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So weather. It’s our life. Do we sail? Do we motor? Do we swim? Do we move or stay? Do we explore or hunker down? It’s all about the weather. And this year, the weather in Fiji is flat out terrible. And that’s not just me saying it. Fijians are saying it. Everywhere we go, the locals all say the same thing: “It’s so cold!” “There’s so much wind!” And I’m like “Yeah, pretty much.” And it’s because of El Niño. Before I go blaming the little fella, I guess I should explain. Normally, the tradewinds blow from east to west. Those tradewinds also blow the water from east to west. That means that the warm waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean get pushed towards the western Pacific where we are. Then cooler water wells up from deep in the eastern Pacific, making the waters there cooler. Warm water in the west means warmer air too. When an El Niño year occurs, the tradewinds weaken. That means the warm waters aren’t being pushed west. So the water here is cooler. The air is cooler too. Less warm air leads to less rainfall as well, so Fiji tends to experience drought. And they have been. A lot of the island cisterns are dry, which is a significant hardship for islanders. 2026 is shaping up to be an extremely strong El Niño year and I can say we are noticing. The temperatures here are ranging from 70-72 degrees and the water temperatures are 75-77 degrees. Last year, air temperatures were in the mid-80s with water temperatures in the low 80s. It’s a BIG difference. And it has been WINDY! Winds are pretty consistently blowing 18-25 knots. Today, we arrived at Komo Island and entered the pass in the reef with winds of 30 knots and driving rain-it wasn’t fun. But at least the islands got some rain. Why is it raining? Because of MJO. MJO is the Madden-Julian Oscillation. The MJO is basically an area of low pressure with high winds and rainfall that circles the entire planet near the equateor every 30-60 days. Guess where it is now? Yep.

Anyway, the bottom line is the weather is pretty crappy. As I write this, we haven’t seen the sun for more than a few minutes in over a week. And we’re bundled up. Long pants, sweaters. SHOES! Sheesh. We finally just decided to leave Fulaga. Before we left, we did get to help the villagers with a coral restoration project. Basically, we coated rebar frames with epoxy and then coated them in sand. Eventually, they will be placed in the water and baby corals attached. Why didn’t we do that? Because COLD AND WINDY! It’s gorgeous, but when we can’t really get off the boat to explore, we may as well bail. So, we are working our way up the Lau Island chain. Eventually we will be back near some population centers, which is good. We’ve been remote now for a month, so the fresh fruit and veg is gone, propane is low and there are hardly any sweets left on board. That’s a problem for me. Anyway, we are currently at Komo Island. It has one small village and very few cruising boats stop here. We’re all alone in the anchorage, which is how we like it. If the wind lets up a bit, we hope to launch the dinghy tomorrow and go ashore for sevusevu and to meet the villagers. Or, the weather could stay crappy and then we’ll just move on.

On our way here, we had an Uncle Sam sighting! We spotted the U.S.C.G. cutter Joseph Gerczak on patrol. The U.S.C.G. has been here for the last 2-3 months helping the Fijians with drug interdiction efforts. I have to unfortunately report that cruisers are a part of the problem. A fairly large number of cruising boats have been caught smuggling drugs. Evidently speed is not a critical issue for the drug smuggling industry. Anyway, there have been quite a few boats intercepted and searched. Evidently “Bob and Kim Stephens, late 50s, no rap sheet” didn’t trigger any alarm bells-we didn’t even get a hail.

In closing, yes, we consider ourselves very fortunate and no, we shouldn’t complain about the weather, but dang, it’s cold!