Fiji September 2002

It was six days hard on the wind with a

gale in the middle. Had to heave to on the 4th day to

wait for a wind shift and to avoid getting blown too

far down wind of the island group. We blew out 2 jibs

during the gale. (I have to have a bit of a yarn with

my sail maker in Hong Kong. They were both new sails.)

Half the crew of 8 was down with seasickness or a

tummy bug.

The wind eventually moderated and backed to the east.

We had to crank up the "Iron Topsail" and motor sail

the last 70 miles. Finally made the group just before

midnight on the 6th day and came to anchor off a

little island called Mala a few miles south of Vava'u.

Since then we spent about a week in Neiafu seeing the

sights on the main island and stocking up on fresh

veggies from the market. The damage from the New

Year's eve cyclone was evident. There was a noticeable

thinning of the palm tree population. Some of the

older buildings and homes were just not there anymore,

including about 20 meters of storefront along the main

street.

Everyone has a cyclone story. Apparently the eye of

the storm passed right over the island about midnight

on New Years eve. There were 160-knot winds. Almost

everyone had a damaged or missing roof. Some of the

small traditional villages were completely

obliterated. A yachtie named Nick I met last year

stayed the season and moved in with a local woman. The

roof was ripped completely off their house then they

spent the rest of the cyclone standing chest deep in

the fresh water tank. His yacht drug a 2-ton mooring

block and a 50-kilo anchor a half mile and fetched up

under a cliff just 3 meters short of the reef! However

16 other boats were not so lucky. The good part is

that no one was killed. Everyone figured that because

it all happened at night everyone stayed inside when

the eye passed over and so were not injured by flying

roof tops and other debris when the storm resumed. The

other good part is that Tahiti and New Zealand sent

workers and materials to rebuild the place.

We spent a week visiting several anchorages then

returned to Nieafu so 4 crew could catch their

airplanes. Then we picked up 6 crew and headed back

out to explore new places. We are now anchored in a

beautiful lagoon on the southeast corner of Pangi

Moto. Looking past the white sand beach of front of us

there are islands all around us. Without knowing

otherwise you might think we were anchored in a small

lake, the water as calm as a millpond.

It is a bit after 5 a.m. I am presently on anchor

watch. I just had to move the computer from the chart

table to the radio shack to receive the daily weather

fax from New Zealand. That done it's back to the chart

table.