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| Look! A waterline above the water! |
After three weeks in Fiji, Worrall Wind is out of the trench,
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| WW in the "Graveyard" |
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| Barnacle Picnic - Before |
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| Eat your hearts out barnacles, not our gel coat! - After |
Teak Rails - Before and After
The refrigerator is working, and we are chilling down the champagne.
Scuba Dive R's
While we were working on the boat along with Yacht Help, we took time for some fun which is the primary reason for this adventure. Russ and I took a three day open water dive course with Subsurface Diving and got scuba certified. Each morning we would leave with the dive boat (small skiff) from our Marina resort out to Beachcomber Island. It was about a 40 minute ride.
The first morning of our open water course, was spent in the classroom reading, watching videos, and taking knowledge acquisition quizzes. The afternoon was spent in the confined fresh water diving pool learning skills....clearing masks, operating our buoyancy vests, sinking, ascending, etc.
On the second morning, we ventured away from Beachcomber to a dive site called Plantation Pinnacles. The first dive was just for fun. The air temperature was about 88 degrees F. The water temperature was 90 degrees F. Beautiful! Sure beats learning to dive in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Our instructor guided us around a beautiful coral head.
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| Kini, our Fijian Dive Instructor |
Our second dive of the morning was in shallower water with a sandy bottom where we had to demonstrate in a saltwater environment the skills we learned in the fresh water pool.
Dark Squall!
By the time we completed our second dive and came to the surface, the beautiful blue sky of the morning was turning quite dark as an approaching low was blowing in. We spent the afternoon in the classroom reviewing, taking quizzes, and our final examination. Just as we were finishing our exam, our instructor came into the room and asked if we might hurry up a bit as the storm was closing in and they wanted to get the dive boat back to the mainland. We had been oblivious to outside conditions.
We went outside. The sky was black, the wind was 30-40 knots, there were 3 foot frothing wind waves. It was pouring rain and visibility was less than a mile. The skiffs were bucking on the breakers like crazed broncos. I took one look at the situation and told Russ and the boat guys there was no way in hell I was getting on their boat in these conditions. We all waited for about 1/2 an hour and the conditions to calm down....It did...a bit. Winds were now about 20-30 knots, the waves were only 2 feet high, visibility was worse than before because it was getting dark and it was still pouring.
We were given yellow slickers and the boat captain was yelling for us to come aboard. Looked like a death wish to me. I was reassured by our dive instructor that it was safe and these guys did it all the time. I asked myself if I would take Worrall Wind ( 10 times bigger than the skiff) and remembered the liability releases we had to sign saying that we would hold everyone blameless in the event of sinking, dismemberment or death, and decided, no, I still wasn't getting on that bucking boat. We indicated that the dive boat should leave without us and we would book a room at the resort for the night.
The rain continued pour and the winds kept on howling for a couple more hours into the twilight. We booked a nice little jungle room. There was room in the dorm, but since we didn't have any pj's with us we declined this option. The resort staff asked if we had any luggage as we stood in our dripping swim suits and with soggy towels. Yes please....our tiny little beach bag which fortunately, I had packed a dry set of clothes was all we had. We went to our room, took warm showers, got into dry clothes, and headed down to the bar.
Where were you when you heard the news about Osama Bin Laden's demise?
Russ found a dry place to read his book As I had no book - having left my kindle on the boat, I went to watch the big screen TV in the open air, sand-floor dining pavillion. While the storm raged on the outside, the small crowd was mesmerized by the news and announcement that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. Not a wet eye in the place. Most of the spring break guests had left, and the arrival ferry was delayed due to the inclement weather.
We had a terrific evening meal with our dive partners, Andrew and Lauren from Australia, who had been staying at the resort. The following morning, the storm had passed. The sky was clear and amazingly so was the water. We did our last two dives demonstrating various skills to our instructor and were signed off as having completed and passed the course.
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| Andrew, Lauren, Kini, Roz, and Russ |
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| The 2 Sail R's are now 2 Suba Dive R's |
Our sailing friends Ken and Lori on Trim had visitors from the states, Lori's daughter JD and husband Andrew. On one of the days of their visit, we took the ferry out to the Yasawa group of islands to do a reconnaissance. The first of the Yasawa Islands is about 18 nautical miles from Vuda Pt. Russ and I took our GPS and laptop computer to develop a way point wake trail of the ferry through the various reefs for our future planning.
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| Lori and daughter Jesssica, JD |
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| Blue Lagoon where the movie Blue Lagoon was filmed. |
Fortunately, we were back in Denarau Harbor when the boat broke down completely. After an hour's delay we were towed to the dock. We are looking forward to returning in our own boats to some of the anchorages we scouted out now that we have a good wake trail.
It's so nice to be back in the water where it is clean. We have some outside work to finish off, dinghy to lower in the water, wind skirt and sunshades to snap on, some more cleaning outside, some sewing projects, etc. Being in the boat yard for two weeks was pretty dirty, dusty, and muddy, so the inside needs a good wipe down and vacuum as well.
Once we have established that our freezer and refrigerator are both working well, we'll start to provision for our shakedown out to the Yasawa and Mamanuca Islands just off the main island. We will return to Vuda Point Marina, restock for our longer trip to Vanuatu, make any apparent fixes and repairs, check out of Fiji, and leave some time the first half of June for Vanuatu.
We were rocked to sleep last night in peaceful seas.
All is well on Worrall Wind and with the 2 Sail R's
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