Weather "windows" - short periods of fair weather between the powerful lows that continuously sweep across the area between New Zealand and Fiji - are hard to come by. Meanwhile, it was getting colder and colder in Opua. After waiting anxiously for more than a week, we took our best shot. The first 12 hours were fine, then we got hit by a gale that lasted 36 hours - sustained winds of 35 knots, gusting to 40, with 12-15' seas. For the first time in 22 years of offshore sailing, I got seasick. Thankfully, I put a Scopalamine patch on, and was able to function again.


Here's Austin and Jackie, not feeling very well either, on the morning after our roughest night.

The winds and seas finally subsided, and we were served up several days of our best sailing since entering the Pacific over a year ago. Proof of the pudding was the biggest mahi-mahi ever landed aboard Barbara Ann. Here's Ty showing off his 42 pound catch of the day.

We've taken lots of sunset shots, and most are disappointing. This was an exception.









Arrival in Fiji, after a longer than expected 8 day, 1150 mile passage. Our first port of call was Savusavu, on the island of Vanua Levu. Here's Barbara Ann resting peacefully again, in Savusavu.











Next stop was the capitol city of Suva, on Viti Levu. These photos were taken in the sprawling downtown market. We really appreciated the low prices of everything here: Roti sandwiches for less than a dollar, fruit drinks for less than 20 cents, curry meals for less than $4. After the high cost of living in New Zealand, Fiji is like a breath of fresh air.








We always look forward to the annual visit of Jackie's sister Anne's family, along with Angie. They visited us last year in the San Blas islands. Above, the girls are showing off their expertise by making Spaghetti Bolognese in our galley. Below we're toasting Surcouf with some of the fantastic wine that Edmond and Josi left with us before flying back to Belgium - what a great compliment to the pasta. 










First stop on our trip was the Musket Cove Resort, near Nadi, where we picked up our guests. This sea snake is a resident of the shallows right off the beach at the resort. Although deadly poisonous, they're essentially harmless; they are not aggressive, and their very small mouths are unable to open wide enough to bite a human, unless it's that small area of skin between the thumb and first finger....





Ty's up a tree at the Musket Cove Resort beach





Castaway was filmed on location at Manuriki, an uninhabited island just north of Musket Cove. Here's Austin, Amanda, Tyler and Lance posing with Wilson at a backpacker resort near Manuriki. Below, Jackie and I are on the beach that Tom Hanks and his Fed-Ex packages washed up on in the movie. While we were there we got buzzed by a sight-seeing helicopter; other than that, we had the island to ourselves. Contrary to how the movie portrayed the island (thanks to some pretty sophisticated special effects), the island has two nearby neighboring islands, and only has a reef on one side. It is completely approachable by sailboat.










What would we do without Angie? Ever cheerful, helpful, and ready to party.






Greg and Anne on an abandoned backpacker hostel's dock - on the island of Navadra. The snorkeling and diving on the reef was excellent. We ran an impromptu scuba diving class for Greg and Lance on the reef right off the beach. They did great on their first dive.






Jackie makes some friends on Waya, near Octopus Resort - our favorite eating-ashore spot of the trip. Their seafood buffet is not to be missed.






These sea caves belong to the island village of Sawa-i-Lau, and were featured in the movie Blue Lagoon, which was filmed on location just south of here. We all went snorkeling in this cave, which also opens up to other open-air caverns that can be explored after a short underwater swim from this main chamber.





Back on the mainland, we rented a minivan and headed toward the capital city of Suva. Along the way we stopped at a village known for its pottery. There we were given an unexpected treat - a kava ceremony. The picture above shows the kava powder being sieved into clean mountain water. The result looks like muddy water, and tastes like... well, we're not sure how to describe it. Anyway, Greg and I had about 6 "high tide" cups each, and were certainly relaxed by the time the kava was gone. The little boy below captivated us with his attempts at keeping the beat on the log drum.









One of the highlights of their visit was our zip line adventure, outside of Suva. We spent most of the day zip lining through the jungle canopy. Check out their website:  http://zip-Fiji.com/





Before you relax and let yourself go, it's all you can do just to keep from spinning or going too fast. Here I am learning the techniques. As with everything, it's only a matter of practice. We did the circuit 6 times (maybe more) and by the third time we were hanging upside down and letting ourselves spin freely.




The cousins have conquered the zip line challenge. Bring it on!





Our motto on Barbara Ann is "Don't stop - shop till you drop." Anne and Jackie show off their finds before Anne packs up for the return flight to the states.




Back in Nadi, after the Clarks flew home: It's Tyler's 18th birthday! Dad and son head to Hard Rock for Ty's first legal brews. Later, Jackie and Austin joined us for some great burgers - hard to find once you leave the US.




Not sure what's happening here... are we treating people or bugs?





  A traditional welcome to Robinson Crusoe resort - one of our favorite Fiji hangouts. Cruisers are very welcome here and the anchorage is calm and safe. There's great diving on the reef and the resort meals are both tasty and very inexpensive.

The boys at the resort put on one of the best fire dancing shows in Fiji.

Gene and Cathy flew in from New Zealand to hang with us at Robinson Crusoe resort. Gene and I worked together on the Miami Fire Department, and Cathy is a flight attendant for Pacific Blue. Here's our sail back to Nadi from Robinson Crusoe.

After saying farewell to Gene & Cathy (we'll be visiting them at their New Zealand South Island farm next year) we sailed to Beqa Lagoon, and anchored off the Beqa Lagoon Resort. Beqa is actually pronounced "Benga", and its protective reef encircles a huge lagoon south of the capital city of Suva. Beqa Lagoon Resort is world famous for their shark dive. The 3 pictures below were taken by an avid underwater photographer from Brazil during our shark dive with the resort.

Left to right is Jack, Tyler and Austin, on the safety line just outside the feeding zone. Ty and Austin are doing "rock-paper-scissors" in about 80' of water here.

So many fish came to the feeding that it was sometimes hard to see the real action - in this case a bull shark near the bottom. You can just make him out in this picture. On the previous day's dive a 15' Tiger shark came right up to the divers on the safety line and had to be pushed away by the safety divers.

No question about the great "vis" - diver parlance for water clarity - in Fiji. Here's some of the group ascending after the feeding.

After our shark dive we sailed across the lagoon to chill out at one of our fav spots, the Batiluva Surf Resort. It's a hard life, but we manage. Austin wanted to catch some waves out at Frigate's Passage, but they were the "expert only" variety.





Off to the Astrolabe reef, and its big island Kandavu. These kids, from the Kandavu village of Naloa had never seen themselves on video.





Here's how kava looks before it's in the bowl. She's putting it out to dry in the sun.






Shades of the movie Papillon - the village of Makongai was a leper colony set up by the French at the turn of the 20th century. The colony was closed in 1955; its buildings are mostly in ruins now, save for a "cinema" (where the men sat on one side and the women on the other) and this spooky graveyard.





These girls live in the village on the outskirts of the leper colony ruins; they're getting ready to put on a Meke (traditional songs and dances) for a visiting live-aboard dive charter boat.





The island of Taveuni is known as the Garden Isle, because of all the rain it receives. All that rain has to go somewhere, and the island boasts its own waterfall park. The Hunt men jumped together, on the count of three, into this Oh-so-refreshing pool.






Holy Mackerel! Tyler outdoes himself with this monster King Mackerel. It was so heavy we had to tie a noose around the tail and hoist it on board over the transom - after Ty's exhausting 30 minute battle to get it to the boat. We headed to the first village we could find - in this case, Nuku, on the island of Rambi - to spread the wealth. We found a local fisherman who made quick work of filleting it. Soon, we were sending kids home with dinner; we fed several families that night, and still kept over 10 pounds of the fillet for ourselves.









On our trek around Vanua Levu's north side, we visited Jim (the guy in the funny blue suit) at his home on Also Island. Jim was a cruiser who now leases the island from a nearby village; he and his wife run a small resort and boat-building operation there. Jim invited Austin to accompany him on a bee hive inspection above the resort.





Life's a beach at Nukumbati resort, off Vanua Levu's NW coast. The Bures (resort rooms) start at $1300 a night, but we got to enjoy the facilities for free. It was a quiet Sunday at the resort, so the girls showed Ty and Austin how to play the game of Carrom - kind of a cross between checkers and air hockey.









So...Chumpy??





We'd heard about a delightful Indian family that lived in Bualailai Bay, on the west coast of Vanua Levu, from other cruisers who stopped there. Here's Tyler and Austin with Lalita and her son Pramish. They invited us in and she made wonderful Rotis (Indian curry veggie wraps) for us.





Ty hooked this Blue Marlin off Sigatoka, Viti Levu, en route back to Robinson Crusoe resort for a last visit. It was a catch and release, since we had no desire to kill this beautiful creature.




Our 4 months in Fiji is up, and it's time to leave. We can honestly say that Fiji has been our favorite cruising grounds to date. The people are incredible and we've made a lot of new friends. It's late October 2008, and we've had a last minute change of heart; instead of sailing to New Zealand, as originally planned, we're now heading to Vanuatu (formerly New Hebrides) and then on to Australia for the South Pacific cyclone season.


Vanuatu