Moce to our Guests

Moce (pronounced Mo-thay) is goodbye in Fijian. Mark and Kathryn have disembarked from Astarte. They proved to be excellent guests, as usual. They get the power and water consumption ritual aboard and are great at chipping in on clean-up duty after meals. We lucked out with near perfect weather for their entire stay – a little more wind on the days we moved to new locations would have been nice for some sailing. But the sun was shining and the temperatures were bearable (though a tad warm for those north-westerners). They had plenty of water time as you have read on Kathryn's entries over the last few days. Now they are at their "nice" place – the Paradise Dive Resort on the southwestern corner of Taveuni. They will ave managed to get to four islands during their Fiji trip. The resort greeted them with a welcome drink, flower wreath and foot massage. I guess that's what makes it a "nice" place. We got one of the three aboard Astarte...drinks are not a shortage.

It was great fun to have them aboard and share time together and a bit of our little paradise here. We took them to one of our favorite spots (Albert Cove) and we had the place to ourselves the entire time.

We had a bit of a rolling night on the mooring ball near the resort after a good lunch and lovely dinner with them ashore at the resort. There was even a bit of a green flash sunset to end our time with them. We'll stay here today as well to pick up a freshly baked bread and perhaps even enjoy a snorkel and some pool time at the resort. Then we will head off tomorrow bright and early and head to the island of Koro for a quick stop then on to Ovelau. Each day is about 40 miles. We will then spend a few days at the original capital of Fiji – that is supposedly "locked" in the colonial British era.

Thanks to Kathryn and Mark for coming all this way to visit and bring us some boat bits. We enjoyed our time with them and were glad we had great weather providing lots of "water" time for the fish lovers. Hope their diving is spectacular as well.
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At 9/27/2016 8:49 PM (utc) S/V Astarte was located at 16°56.10'S 179°53.98'E

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