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American Spirit II - Day 151; Planning Route to Fiji, Filling out Paperwork for Fiji and a Slow Day in Vava'u, Tonga; Thursday, June 5, 2014



Up at 7:30 AM. Free and Breezy, a 40 foot rally catamaran from Canada, stopped by to look at our temporary shroud fix. They just found out they had a broken shroud, also.

Paul and Suzanne, our Rally representatives, flew off the island at 9:30 AM on their way home to England and Portugal, respectively. So now we're on our own.

Breakfast was at 10:30 AM at the Aquarium Cafe. Banana pancakes and toast for me; banana pancakes and fruit bowl for Joel. Delicious. We used the free internet in the cafe while eating breakfast, but kept getting disconnected every 5 or 10 minutes. Welcome to the third world! Maybe its free because it doesn't work too well.

Joel downloaded Passage Weather, and it looks like the weather will not be good for us leaving Saturday as we'd hoped to. The reason is because a system is passing us by and winds will be 25 to 30 knots. The high wind speed is not the biggest problem. It's the direction, from the southeast. With our broken spreader on the port side, a SE wind will be over our port side, and we can't use our sails on a port tack because of the strain that would put on our broken, port shroud. So we'll wait until Tuesday morning to leave (Monday morning in St. Petersburg and Tampa). The winds are supposed to shift to the ENE and then NE, so we would have our mainsail and jib on the port side on a starboard tack. That tack doesn't stress the broken shroud too much. Its about 450 miles to Fiji, which will take us 3 days.

We stopped in at the Tropicana Cafe downtown at 1:30 PM, because their internet is better. Back at the Aquarium Cafe at 2:10 PM, then to the boat at 2:30 PM.

Once on the boat Joel took apart the engine console where the engine hours are supposed to be displayed but aren't. He was able to determine that a wire or connection was loose or bad, and fixed it. That's why he's called 'The Fixer.' Way to go Joel! While he was doing that I was filling out paperwork to pre-clear into Fiji. A lot of pages to fill out, and a lot of questions requiring personal answers. These pages and a picture of me and the boat have to be digitally sent to the office of Bio Security in Fiji. Kind of reminds me of East Germany during the Cold War. We even have to list the amount of money on the boat, each bottle of booze, how many beer cars there are; our spouses names and phone numbers; etc. It took me 2 1/2 hours to fill in all the blanks. I then tried to nap from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM, without success.

At sunset Martin from Caduceus played his bag pipes to commemorate the setting of the sun. Hearing the pipes throughout the anchorage is very soothing and surreal. A number of boats, ours included, let our horns sound in applause afterward. Good job Martin!

We departed the boat at 6:30 PM to attend a T-Bone Steak Night at one of the local restaurants on the water. 25 Tongan dollars, or about $12.50 for a steak, salad, pasta, water melon, garlic bread and fish. Not bad. The steak was chewy but good. Dinner was topped off with ice cream and caramel on top. We had dinner with the crew from Caduceus (Martin and Elizabeth), Folie a Deux (Tim, Tracy, Brian and Lucy), II Audeacious (Tommy, Marianne and John) and a couple not in our rally group, Graham and Diana (or is it Diane?)from the United Kingdom, sailing their 38 foot boat to and back from New Zealand. They've been away from home for 2 years. They just spent 6 months in New Zealand, driving around in a car and camping on their car's roof every night. I kid you not. Some sort of tent configuration that fits on top of an automobile. Leave it to British, or is it New Zealand, ingenuity.

Now that my infection is getting better every day, Tracy from Folie a Deux has a serious left elbow/arm infection. It seems that life in the tropics is like a petri-dish for infections.

We arrived back at the boat at 9:25 PM. Joel played games on his phone and I typed emails and this log. Joel was in bed by 10:30 PM. I'll call it quits by midnight.

331 Days until home.

Brian Fox

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