Blog

Yes, yes, we missed last week. I know! Sorry! But we had company! This is a big deal for us because, frankly, not many people are going to fly halfway around the world to live on a sailboat. We keep inviting, but… Anyway, our daughter came for a week-long visit and we had a blast! She said it was the greatest trip ever. Of course, perhaps she felt like she had to say that, but still! Actually, I asked her to write a post about it. Her response? “I already wrote a blog post for you!” The voice inside my head said “Well, that was THREE YEARS AGO!!!” My outside voice said “okay, no problem.”

Anyway, we basically recreated the itinerary we did with Kim’s sister last year. We sailed up into the Yasawa Island group, then slowly moved back southwest through those islands and the Mamanucas. Frankly, the sailing was not great. There was a pretty stiff wind the entire time and it was a lot of upwind sailing which was wet and bouncy. But Katharine seemed not bothered at all. And she says sleeping on the boat was some of the best sleep ever. So, win! I would say we managed to show her almost all the things: she learned to snorkel and saw some great coral gardens and reef fish. She swam with manta rays. We hiked a beautiful trail on Naviti Island and at the village of Somosomo she got to experience sevusevu, where we brought a gift of kava root to the chief who then blessed it and us and welcomed us to the village. It was also great for Kim and I to visit there again because we got to see the village chief’s new house! We made a donation last year towards its construction and it is well along now. He should be able to move in by the end of the year. We also spent a day at the Musket Cove Resort, sitting by the pool. On the last day of her trip, I took Katharine out in one of the resort’s Hobie Cats for some small-boat sailing and she really loved it. She did great at the tiller! She then took the helm for the hop from Musket Cove to Port Denerau where we saw her off to the airport. It was really a great week!

What’s up next? Well, of course stuff is broken. You may remember last year in Fiji, we discovered our forestay, backstay, and D2 shrouds were failing and had to have them replaced. A rig inspection now revealed that both sets of lower shrouds and the inner forestay are failing. The only part of the original standing rigging still intact are the cap shrouds. But really, since everything else has failed, are we really going to trust those? I don’t think so. So, next week we will have all the rest of the rig replaced. Fun times. We’re hoping to save some cash by removing the old rig ourselves, so I’ll be spending a few hours up the mast. Again. I swear, I’m going to install a cot up there. Or maybe an elevator.