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Starblazer - 30/06/2015 - Koro to Vuda Point Marina etc.



The resort in Dere Bay on Koro appeared to exist solely to house prospective purchasers of the building plots in the surrounding hills! There was absolutely nothing to keep us there so, with the threat of stronger winds arriving soon, we pressed on to Makogai. This is an interesting island which was home to a leprosarium until 1969. The remaining buildings are now used by a mariculture centre run by the government. We went ashore to do a sevusevu ceremony and had a guided tour of the grounds. The main creatures being cultivated appear to be giant clams. They start off life in a large pool, when they reach about an inch across they stick them on concrete slabs and move them to another pool. They are thinned out again to give them space to grow. Eventually the slabs are taken to marine reserves around Fiji. Turtles are also cared for here. At the moment there are two green turtles, one of them very large, which have a similar problem. They swim very lop-sided as if there is a large air bubble under the shell. There were also a couple of small hawksbill turtles which were rescued from the beach.
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Next morning we picked our way out and made good progress to the anchorage behind Nanunu-I-Ra, inside an extensive reef system surrounding Viti Levu. Fortunately the holding was good because we had 30+ knots overnight though the seas remained calm because we were tucked behind the island. Next morning we set off towards Vatia Bay. The route was anything but straight, zig-zagging between reefs, but we managed to sail all the way on genoa alone. As usual, we set the anchor by reversing on it so were very surprised to discover at 0230 that we had dragged about a third of a mile! At least we had dragged in a safe direction and we still had 8 metres below the keel having anchored in 5 metres ( about 3 below the keel). We motored back to our previous anchor position. This time John put down the Fortress Anchor on mud setting first, connecting the end of its 8 metre chain to the main anchor chain just aft of the anchor. With both anchors set we stayed put for two nights. The bottom was very soft mud, similar to the bottom in Tahaa in French Polynesia where we had a similar dragging experience. The resort ashore appeared empty, we didn't bother to investigate.
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Our next stop was Lautoka with the intention of going into town to try to buy Vodafone SIM cards. There is nowhere obvious to land a dinghy and it was mid afternoon Saturday so we didn't bother. On the way we had landed a fish which I believe was a Barracuta, no relation to a barracuda. John had difficulty filleting it, I cooked it, the meat tasted fine but it was the boniest fish we had ever seen. We both threw our dinner overboard! Shopping called, so we headed for Denerau on Sunday morning and anchored off. For south coast yachties, Denerau is very similar to Port Solent except that it is surrounded by hotels and a golf course and teems with foreign tourists. Monday morning we crossed the bay to Vuda Point Marina where the gearbox fell apart again as we were backing into a berth. We weren't due to be lifted until Tuesday but the shaft seal was distorted and we started taking on water again so they lifted us at about 6.30 in the pitch dark and left us in the slings overnight.
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I will gloss over the frustrations of trying to get the work completed so that we could rejoin World ARC at Musket Cove on Thursday 2nd July. The main delay was caused by the non arrival of the gearbox parts from Belgium via New Zealand. These had been ordered while we were en route but finally arrived in Fiji on Thursday 2nd July! As the parts were not available there was no hurry to look at the problem as far as Yacht Help Fiji was concerned, in spite of John warning them that there was a serious misalignment and we possibly needed new engine mounts. It didn't help that Friday was a public holiday. Eventually Ritesh, the engineer, came on Saturday morning and found one of the mounting bolts had sheered. Monday morning was the earliest they could order replacements from N Z. All the parts arrived in Fiji on Thursday morning.
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We got fed up waiting for workers who didn't arrive so we hired a car for two days. The first day was a frustrating shopping trip, trying to buy bits for the boat. We also had to collect my laptop which we had left with Ground Wire the previous Thursday. While we were in Denerau John got a phone call from the Lautoka branch of the company we had left my i-pad with so headed in the opposite direction to collect the i-pad. The screen, which was replaced in Whangarei at Christmas, had developed a mind of its own. While typing a blog it suddenly added a string of random letters when I wasn't touching the keyboard, areas of the screen seemed to be dead as well.
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The second day we did the tourist bit as well as shopping. First stop was 'The Gardens of the Sleeping Giant'. This was a garden established by Raymond Burr (Perry Mason and Ironside for those old enough to remember) to house his orchid collection. The flowers were beautiful, the jungle walks lovely and seats dotted around in interesting places. From there we went to the hot mud pools. Stage one, cover all exposed flesh in a thin layer of warm watery mud from a bucket; stage two, wait for it to dry; stage three, enter the pool where the mud bubbles up to wash the mud off; stage 4, enter the hot pool (38-40 degree) and relax! We finished off with a 30 minute massage, all for a total cost of £20 per person.
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To cut a long story short, we were launched at 10 a.m. Friday morning with no mechanic, no engine/gearbox coupling, no drive shaft/prop shaft coupling, zilch! The yard boat towed us to the middle where we tied up alongside a catamaran. Ritesh arrived at about 10.15 and finally got off the boat at 4.15. John took them ashore, returned for his wallet,had gone ashore and paid we were ready to leave at 4.50. This was rather late as it gets dark here by 6.15, the moon was due to rise at 7.00 and we had about 15 mile to go. We managed to negotiate our way in to the anchorage with the help of last year's waypoints from Charlie on Celebrate and confirmation that our track was good from Luc on Makena.
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As I write this John is with customs and immigration, trying to get our clearance completed as we were too late yesterday. We still have a few problems to sort out but we are afloat with an engine which goes forwards and backwards, alleluia.
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Joyce



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