Back Home in Suva

October 31, 2014

back-in-suva
Taken from the Royal Suva Yacht Club.

Yep, we’re back in one of the many places that now feel like home – Suva. Just before we got here, it felt like we’d lived a lifetime in the Astrolabe Reef area. An hour after we got our anchor down, it felt like we’d never left. On today’s schedule: pizza, movie, sushi, coffee drinks, more pizza, maybe another movie, some shopping, a bottle of wine, maybe another bottle of wine… -Rich

Haunted Autopilot (or Haunted Suva?)

October 31, 2014

Can anyone help us explain this? We have come into Suva Harbor three times now and all three times, our autopilot has failed upon entry to the harbor. It’s never failed at any other time in almost three years of use.

haunted autopilot

OK, to be fair, the first time our autopilot solenoid packed it in about 10 miles before the harbor. Understandable. But the other two times, we got an error message, the boat made a hard right and sent us scrambling to get it disengaged and the boat back on course. Both of those times, including yesterday, we just restarted it and all was fine from then on.

(The error message was “rudder position sensor error.” The rudder position sensor is hard-wired on the NMEA 2000 bus – not wireless in any way – eliminating the possibility of a super-secret, autopilot failure beam from a high-level Fiji research lab.) -Rich

Note from Cyndi from the future, reading back over the blog in  2019: It was Suva that was haunted.

Dolphin Welcome!

October 29, 2014

As soon as we dropped anchor at Yaukuvelailai Island (in Fiji’s Astrolabe Reef), we were greeted by jumping and spinning dolphins.

Wow! What a nice welcome.

Note: We spent about three weeks in the Astrolabe Reef area just south of Suva, Fiji. Here it is on a map…

Dark Nights

October 29, 2014

dark-night

We’re still in the Kadavu, Fiji area. It’s been cloudy and rainy and the overcast skies make the nights black. Here’s a 360 degree panorama taken last night from Nagara bay with only the faint lights of a nearby resort visible. Today, it’s starting to clear. We even had some sun. Winds might be a little lighter tomorrow. If so, snorkeling, yay! And bottom cleaning, boo. -Rich

Kavala Rainbow – that’s what’s up!

October 26, 2014

kavala-rainbow

You haven’t heard from us in a while ’cause we’ve got next to no internet here in at Kadavu Island, in Kavala Bay. We’re about 50 miles south of Suva, Fiji. It’s been rainy and a little windy but this bay is great. With the rain drops come rainbows, like this one in our bay yesterday!

We’ve made two scuba dives in the famous Naigoro Pass and if the weather is good next week, we’re going to try to make a couple more dives at Alacrity Rocks.

Lots of boats are starting to jump off for the passage out of the tropics to New Zealand. We don’t envy them. It’s been rough in NZ so we’re going to wait as long as we can in hopes that the closer we get to the southern summer, the better the conditions will be between here and NZ. Our only immediate plan, after a bit more diving and exploring here in the Astrolabe Reef area, is to head back to Suva for Pizza, a VIP movie (more on that soon) and a Cost-U-Less shopping trip. -Rich