Thursday 20th September

Suva
Fiji.

18 07.331 S
178 25.470 E

Our day began with rain – it seems like we are destined to have rain where ever we stop! After eating breakfast, once the rain had stopped, we went shore with our pillows which needed washing and the generator (minus the engine) as Gerry thought that it needed new bearings. After dropping off the pillows for laundering the first stop was to drop the generator off and arrange for it to be fixed, they said to return in the afternoon and it would be done – yeah right! The next stop was just next door, where we collected the hydraulic cylinder which has new seals fitted and the shaft was polished as it had a few scores on it which may have contributed to the loss of hydraulic fluid. Gerry then suggested that we go to the internet café and catch up with the blog uploading and read our email; we drove around to the place and there was nowhere to park so I jumped out of the car and went to log on whilst Gerry drove around until he found somewhere to park. The saga of my trying to log on at a strange computer doesn’t bear repeating, enough to say I had to ask the geeky Asian boy who was taking the money how to get into the programs; to his credit he was very patient and didn’t make me feel too stupid! I got there in the end, plugged in the memory stick and nothing appeared on the screen to say it was there – yet another job for Geeky boy, now known as computer God! At last I was set and began loading the blogs for the previous week, as you can see I did manage eventually and even put some photos on too. I was just getting into my stride with the loading when Gerry arrived and began pestering me, he gave up and went and paid for half an hour of his own so that I didn’t have to hurry, however he needed the stuff he had saved to the memory stick “as soon as you are finished with it” – honestly anyone would think we didn’t have a second memory stick that he could have used. Blog loaded and emails read I logged off and Gerry then finished up with whatever he was doing. By now it was close to lunch time so we walked to a nearby café where we ordered an early lunch. Once we had eaten we made a dash to the supermarket, well that’s how it started out however the “supermarket” was no longer a supermarket, it had turned into an electrical goods store. We asked directions to the supermarket and after a very roundabout trip found one – we weren’t very impressed it wasn’t as good as had been described to us - we must have the wrong place! We asked the check out chick if this was the only MH supermarket – Oh no there’s the big one over the hill and far away! We did eventually find it but it was off the main road and easily missed if you followed the direction we were given. By the time we had got the shopping Gerry was keen to get back out to the boat and fit the hydraulic cylinder back in place, we just missed getting wet as the rain began again once we were on board, luckily it didn’t last very long and Gerry was soon able to refit the cylinder whilst I handed him tools and played assistant.

Just before 16.00hrs we dinked back into the yacht club to collect our pillows, we bundled them into the back of the car and took a drive along the sea road to the Tradewinds hotel where we had a late afternoon drink and snack. The hotel overlooks a small lagoon where a few yachts are tied up to mooring balls, it is very picturesque and quiet there and we made enquiries about the moorings and the use of the hotel facilities, including the internet. As it turned out the hotel doesn’t own the moorings and we couldn’t find the man who does, the on duty manager said we could use the hotel facilities if we were moored there (I would stake my life on a bet that if we rocked up having moored he wouldn’t be on duty and the manager of the day wouldn’t let us in!), the internet cost was $12 (Fijian) for an hour as opposed to $3.50 at the café we went to this morning; I’m seriously doubting the value of a move there! Anyway it got around to time to return and collect our generator which we did before heading back to the yacht club for dinner. We ate at the Wok on the water and enjoyed the company of a few fellow sailors for a while there. Between the showers we dinked back out to the boat with pillows in hand but left the generator in the car as it had to go to the machine shop in the morning for fitting on the new frame. I kicked myself when I undid the bag with the pillows in, they weren’t quite dry and there was no way that we could use them; I went to grab the pillows off of the forward bunk to use instead only to find that they had gotten wet when Gerry hadn’t closed the hatch properly a couple of days ago, so now we have 6 pillows that need drying out as well as a mattress protector and who knows what else I will find when I strip the rest of the junk off the forward bunk, and believe me it’s not easy to dry these things on a boat when it’s raining! We eventually slept with just one thin pillow each; hopefully I’ll be able to get them dry tomorrow.