LAX
26 June 2014 | LAX
Bill, adapting
As I had mentioned, we spent the last few days in Fiji working from sun up to sun down to prepare the boat for the layup. We got a lot done, but felt that just ONE more day would have turned things. In truth, regardless of how long we had worked, we would have found more tasks to complete. It's a boat, you know.
Our last night was made unique by the singing staff at the resort's restaurant. We still think about the send off. We worked until 1030 the next morning, scurried about paying bills and finalizing our planned work schedule. We were able to sell our fourth anchor, a 23-pound Fortress. We sold it to a new friend, Bob from Colorado. Bob single-hands on his boat and we sold him the anchor to replace one that he had lost, and just gave him our old spinnaker pole We're down to three anchors, now: our new 65-pound Mantus, our old 42-pound CQR, and our spare 35-pound Fortress. We think that three are plenty. We will keep both whisker poles, both the new, good one, and the old one to which I need to attach the missing head. So, we made progress.
Our two blue boxes are full of items that we feel we no longer need aboard. Conni has reduced the number of fancy cushions from 9 to 5, and we've removed old charts, books, and all of our clothing. Anything that we can do to reduce moisture in the boat is worthwhile.
Our boatwatch lady is the wife of a worker named Lulu and the daughter of the guy who runs the TraveLift that splashes and pulls boats from the water. She'll go aboard twice a week or so and check things, ventilate the boat, and track any critters that make it in, and kill them.
I've got several days worth of photos to upload and if I can, I'll get them posted today. Otherwise, I'll get them up when we're somewhere with reliable Internet and power.
It does feel odd to be back in the hustle of the US. It's SO different than the places that we've been. No "Fiji Time" here. By "odd", I mean that it's not quite natural, more like we're visitors, I guess. I see the place with new eyes since it's not the norm for us. We've both noticed that our walking pace has increased, but we're still under the spell of the South Pacific enough to smile at small inconveniences and think, "no worries", rather than feel put-upon as we might have done. Certainly being in LAX is not the easiest way to re-enter the US rat race, but it's effective.
We flew on Fiji Air and it was a nice flight, just so that you'll know. We hadn't flown with them before but they have a small fleet of new Airbus 9-seat-across planes and show that wonderful Fijian hospitality. Our few works of Fijian (Bula, Venaka) worked well and we discuss our voyages with our attendant. He seemed very interested in what we had done to get to Fiji. We would not hesitate to fly with them again.
And the dateā¦. In Fiji, across the date line, it's Friday morning, 6/27, but here it's Thursday morning, 6/26. Crazy! We arrived here before we left Fiji!