Tuesday 1st July
Up we get after a very restless night… Unusually when at anchor, the mosis (mosquitoes) were out in force last night buzzing round our heads like fighter planes zooming in for the kill. When you do eventually manage to doze off they land and suck your blood until the first thing you know about it you have an infuriating itch, usually round the ankles, or some other bit that wasn’t covered. Ian and Annie manage to swat one each when they get up; they are both full of blood - obviously too full to move fast enough – so they’ve clearly been feeding on us all night! Stewy’s not had a good night either – last-night’s curry has kicked in and he’s spending a lot of time in the heads! Licking our wounds, we sit up top for breakfast watching one off the enormous big container ships being loaded - from Luxembourg strangely enough! There’s little wind and the boat is covered in a fine layer of soot from the mill as predicted. It’s not too bad though, and as we’re due a good deck clean anyway, it’s not a problem. At 8.30am, we up anchor and head to our final destination in Fiji, Muscat Cove, Malololailai Island, part of the Mamanuca Island Group. Once out , the wind gets up so we hoist the sails and we’re tootling along nicely on a fetch at 7 knots. Malololailai island ahead looks stunningly beautiful. It’s perfect sailing conditions and although it’s a short passage, we’re thoroughly enjoying ourselves. So much so that Annie misses the pass into Muscat Cove while navigating on the chart plotter. Just in time Ian notices, and we head to wind and drop the sails to motor in. It’s quite a narrow pass and we phone Ozzie Phil for some advice as he and Fay are moored in the bay, where they’ve been for several weeks. Soon we’re in and on a mooring just behind Phil and Fay. We have a berth on the pontoon, but can’t go in until high tide. Phil and Fay come aboard – it’s great to see them and we while away the rest of the morning catching up. As we can’t get on to our mooring until 3.30pm, we go for lunch ashore, then move the boat. This is luxury – we’re stern to right by the marina facilities with mains power and water, and the convenience of being able to walk on and off the boat. We’re settled in now until Saturday when we head for Vanuatu. About half the Arc boats are here, the rest will be arriving over the next few days. We go to the little island bar, just along from where we’re parked with Phil and Fay, and have a good night with them and some of the other Arc boats. Fay warns it’s quite a mosi place so Annie plugs in little electric mosi repellants as we’re now on mains power. Ian is laughing…..