7:30 AM local time Thursday, August 23rd. (1930 August 22nd UTC) 17 39 S
177 23 E. Temp. 79, Humidity 71%, cloud cover 90%. At anchor at Saweni
Bay, Viti Levu, Fiji.
Warm greetings from the crew of Maverick.
The South Pacific Convergence Zone is a trough of low pressure
that appears and disappears mysteriously over our whole route from
Papeete through Tonga and Fiji up to the Solomons, sometimes extending
50 degrees in longitude and twenty in latitude. Not to be confused with
the Intertropical Convergence Zone (the doldrums), this zone brings
unpredictable bad weather and wind, and has bedeviled Ship's Weather
Forecaster Terry Shrode and the Captain since Papeete. Some years it
appears more often than others, or is stronger, and this is one of those
years, it seems.
Last Thursday, the weather services predicted 30 knots from the
north. Since Malolo Lailai, where we were, is a well-protected anchorage
from that direction we delayed our departure to Viti Levu, as the
anchorages we were headed for were open to northerlies. On Thursday we
got torrential rain but little wind, but on Friday morning the wind
built to 35 with gusts to 45, but it was from the south. In the
Captain's weaker moments he thinks the weather services would be doing
us a big favor if they just said, "Tomorrow there will probably be more
wind than usual from one direction or another." At least we would not
get the idea that they really did know something that no one knows. But
I know they're trying their best, in their warm, dry, little offices.
So instead of moving to Viti Levu, where we would have been well
protected from a southerly, we stayed put. What happens in an anchorage
protected from the ocean by reefs, like Malolo Lailai is to the south,
is that at high tide, the protection is minimized because the reefs are
four to five feet beneath the surface. On Friday we were right before a
new moon so with high winds all day--to reiterate, from the south--it
got stressful, with two to three feet of chop. Two boats had their
mooring lines part and very quickly fetched up on the reef. One boat was
pulled off by some fast action by local boats, but the other, a 100-
year-old wooden boat named AnneBeth, is holed and is still aground, full
of water at high tide. And that's only counting what happened at Malolo.
Maverick, with 250 feet of chain out in fifty feet, stayed put but our
snubber, a nylon line that takes the strain off the last twenty feet of
chain or so, did break with a bang. We stayed on the boat for 48 hours
to keep watch. (Fearless, by the way, was hauled out near here and
repaired well enough to continue its cruise, this time with a crew of
two.)
On Monday we moved ourselves twenty miles to the east to the West
Coast of Viti Levu. Here we've spent a couple of days checking out the
towns of Lautoka and Nadi and environs, and also doing some provisioning
for our passage to Vanuatu. On the 24th, elections begin here, and
though everything is being done to insure they are fair and peaceful,
there is a bit of nervousness in the air and it is not out of the
question that there will be some civil disturbances following the
announcement of the results, or efforts by some elements to disrupt the
process entirely. We have no reason to fear for our personal safety, but
to avoid any disruption that could possibly be caused in government
services we checked out of customs and immigration yesterday and will
sail today.
Fiji has proven to be a difficult place to leave for all the
reasons you might imagine. It's also a democracy, or at least one in the
making, and they have what seems to be a free press including radio and
the evening television news. It feels like this gives the people a
different outlook than French Polynesia or Tonga. English is universally
spoken and that has made our stay more interesting. The sailing is
challenging, but has its rewards. Undoubtedly, our departure will be the
most bittersweet of the trip so far.
But it's time to go. As much affection as we have for all the
countries we've visited, the excitement begins when we say our farewells
and set our course for a distant harbor, a place we've barely heard
about, and despite our charts and books and sailing directions, it'll be
someplace we can't imagine. We've charted our course to Port Vila,
Vanuatu, our last stop in the South Pacific and a voyage of about 500
miles, and entered the waypoints into the GPS. The tanks have been
topped off and soon we'll deflate and stow the dinghy and its gear, put
away books and dishes, check the lashings on the jerry cans, take the
cover off the mainsail, make the halyard fast to the headboard, and
start the engine. The Captain will declare, "Mr. Shrode, our work here
is done. Raise the anchor, if you please, and we'll be off to show the
flag and share the magic that is Maverick, in a new land."
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