Musket Cove to Lautoka

We are nearing the end of our Fiji time with the last few weeks being a total contrast to the first six weeks.
We arrived in Musket Cove which is very touristy and a “sailor’s hangout”. It was fun to be amongst so many boats—each night at the marina bar you can either take in your own steak or purchase a cut of meat with some salad and they light the barbecue and you can cook your own dinner and wash it down with much beer. The purchased meat proved to be a mistake as we got huge shoulder lamb chops which were very fatty and full of gristle and as the barbecue was only fuelled by sticks it did not get hot enough to cook anything with any speed. Luckily as in all countries we have been in the local beer is very good.
We hiked around the island which has numerous resorts around the bay. They have great restaurants and we enjoyed the pig they cooked on a spit for the day at one restaurant much more than we had the half cooked lamb chops.
After a couple of days we felt pressed to sail into Lautoka where we would do our next customs clearance and would be able to continue to Denerau to have our necessary work done before heading on to Vanuatu.
Lautoka is a sugar port with a wonderful market and a large Indian population. We restocked with the wonderful fruit and vegs we have come to expect in Fiji---this is definitely eggplant heaven and we seem to be finding as many ways as possible to prepare them.
After a night at anchor we headed the 12 miles to Port Denerau where we have arranged to have our trampolines made, the wind generator is to be sent there from NZ and we are once again having alternator issues so will see if we can get that resolved.
The quote for two trampolines to be made was under C$300 and we happily had them start on that and do minor repairs to our head sail and our sail bag. The sail maker is from NZ and appears to be very good.
We were tied up alongside surrounded by mega yachts feeling very small. They are anything from 70 to 150 feet long; they are crewed and generally lit up like a Christmas tree at night--power seems to be no issue. One of the smaller ones is for sale right now for $14,000,000!! Another larger one has a fuel capacity of 50,000 litres and can travel up to 14,000 NM on full tanks--at $1 a litre I think a plane is cheaper. The ARC rally is here also—they are a rally of sail boats who are doing a round the world voyage in 16 months. They are generally 50-60 foot yachts so dwarf us also. We have come across them in previous years; they tend to swarm in and empty shelves in the supermarkets—it tends to be a fairly manic way of traveling as there is not time to explore and when they have boat issues they are very pressured to resolve them quickly at whatever cost.
Rixzene left us after a few days to carry on with her plans—we had enjoyed her company and help with navigating the reefs of the Fijian islands—you can not have too many eyes on watch here!!
The wind generator arrived and appears to be working well again.
The alternators were our major issue as they needed new diodes which had to be shipped in from NZ—we had a Canadian mechanic replace them in Tonga with used diodes which he scavenged from a local mechanics workshop and although they have done us well they appear to be failing. We seem to have found a good electrical guy from Australia here to do the work.
The marina is a hub for a lot of the tourist boats going out to the Yasawas and is close to Nadi and the international airport. Subsequently there are a number of fancy restaurants, a great NZ ice cream place, a bakery with healthy bread choices, a gourmet food store and high end craft shops. We enjoyed high quality Italian, Thai and Indian food and the meals including a bottle of decent wine was no more than C$60.
The marina is a short bus ride from Nadi where we were able to stock up on the grocery staples which were getting low. Most things are available here.
The multicultural side of Fiji is very apparent. As a high school was getting out I noticed that the Fijian boys wore the traditional sulu (skirt) as the uniform and the Indian boys long pants in the same colours. The girl’s uniform was a tunic and long pants with the Muslim girls wearing a white head scarf and the Hindu and Fijian girls wearing no headgear. At the high school level although in the same classrooms the children seemed to keep their friends within their ethnic groups whereas the primary school children mixed more—is this the face of change or will they segregate as they get older??
The Fijian boys all play rugby and seem to be barefoot until adults ( I suspect they cannot afford specialty shoes), the Indian boys who have a much slimmer build play soccer, some children had shoes and others bare foot.
World cup soccer is on and every taxi driver (mostly Indian had an opinion) the Fijians are more interested in next years rugby world cup to be held in NZ.
While waiting for our parts we took a trip with another yacht— Jackie and Michael on Lady Kay from England—to Suva for a few days. We caught the tourist bus with air-conditioning, windows and comfortable seats unlike the local buses which are air-conditioned due to the lack of windows. We stayed in a lovely comfortable hotel and enjoyed the modern city which was not unlike any small city anywhere. We spent the time exploring the city with yet another wonderful market although the bags of fish which had been sitting on the sidewalk all day with no refrigeration did not appeal. We wandered the town with its clean modern buildings and went to the interesting museum. Restaurants from the Lonely Planet were tested, most were good.
Fiji is such an easy place to travel in, English speaking, friendly people, buses and cheap taxis are available and it is very easy to get lulled into the lifestyle.
Back in Nadi I had my hair highlighted and cut for C$18 and they did a great job. I had been having a problem with a tooth so caught the bus for the hour’s journey to Lautoka to a dentist Jackie had recommended. When he quoted me C$230 for a crown I decided to go ahead as his practice seemed modern and he went to NZ regularly for seminars. I did see one patient get change for F$20 (C$12) for something and wondered what you could get done at a dentist for that little money?
The work was finally done on our alternators and charging system which hopefully will solve our issues, again this was done with very high quality work at an unbelievable price—we could get used to this!!!!
Once again we set off with no more boat issues (for a short moment!!!) to Lautoka where I will get my crown put in and we will clear out to go to Vanuatu.
We will overnight in Musket Cove again where we hope to get together with Barb and Frank on Destiny as they are doing the “hangout” thing there while awaiting a flight home to the USA in a couple of weeks.
Our next entry will be from Vanuatu which seems to be very exotic and will I am sure present more challenges than the lovely Fijian islands have---the greatest challenge here is avoiding hitting a reef which we will have accomplished if the next couple of days go to plan!!!