Adventures in Weather Window Waiting: Halloween, Dingy Surfing, and Maintenance in Denerau and Musket Cove plus Cloud 9

After our nice passage from Taveuni it was time to finish preps for the passage to NZ and get ready for Debbie to arrive.  Debbie will be crewing with us to NZ.  She is from Nova Scotia but living in Australia.  An accomplished racing sailor, she met Liz's Dad in Halifax following the Convoy Cup race and he mentioned that were looking for crew for the Fiji to NZ passage.  And now she is here which is great.

We were pretty much ready for the weather window when I found out that some of the plumbing fixtures I installed in Mexico were totally rotten and were about to let the ocean into the boat.  Not ideal but convenient to be in Denerau where we could get parts machined.  It took a few days to get parts made and for me to install it so we missed that window.  No hardship - we moved over to Musket Cove which was considerably quieter than when we visited earlier in the season.  To liven things up we also went out to Cloud 9 for a chance to play tourist.

Several of the yachts had helicopters.  We were the only ones with diapers drying on the lifelines.

Us hanging out with the mega yachts in Port Denerau - photo from the foredeck of Fluenta

Improving the wiring for the autopilot.  There was a bit of voltage drop in the feed to the autopilot so I routed it more directly and with bigger cables.  More power must be better !

Victoria making jam

More adventures in provisioning.

Victoria helping make a new pole for the solar panel supports.  We of course have spare PVC onboard ... Our friends SV Red across the jetty from us.

Arrghh ... Our little pirate on Halloween. 

Yes, Port Denerau has a Hard Rock Cafe.  Not really very Fiji-like at Denerau.

Reverse Halloween - Johnathan and Victoria gave candy to the mega yachts

Trick or Treat at a mega yacht passerelle.

Victoria teaching rainbow looming to a younger cruiser kid she met that day.

Benjamin helping Debbie with her work.

Can you see Fluenta in the picture ?

Annual family photo

Victoria driving us to Musket Cove

Hardship: waiting for a weather window at Musket Cove

Hardship: waiting for a weather window at Musket Cove

Hardship: waiting for a weather window at Musket Cove

The view from Liz's yoga mat.

The rubber in the outboard prop stripped so ... time to go on the dock until I got a replacement.  Thank you SV Kiapa for the prop.

Hardship: waiting for a weather window at Musket Cove

Hardship: waiting for a weather window at Musket Cove

Hardship: waiting for a weather window at Musket Cove.  Fluenta on the dock.

Hardship: waiting for a weather window at Musket Cove.

We were not getting in enough sailing we rented a Hobie Cat.  Luckily Debbie has lots of experience in Hobies.

Dingy surfing

Even Dads get to play

Hang on !

Debbie being a good sport

Why not have two kids surfing at the same time ?

Cloud 9.  Benjamin somehow changed the camera settings so we get a date stamp ...

The view from Cloud 9.  Fluenta again the only boat with diapers on the line,

Cloud 9

The view from Cloud 9