island - it was paradise! How many times have we said that already?!

Some locals soon joined us from the nearby village and Matt returned to Vingilot to look for a football so he could play with the kids. They were very excited to be given the ball.

Charles did come ashore after a short while to join us, and walked around admiring the view as well.

Around 1pm we had all had plenty of that scorching sun so we made our way back to Vingilot for lunch and shade. We enjoyed bread, cheese, pickles, houmous, kippers and some papaya.

Around 1.45pm we were on our way once again under motor. We had initially planned to stop over at Mana island tonight as we had hoped to go ashore there and reprovision our boats, however, we had come across a Musket cove friend on Monuriki island who'd told us that Mana were still not allowing people ashore. It was decided that we'd return to Likuliku instead. We arrived in the bay around 3.45pm and once again....as soon as the anchor was set, we could hardly stop ourselves plunging into the water. The heat really did feel very intense today and there was no air!

Dinner was a delicious Thai red chicken curry with coconut rice, followed by peaches and yoghurt. Our friends on KTD had caught a Mackerel while en route to Likuliku so they inevitably enjoyed their catch of the day. They very kindly sent us a taster of the crumbed mackerel - hand delivered on the paddle board by Liam. It was delectable!