Fiji & on to New Zealand Nov 25 2006

Hi everyone. I just noticed it's been 6 weeks since my last letter. Sorry,but we've been pretty darn busy.Well, we left you expecting a visit from our friends, Hein and Vic, fromthe Caribbean who are crew on a rich dude's megayacht. As it turned outthey got a lift on Ulysses' 50 foot tender over and stayed with us for three days in Musket Cove.The tender was unbelievable. It had twin engines, bow thruster, windlass....well, the whole works, and it's an inflatable!! Rose loved having a female as well as a fellow Pommie to talk to. Didwonders for her various ailments from the psychological side. It was reallynice catching up with them halfway around the world. When we moved the boatover to Denarau getting ready to leave, we got to see some more of them astheir 200 foot "ship" was moored just outside. Anyway, there were some cocktailsinvolved and the captain's supply of Jack Daniels was seriously dented!!We spent another week or so in Musket and met some very nice cruisers. Onecouple was Swiss and Scotch, another UK, still more NZ or Oz. Generally,all met up at the free BBQ and had a nice time talking about where everyonehad been and was going. Caught up with several in NZ when we got there.Joey hooked up with the lovely Ellie, one of their daughters--lives in Walesbut on the boat for a few months. We also ran into our friends from Tonga that are on another boat, the ones that almost killed us with a 7 hour happy hour a couple of months ago.We then moved over to the main island in a nice marina at a place callDenerau. Picked up the sail we sent in to be repaired (or not, see later).We also toured around a bit to the local city, Nandi. Did a bit ofshopping, sightseeing and dining out. Rose went to a Hindu temple--shecalls it the swami temple--which was huge. There's tons of Indians herefrom the days of booming sugar cane when the English imported them to workon the plantations. Anyway, some guys told her she must walk around asacred tree seven times for good luck. Only thing is, after about five lapssomeone stopped her and let her know she was walking in the wrong direction.We also suffered through all the rumors of another coup in Fiji. The mediasure made a big deal out of a lot of nothing and everything was still coolwhen we left.Instead of taking the boat 20 miles out of the way to Lautoka to check out(stupidly, they actually want the boat wherever you are when checking outunlike every other country that just wants to se you to give you thepaperwork), we had to pay an official $150 to come to Denerau. I'm sure itwas just going into his pocket, but we saved a lot of time and aggravationthis way. When we were still in Tonga, we made friends with a 35 yo Englishwoman named Hollie who was meeting her boyfriend in Denarau, and we suggestedshe might want to crew with us on the way down, and she did! What adifference that made!! Three hours on, nine off, and the captain assignedthe young'uns the two shifts from midnight to six.Since we've been getting beat up pretty good this season, and Rose is not100%, we decided we wouldn't leave until we had a really nice "weatherwindow" We even went so far as to pay the NZ weather guru to route us andrequested light air and calm seas as we carry plenty of fuel to motor.There are also multiple "radio nets" where you can check in and get updatedweather. So---several boats were leaving around the 30th of Oct, and weemailed the weather guy asking him about the window. He said it looked goodso off we went.Well, we left Denarau for the 20 miles down to the pass to open ocean underclear skies, mill pond seas, and almost no wind. Rose was ecstatic. Sowas the captain who doesn't want disgruntled crew! Of course, it was not tobe. As soon as we cleared the pass, we hit 35 knot winds out of nowhere and15 foot beam seas. Oh well, at least we weren't beating into it. Seemseveryone gets this and it has something to do with the wind funnelingaround the island. This lasted about a day and a half and then the winddropped to about 20-25 and the seas became more organized off the starboardquarter, so it wasn't too bad after that, except it kept getting colder. Unfortunately, this did not improve poor Rose's and Hollie's seasickness!!! Welistened to the radio nets and were making up some pretty good time on theboats that left before us. The trip is about 1,100 nautical miles. There must have been about 30 boats on passageat the same time, many of whom we knew, so it was fun to keep track.Of course, during the bad stuff, the tramps let loose again. About halfwaythere, we looked up and the top third of the allegedly repaired main hadblown out. Some of the stitching must have finally suffered enough UVdamage that it just disintegrated. The sail stayed up, though, heldtogether by the luff and leech ropes, so we just left it. We were stilldoing about 9-10 knots, and were afraid to trim it or anything. Other thanalmost running into a trawler while Holly and Rose were jawing around noonone day, the rest of the trip was uneventful, and actually a really nicesail. We didn't notice anything else wrong until we dropped the dinghy inOpua, which was our port of entry. Seems the high seas had actually bentthe aft crossbeam which holds up the rear deck. We're thinking "holy shit",but it turns out it is not structural and just holds the teakboards for thedecking. (thanks for that, Robin!!!) Miraculously, after our trip toAuckland, it simply popped back in place. We lost four boards though, andthe replacements weren't cheap. That was really good news, however, so no oneis complaining.Opua is in the Bay of Islands, a really beautiful cruising ground, andcheckin was a snap. )We'll come back in early May and hang out until we leave for Fiji.) First came the customs and immigration people whichtook almost no time. You get a "temporary import permit" which allows youto get all your boat stuff and fuel tax free--i.e. 12.5% off the listedprice. Then come the quarantine guy. They're very strict there, so we hidsome stuff like our conch shell and some handicrafts, but he didn't evenask. They do go through your stores, and he has a big black plastic bag intowhich goes all meat, fresh or frozen, all fresh fruits and veggies andanything else that is either ecologically undesirable or which might carry abug.After checkin, we moved over to a dock, and just chilled for a few days asit took about 5 1/2 days at sea from Fiji. We stayed about a week, and hada ball on Guy Fawkes Day (okay, you Americans, look it up in your Funk andWagnall's) since fireworks are legal on that day only. We also did a bit of shopping asour food stocks were quite low and we needed the dreaded "S" word (socks),and things like sweat pants. The cooking gas stopped working and it turned our thesolenoid went bad. Always prepared, the captain had a spare. Of course, thefittings were different, but here, in civilization, there are plenty ofboating stores. As you know we also signed up for the wireless internetservice--unlimited access for NZ$30/month, and got Skype and a new SIM cardfor the phone. That number, once again, is country code 64 0211880703.The local yacht club has dinners, etc. about 4 nights a week this time ofyear, and it was like old home week with many of the friends we had met upin Tonga and Fiji. Food was good and cheap as were the drinks so it was afavorite meeting place around happy hour. It's Spring here, so it waspretty cold. No problem, the aircon on the boat is reverse cycle and youcan switch it to heat. Of course, I hadn't run the heat since leaving SouthAfrica 8 years ago. You guessed it. Not working. Emailed the manufacturerand they said the reverse valve sticks sometimes and to bang it with ascrewdriver. Oops, no schematic in the manual! Another email gave us thelocation and a description and it worked--for about 10 hours, then the highpressure switch kept cutting out. It would run for about 10 minutes and thenstop, forcing us to go outside into a locker and push the reset button.Thank God for crew. We were freezing and needed that heat. We subsequentlyfound out the warmer tropical waters cause the pressure of the coolant toget too high and have bled some off and now have heat. Of course the guylooked at the units and informed us they need to be pulled and serviced. Sowhat else is new. Getting that done in a few weeks when it's warmer.Okay, I know this is getting tediously long, so in spite of the fact we'vebeen in Auckland for 2 weeks I'm going to stop after getting us here and pickit up later. We were planning on only a few days in Opua--especially heavypressure from Hollie who wanted to get to Auckland to "see" her boyfriend.Well, it's springtime and the weather didn't cooperate, but we finally gotoff after a week of R & R. The marina threw us off the dock a bit earlierthan we wanted because it's only about 100 miles to Auckland from there andwe didn't want to leave too early to avoid a nighttime arrival. Since wedidn't have a main--we dasn't try to raise it, we motor-sailed under jib andonly one engine at about 7 knots and arrived in Auckland about 7AM.We've been very busy here, and we'll fill you in in our next report. 'Tilthen, ta ta. Tim, Rose & Joe