Saturday 19 October – provisioning

At least being in the marina meant we could have a good long lie in. We had a few boat issues to sort out, Rowan found a guy to go up the mast to try and fix our tricolour light, sadly the O ring Rowan hunted down in Norwich didn’t work because it was too hard. Hopefully the old one will last us a few days, otherwise we will resort to using our anchor light underway. We caught a taxi into Lautoka the nearest big town to go to the market and stock up on fresh provisions and then the supermarket for a few bits and pieces. Really hard to get decent meat, and finding bacon and pork was difficult. All the town shops are run by Indians. We had another Indian taxi driver that is 3 generations Fijian, his ancestors came over as indentured labourers, he has never left the Fiji main island and has no desire to go to India. It did strike us that the Island chains are all populated with genuine Fijians and no Indians. Rowan found a Pork shop which turned out to be a run done house on the side of the road, with a guy with two big chest freezers. His bacon looked good so we got some and some pork knuckles. Pork is the one food product that is totally banned from entering NZ, so we did not get much.

Phil who is crewing for us arrived in the evening. We had dinner at the marina with another Kiwi boat and their crew, fun hearing all the sailing stories, and that there are most probably about 50 boats heading down to NZ on Monday. The restaurant was hosting a very fancy Indian birthday party, which must have distracted the kitchen staff as the food was awful which was a bit disappointing.

We are feeling all set and ready for our departure, we are booked in the immigration on Monday at 9am, and then we set sail. We will keep going, and hope to get to NZ on Saturday before another weather system gets too big. We hope to check in at the top of the North island in a place called Opua, in the Bay of Islands.