31 August 2020
Curly in Savusavu

We've been hanging out on a mooring at Copra Shed for a week now awaiting a call from Immigrations approving our Yacht Special Purpose one year visa. At first it is exciting to be back in a town with stores and restaurants to have lunch out and the yacht club bar for sundowners. After about four days John gets antsy so I called Immigrations to see if any word on visa after one week and if we can leave for a while. They advised against our leaving since our visa has expired and is due any day. Verbally she assured me they cannot fine us since we filed plenty early for the extension.

We listen to the cruisers net run by Curly each morning for local weather and happenings and use his website "curlycarswell.blogspot.com" for fishing clues and parts sourcing. Curly in a normal season does many seminars for yachts checking in at Savusavu (before covid) full of local knowledge and navigation hazards, cyclone holes and even does routing and shares his own beloved anchorage listings with coordinates. This year has been pretty slow so we asked if he would do a mini seminar for us. We met him at my new favorite lunch spot the Surf and Turf which is close to where Curly is moored.

Curly is quite a character and has seen many folks come and go so once he and John had sized each others' skill set-up, I could sit back and observe. Fortunately John was able to hear him well which helped greatly with the transfer of knowledge. Curly also knows the back stories for the five or six boats that seem abandoned and which John has been speculating about since our first visit. His charting format is similar to the Steven Caldwell cruising guide from the 70's but with much improved GPS coordinates and many more anchorages and current resources. Other than a Lonely Planet and Moon Guides which are oriented to Fiji land and resort stays, there are precious few current cruising guides like in Mexico and Polynesia.
We spent a delightful rainy afternoon on the enclosed patio of Surf and Turf looking ahead to the next eight weeks of cruising before cyclone season sets in again November 1st.

Curly makes up his own fishing lures by modifying the barb and the head so they constantly turn more realistically, he also uses a shiny swivel to attract attention and beefs up the wire lead. I was surprised at how small the actual body is; but the hook is about the size we have been using. We got several and will change out our lines and stagger our runs. Sure would be lovely if it works!

We have made tentative reservations at Vuda Marina for the 20/21 cyclone season in hope we get to fly to New Zealand for Americas Cup in January if the borders reopen in time. John is confident Vuda will take care of the boat in our absence.

Anyhow, in a holding pattern waiting for Immigrations to call and hope to get out of town before the gnarly weather front shows up this weekend.