Thu, 29 May 2003
We've spent the last few days cleaning up from the trip - a gargantuan load of laundry of salty soggy clothes, wiping everything down, pulling all canned goods out of compartments for inspection and cleaning, investigating the sewage problem we discovered on the passage. So far we have only determined that the sewage lake is the result of turning the boat on its port side and shaking violently causing the tank to leak backwards; The anti-siphon loop (at deck level, designed to prevent sewage overflow) was completely underwater the whole trip despite the fact that through most of the trip (9 days) we sailed with a storm staysail and 3 reefs in the main or no main at all!
We've been adjusting to the sudden heat of the tropics and enjoying a few of the pleasures of Suva: ice cream, cheap curry and Chinese food, cheap movies, cheap "Bula" (Aloha style) shirts, email, nice yacht club facilities at Royal Suva Yacht Club, an impressive vegetable and spice market and reasonably priced tasty Pineapples and Papayas. Best of all, we're catching up with each other. Desite being alone together for nearly 2 weeks, it wasn't really quality time and it feels like we hardly saw each other: opposite watches passing in the night.
The smell of Suva is like nowhere else - a mix of spicy grease and diesel fumes. People here are pretty friendly, unlike most large cities. Throughout the city we see the accepted business dress of Bula shirts and wraparound skirts for the men and coordinated floral blouse/long skirt outfits for the ladies and school uniforms for the school age kids along with flipflops. Everyone is getting excited for the South Pacific Games that begin in about 2 weeks. In Suva, we can hear BBC, New Zealand Public Radio and Radio Australia on the local FM dial and have really enjoyed the ease of perusing the stations catching up on news we've missed. Numerous embassies are concentrated here so we can easily go about getting visas and cruising permits for our future travels.
The polluted harbor downwind of the dump, amongst the rusty Taiwanese fishing boats and their active generators is not the most beautiful place in Fiji; The unpleasantness of trip is starting to fade in our minds and we are beginning to plan a move to a nicer anchorage to the northeast where we can swim and snorkle and appreciate the beauty of Fiji.
Cheers,
Wendy Hinman and Garth Wilcox
S/V Velella (Wylie 31)