Back Down the Mamanucas

After enjoying our adventures in Naviti in the Yasawa Group, we made our way back to the Mamanuca group to get some calmer anchorages. Or at least that was the plan and it worked for a few nights – and then we got the roll back at Waya. We moved back to Mololo Lailai Island and the Musket Cove Yacht Club (where we are members in good standing!)

We will settle here for probably about a week to get a few boat projects done and hopefully reconnect with some boats before we all go our separate ways. Some will be heading north to Vanuatu, others toward New Caledonia, some to New Zealand and a group of us, ourselves included, will take the trip northwards to Tuvaulu, Kiribatis and Marshalls. Hopefully we'll be able to have one big gathering here to say our goodbyes. That is one of the interesting things about this cruising lifestyle. You become fast friends with folks and those friendships are often based on some shared experiences – that are sometimes frightening...but bonding. You visit interesting places together; share many meals and evening sundowners or morning coffees; experience adventurous hikes, dives or snorkels and just simply get to know each other quite well in short periods of times. And then you disappear from each others lives – sometimes staying in contact via internet or the radio – and at other times simply becoming a memory in each others' cruising histories. With luck, your paths cross again at some point and the reunions are great fun and quite joyful. But in this cruising world, where we change our plans like incoming tides, you simply don't know if you'll ever see the people again. So that is the sadness of the goodbyes. We have had the pleasure of knowing some people for many years. Our friends on Chapter Two and Chrisandaver Dream are from our time in the Caribbean. Newer friends that we've met in Panama but got to know better in Tahiti and Tonga are the Superteds. Victory we actually met in Panama when JanBart offered us and our guests, Dave and Lorna a freshly caught fish, but we got to know them better in Tonga as well. We anchored very close to the Gypsy Hearts in Moorea (Soby you might remember that catamaran), and have enjoyed getting to know them better while in NZ. So we meet; travel different directions, re-meet and get to know each other better and then disappear again. We recently heard on the radio from the Bamboozles, some great old friends we knew in the Caribbean – but unfortunately don't think we'll actually see them here in Fiji - though we are both in the same country! So many great folks that we've met over these last four and a half years – some still cruising – and others settled into the land life again.

So we look forward to hopefully reconnecting with some friends to be able to say goodbye for now and keep our hopes up that we will see them again in the not so distant future.

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