This is a myna bird. They are everywhere in the Pacific Islands, introduced from somewhere but they have really made themselves at home. They are like starlings and have an amazing variety of calls.




This is the local hospital in Savu Savu, well part of it anyway. They charge patients for treatment. Lots of locals have no shoes we noticed. I bought some for less than £2.00.





Some of the more up market dwellings many of which are little more than corrugated shacks...though quite a few sported satellite dishes!!
Well, if you need to keep up with the World Cup I suppose....



Schoolchildren...the girls wearing purple, many shoeless. Lots of the boys wear the traditional pareo/skirt.






Greetings from Savu Savu, Fiji! We finally arrived here once again just as the rest of the Rally left for the other resort. This has been the story of our lives so far but we seriously intend to be with the main bunch for the sail to Oz. Lots of other rally boats have had trouble en route with pretty major breakages…camshafts, transmissions etc but no one has had as many things go wrong as us(!) and they have all caught up with each other now in Musket Cove, an idyllic resort apparently, on the other main Fijian island, Vita Levu (we are in Vanua Levu) and where we shall be in a couple of days I hope…..well all the rally boats apart from one currently still in Tonga, the story of which involves much drunkenness, fighting and marriage proposals!

However, we are currently held up with the weather which is wet and windy….even needed an extra layer last night! The sail across from Tonga got quite chilly at night too and I wore socks on watch for the first time in 18 months. At least we are alongside with water and electricity plus internet which is intermittent but not too expensive thankfully. The Savu Savu yacht club is about 5yards away and Fiji beer is good and cheap. There are even showers here. I realized that I hadn’t had a “proper” shower, ie using as much water as I needed, since the beginning of February when we were in Panama. Ooer!

I finally managed to organize a reasonably priced ticket back to the UK from Oz for next month so I can get to see family and friends for a few days but with the internet connection here it was very frustrating and the flight costs went up exponentially so it seemed with each delay. I also spent about three hours on and offline trying to sort out the horrendous rules for entering Australian waters. I think the best plan may turn out to simply eat everything on board or throw it away somewhere mid ocean and then declare absolutely everything that contains anything at all with animal or plant origin. I’m hoping this may bore the customs officers into letting us in!!

This little town of Savu savu is wonderful…full of very busy Indian run shops selling incredible things at unbelievable prices. As it’s less than 5 minutes walk away, I keep on going back just to buy “one more thing”. The DVDs are a real bargain here at 65p each. Of course, they are pirate copies but they are good ones..some of the ones we’ve bought have been rubbish, completely unplayable. I should say that I wouldn’t normally be buying these pirate copies except that it’s impossible to buy a legal DVD anywhere and I haven’t in fact seen any since we arrived in the Caribbean in Jan 2009.

Next stop after Musket Cove will be Vanuatu about 500 miles from here. I don’t think they have up to date technology there so this may be the last blog until Australia in about three and a half weeks or so. I have always wanted to visit Vanuatu ever since we read a book at school about some Pacific Island somewhere and there’s also an active volcano on the nearby island of Tanaa which I really want to visit. All fingers crossed therefore that the boat will have no more problems from now on.


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Ashley, Tevita and Dick and yet more jelllyish or are they UFOs?

Now in Fiji but no stories as yet!

The precise moment we crossed over from W to E! Hard to photograph too. I celebrated with the last beer from Tonga on the boat...... well, at least it was fizzy!

This is the Royal Tongan residence just 200 yds from the boat in Neiafu, Vava'u. The king was "in hiding" there apparently.







The Tongan men wear wraparound skirts and elaborate woven grass "aprons" all the time but they certainly don't look sissy......






The market in Neiafu. Lots of strange roots for sale in woven baskets.







A jellyfish. There were millions of them in Neiafu.

Dick and puppy love at the Yacht Club, Bora Bora








Beautiful classic yacht in perfect setting, Bora Bora..... until the next day that is!







Classic red sky at night meaning bad weather brewing, Bora Bora. Or was it a sunrise?

Fish around the coral next to the boat in Utaroa,Raiatea.







More fish eating the weed under the boat. V useful!







The view from the boat at the fuel dock, Utaroa.








The dancing girls of Raiatea and the fat pink singing man.







More dancers!

Tonga has turned out to be a bit of a gem.....relatively unspoilt....no cruise ships and tacky souvenir shops and all round cheaper for meals ashore...so we have been able to enjoy the local cuisine for a change.....breakfast, lunch and dinner! The wine is mostly Australian and so very drinkable too. We met a nice Canadian couple, Shaz and Doug who run the local laundry/cafe/internet "shack on the beach" and were invited to join their team for the pub quiz...they had thought we might help them win. Ha ha!! This was a quiz, Oz style with Aussie rules so anything went... Still, we managed second I seem to remember amidst the haze of red wine and I got a bonus prize of a Heineken beer mug. Best night out in ages and the whole thing cost less then £15 a head for food and drinks.

It goes without saying that we have had to stay here for longer than planned because of work needed on the engine ( it's that high pressure fuel pump again). After a couple of fruitless days of trying to find a man who "could", we discovered Te Vita (David), a delightful all round Mr Fixit with one leg, and his colleague, Ashley...don't ask me what his Tongan name is! They spent many hours aboard and now everything works again. Just as long as it gets us to Australia, all will be well?

In the meantime, I have been enjoying the Tonga life. It's just that little bit cooler so much more comfortable. The water is also cooler so I still haven't managed to get in...cool water isn't the only thing though..... the bay here is absolutely teeming with huge jelly fish and small sharks. Neither is dangerous apart from the jellyfish clogging up the water inlet for the generator but I somehow don't fancy swimming around with them!! The wildlife in the air is interesting too...strange exotic bird noises from the trees and I saw a fruitbat last night which must have had a wingspan of 18".

The spot where we are moored turns out to be just in front of the residence of the King's sister and the King himself is apparently staying there at the moment as the royal standard is flying. I haven't been nosey enough to get the binoculars out yet. He's not too popular with his people it seems..thinks they're just a bunch of peasants!!

I have just come back from church........well, it is Sunday! It was suggested to go because of the singing and it really was a treat to hear. They do sing beautifully. Couldn't understand a word of course. My Tongan so far is "malo..... thankyou and ofaatu.......cheers"!

So, the plan is to leave for Fiji in a couple of days...just a short hop of 500 miles or so. We hope to see whales en route as it's the beginning of the season when the humpbacks appear for calving and mating. Having only seen one whale so far in over 6000 miles of ocean, I'm hoping we're in for a treat and there may be photos..........

The Kingdom of Tonga

As it's been nearly a month since I last managed to post a blog......French Polynesia really should polish up their act as far as internet services to yachties are concerned...far too expensive and extremely unreliable....! Anyway, I digress..... Moonshiner is currently about two thirds of the way to Tonga and we are having to motor for a while as the ocean is glassy smooth without a breath of wind to ruffle its surface. A slight change from the force 8 which blew in last week and delayed our departure from Bora Bora.

The story so far from the beginning, ie leaving Papeete ( that's pronounced Papay et ay....just for the record sorry for repetition!). The intention was to sail overnight to Raiatea, the "sacred" isle believed to be the cradle of the Polynesian race, about 120 miles away from Tahiti. Dick having spent a small fortune on getting everything sorted out once and for all, this short trip was going to be a breeze?............................Wrong!
What went wrong first? Oh yes, the autopilot, {which had so far been working perfectly), decided that it was on strike. No idea what the problem was but impossible to sort out at sea. Luckily, there is a spare on board..one of those Autohelm ones that push the tiller. Phew! I was not looking forward to hand steering even for just one night. The next thing to go was the engine overheating later that night. This was fortunately sorted out by Dick in an hour or so as he found some spare engine hose to replace the one that was spectacularly leaking very hot water all over the place. Ouch! The next "thing" was the main navigation computer over the chart table not working although the cockpit repeater was OK. This meant that I had to use the mouse at the chart table to move the cursor, which Dick could see outside in the cockpit, by him shouting instructions...up, down, left, right, click!! Not easy to do...I'm no "Bernie the Bolt". We were getting close to the island which is surrounded by dangerous reefs as all islands are around here and night was falling so the chart plotter was needed somewhat.

We pressed on and found the pass through the reef into Raiatea later just as it got dark. This pass is well lit so navigating the channel around the island to find somewhere to anchor was interesting but no problems. We found somewhere near a marina in the dark and dropped anchor in about 20 meteres of water. Then morning came..... We were much too close to the marina walls and there were coral heads very close too. So we had to move…… and before breakfast too! This is when the most annoying "thing" went wrong...the anchor windlass just wouldn't work..We absolutely had to move so there was nothing for it but to pull up over 60meteres of heavy chain by hand with just some help from a winch. My poor arms! It took 3 days for the ache to go.
But after all this, things started to go right for a change. We motored down the coast a mile or so and found a very accessible quay at Utaroa, Raiatea's main town where mooring is unbelievably free! After securing alongside, I went ashore to find someone who might be able to fix things. Meanwhile, as luck would have it, he had turned up right there in front of the boat without being asked. This was Canadian Richard the marine electrician...sent from God if you can believe that! Well, he's quite religious, being a Bahai so we found out. Richard spent most of the following four days on board and managed to fix just about everything there was that could be fixed. Manna from Heaven? OK, enough of the religious talk...we did enough of that too!!

I really liked Raiatea and put it in my top three places we've visited. It's just the right size, a small town with about 3000 people....just the right amount of shops with just one or two of each type and a very happy community atmosphere among the people. Each night, there was something going on for the locals young and old, dancing, singing etc. We went to a dance spectacle...very colourful and saw the local women of all ages, shapes and sizes doing their famous bottom wiggling dances!! Dick says that European women just couldn't emulate them. I say we can with a bit of practise...but I was certainly not going to try in full view of passers by!

With a “fully” working boat, it was time to move on. We had been joined in Utaroa by a couple of Blue Water stragglers like us and we had decided to spend a few days together in Bora Bora before striking west for the Cooks and Tonga even though we had been advised against visiting this "Rip off French Polynesia" by the tourist board in Papeete. The spot where we all ended up was outside the Bora Bora Yacht Club on reasonably priced mooring buoys. It should have been idyllic and in the right weather, I'm sure it would have been but we ended up stranded there having to watch white water actually within the reef which would normally have been a crystal clear azure blue. The waves crashing over the outer reef looked incredibly dangerous so we just sat and waited until things improved. Chairs were even blown over on the decking at the Yacht club!

It was a shame I suppose though we couldn't have taken Moonshiner with her deep keel to the best places for swimming and looking at the fish etc anyway. I didn't mind that in the end though because I'd spent many happy hours in Utaroa looking at the reef fish swimming under the boat and around the coral heads which were happily growing around the pier supports under the fuel dock. So much for coral needing perfect conditions in which to survive! I fed some of these fish with bits of bread etc. They loved it! I reckon I spotted at least 20 different species of fish there, some of them the really well known ones too...you know, the colourful ones with very thin vertical bodies..... I didn't find Nemo though...he lives within anemones on the coral and spends most of his time just hiding there. Debs, on Scot Free saw him however while snorkelling and I was just a few feet away so I almost found him I reckon?

The weather eventually improved and we left.....in the wrong direction! There was a slight glitch with something... so we headed back to Raiatea (which is only about 40 miles away) for Richard to fix it... not sure if he was pleased to see us? A very simple job in the end but leaving us another two days further behind the rest of the the stragglers. This meant that we wouldn't have time to visit the Cook Islands so we are now heading straight for Tonga, about 1400 miles from Tahiti.
As I type this, it's day eight with about 400 miles to go. One gets used to the distances for sure. That's practically next door in these parts. Let's hope I can post this from Tonga.......
In the meantime, I'm passing my time handsewing some skirts in beautiful Polynesian flowery cottons. I can do one a day if circumstances permit, weather etc but I'm definitely not taking orders...apart from being commissioned to make a "wedding" skirt for Debs on Scot Free. The tale of the proposal etc is another story...... maybe next time........

So we are now in Tonga after 11 days & 1500 miles. 1st impressions? 1930s time warp apart from 4x4s, internet & mobiles! Leaving for Fiji in 2 days. More from there plus photos I hope.

PS We crossed the dateline and lost a whole day. I think it may have been Thursday!!