At Anchor Again

We finally escaped from the $8 curries and $5 fish and chips (Fiji $, so half it for the US equivalent). Savusavu is a great town and we enjoyed our 12 days there on a mooring. It was a great place to get cleared into the country, relaxed after passage and restocked with needed items. Barbara got two skirts made while in town for wearing to villages. We enjoyed time with other cruisers and reconnected with some folks we knew from the Marshall Islands. So it was a pleasant time but you could get trapped there.

We paid our bill to Copra Shed and untied from the mooring ball. We had planned to leave at daybreak today and make it about 40 miles along the southern coast to either Fawn Harbour or Dakanuba. The rain came down in buckets and the wind howled most of he night – and when we awoke it was still very windy, drizzly and grey. To get in many of the places in Fiji you need good visibility to get through the reefs. Today did not promise good visibility. It would have been easy to stay put on the mooring – but we decided to make a break as planned. Instead if the 40 mile trip though, we would only go a few miles outside the bay to anchor near the Cousteau Resort. We had never been in this anchorage though many boats stop here.

It is right near a point with lots of reefs around. The resort looks to have taken some serious damage in Cyclone Winston and a lot of work is being done on the seawall, dock, bures and buildings. Not sure if it is even opened. There are six boats out here at anchor and it took us a few tries to get in the right spot. As we were about to anchor we saw quite a sight. It seems some sort of ink spitting creature was getting attacked in the water and we kept seeing these long shots of ink come squirting out of the water. It was quite a sight – though we never saw either the attacker or the attacked. Just big gulps of ink squirts. We had the water making running so we hope the tide was running the ink away from the intake.

Michael did get into the water to check the anchor (where's anchor boy when you need him). The visibility wasn't great, but the new anchor was well imbedded into the sandy bottom. We will hope for good weather in the morning to make the leap down the coast a bit and start our adventure around this island.

For now, its nice to be in a lovely breeze at anchor. Happy Fourth of July! Not expecting any fireworks here.

Latitude:16 48.63s
Longitude:179 17.27e
-----
At 7/4/2016 2:40 AM (utc) S/V Astarte was located at 16°48.63'S 179°17.27'E

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com