Stuffed and Ready By MichaelMUSKET COVE, FIJI

"What’s this?"

Windy and I borrowed bikes one
morning and toured part of the small
island.

"Stuffing."

"Stuffing? What’s that?"

I heard this back-and-forth about 5 times beside the long table where all of us had lined up our Thanksgiving dishes for what turned out to be a surprisingly grand potluck at Musket Cove’s outdoor Island Bar. All the kid boats are gone, Terrapin and So What off exploring, the rest on their way to New Zealand. (We’re missing all of them.) So the potluckers were a mix of ex-pats living on-island and several cruising couples, still here or planning to stay through the cyclone season. We and the American couples who spearheaded the potluck are the only folks here from the States. There was at least one Canadian couple, but all the rest were Kiwis and Aussies.

Apparently stuffing isn’t widely consumed in New Zealand and Australia.

When not eating, we’re in the throes of again readying Del Viento for her months alone in the Tropics. It's turned into perhaps our biggest spring cleaning of the past several years (and before you object, spring is exactly the season we're in now, here in the southern hemisphere). We're emptying lockers and realizing how much has accumulated that we no longer need, how much the girls have grown up and out of not just clothes, but stuff. All the books that have been read. We're literally up 1/2 inch on our waterline.

This time we’ve got Don helping us while we’re gone. He’ll be moored next to us and will open her up and run the pumps regularly. He’ll check the batteries and start the motor on occasion. If a cyclone looms, he’ll take Del Viento deep into the mangroves near Denarau.

--MR

Not the Marquesas, the high point on this island
(separated by an isthmus from the larger part) is
only about 100 feet.

Doing something without the kids!

Del Viento is among the boats moored in the upper right.

Fast Lane to Nadi Town By MichaelMUSKET COVE

Loading the dinghy on the dock in Denarau
for the trip home.

We've been pretty stationary in one of Fiji's main cruising boat hubs: Musket Cove. It's not a remote remote Fijian village, it's not the bustling and interesting Suva, it's just a tourist resort that opens its doors to cruising sailors. No apologies, it's a lovely setting, we'll protected, and we've had the pleasure of  hanging with one of the best cohorts of cruising families we've seen in a while.

But for all it offers, Malololailai Island is not a good place to provision. The veggies here aren't bad, but we left our last good place to provision with too few staples aboard, and knowing that we're leaving Fiji at the end of this month, we've been careful not to over-buy. The result is we've needed to get back to Nadi Town (via Denarau) a few times to get what we need. Fortunately, Windy found a mode of transport much cheaper and more appealing than the only (high-priced) ferry that brings the tourists and their luggage back and forth.

About a month ago, Windy went exploring by dinghy with Susan of Wiz. They found a couple of villages on the island and met Sia. At some point, the cruising women learned that Sia's husband makes the trip to Denarau every Saturday (market day in Fiji and much of the world), for a shopping run. His panga makes what would be a 3-hour trip in Del Viento into a 30-minute E-ticket ride (does anyone even use that expression any more?).

So a few times now, Windy's made the passage. The panga arrives at 7:00am, they're in Denarau by 7:30, the village usually has a driver waiting at the dock to take shoppers into Nadi Town. In town, Windy fills her cart and then lets the cashier know she's with Sia, her stuff gets boxed and put aside, and she's free to go to another store. When shopping day is done, a driver collects all the people and provisions, takes everything back to the panga, everyone loads up, and makes the passage home.

--MR

Boo and Birthday By MichaealMUSKET COVE, FIJI

Even Mona gets thirsty.

The end of October is always a special time for the Del Viento crew. Windy turns a year older, Eleanor’s birthday is just before Halloween, there’s the dress-up-and-candy day itself, and then soon after, I pull another year away from Windy.

Eleanor’s birthday was low-key and enjoyable. For Halloween we planned to be on a mooring off Musket Cove, a resort on an island off the coast of Nadi. We heard there might be other kid boats there, many waiting for a window to make the hop to New Zealand.

It didn’t disappoint, one of our girls’ favorite cruising Halloweens so far—and that’s saying a lot, given the success of Santa Rosalia a few years back and Woodacre before that.

Next Halloween? We're shooting for Montana. More on those plans in a future post.

--MR

It's really all about this group, kind of magical. All the kids
clicked, nearly all a bit on the older side. They're not all pictured
here, but from Del Viento, Terrapin, Pesto, Me Too, So What, Enough,
and an unnamed boat.

Eleanor opening one of  her birthday gifts, a
pedal for her electric piano. All wearing her new
21 Pilots t-shirt and her new bandana.
Definitely a black theme, welcome 14!

On the beach doing the birthday cake thing.

The girls came up with and executed their costumes
themselves. Surprisingly, all we had to acquire were
the plastic flowers for Frida's head décor. Leo wasn't
around, so Mona painted her own cardboard
background and frame.

Halloween 2017

Not all of them, only those we could rally for this photo.
Many of the adults were in costume too and thanks to
some of us just back from trips to the States,
there were the Halloween staples like you
cannot find in Fiji: Snickers, Take Five, Twix, etc.

Who Sailed the Boat Here? By WindyMUSKET COVE, FIJI

Not missing Dad.

A Musket Cove Yacht Club lifetime membership is quite possibly the best US$5 a cruiser can spend. Our plastic laminated member cards had entitled the girls and me to spend the past few weeks walking sandy paths, lounging on a shady veranda, chilling with friends on the picnic island, and soaking in the pool at the casually classy Musket Cove Resort on Malolo Lailai Island, Fiji. Now it was time leave our mooring and head to Port Denarau Marina on the main island, Viti Levu, to pick up Mike, flying in from the U.S. the next day. But I decided to first fill out a club membership form for Mike.

"He should already have one," said Bale the office manager.

"Why should he?"

"Because he's the most important."

I paused, then a realization dawned on me: crew cannot be members absent a captain. "Oh, Mike didn't arrive with us," I said.

"Who sailed the boat here?"

"I did," I said.

"Then you are the captain!" She smiled.

"Yes!" I said.

It wasn't a lie. There's no strict hierarchy aboard Del Viento, and with Mike gone there was no question who’d been captain these past few weeks. But that was new. The three hour sail from Nadi Bay to Musket Cove had been my first solo sail—though it wasn’t truly solo because I had my kid crew with me.

I thought back to that journey. I’d been nervous. Even though everything I’d be doing I'd done a hundred times before, I realized that I'd never taken total responsibility. Perhaps I'd never captained the boat before? Does Mike feel this responsibility? Or have we truly split the job, always sharing responsibility?

I realized how much peace of mind having backup had always given me. Countless times, two hands aboard had been better than one. Simply raising Del Viento’s huge old mainsail is usually a two-person job. I thought back to groundings that did not happen and collisions avoided because we had two sets of eyes on the job. Just recently I’d caught a sheet on a hatch. It was certainly something I could have dealt with alone, but it was helpful to have one of us on the foredeck to free the line and the other at the helm managing the boat.

Eleanor and Dillon (Sangvind) flying a kite.

In my experience, many singlehanders are extra careful, extra conservative, they take meticulous care of their vessel. My singlehander brain switched on. What could go wrong during this really short passage in protected waters? An injury could happen. If I were seriously injured would the girls be able to manage and seek help? I decided, yes, they could. What if I went overboard? Ditto.

What concerned me most was equipment failure, especially engine failure. Our raw-water engine pump was on its last legs. In fact, Mike was returning with a replacement. I was banking on squeezing a few more hours out of the old one. I came up with a plan in the event I lost the engine en route.

Having dropped Mike off at the airport, the day of departure was upon us. Together, the girls and I raised anchor and headed across Nadi Bay, weaving through the fleet of boats anchored off Port Denarau. Once underway, my nerves calmed. Winds were light and on the nose. We continued motoring toward Musket Cove. I kept an eye on the temperature gauge. When the wind later increased, still on the nose, I advanced the throttle. I could have raised the sails, but we'd have had to tack back and forth and I was eager to reach our destination.

Then I noticed the engine temperature needle creeping towards the red. I leaned over the transom. Water was spitting out of the exhaust, but the volume was diminished and was accompanied by a bit of steam. Alarmed, I throttled way back. While I watched the temperature gauge, I ran through my options in the event I lost the motor:

• sail
• drift and let the engine cool and try again
• anchor
• call for a tow

I decided my best option would be to raise sail and head back downwind to Nadi Bay, which is wide open and shallow. I would be comfortable getting there and anchoring under sail.

Fortunately, it didn't come to that. Throttling back did the trick. The engine temp returned to normal as did the water from the exhaust, the steam was gone. After an hour of slow motoring we entered the mooring field at Musket Cove. The moorings were full. Circling around, we found a spot behind our friends on Full Circle. Within minutes of anchoring I was sitting in the cockpit with a cold beer, watching Frances fly around the anchorage on a surfboard, towed by Sangvind's fast dinghy. I gave myself an imaginary pat on the back: this was definitely going to be worth the journey.

--WR

Eleanor on the Spit near Musket Cove.

Musket Cove resort life: learning to make pulisami.

All is good aboard (this is a selfie taken inside the head).

When's Dad coming home?

Good Old Boat Show By MichaelDENERAU, FIJI

The 2017 United States Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland was a good, exhausting, productive, and fun time. Things are definitely different when viewed from behind a booth. For starters, I was there all five days and never even stepped foot on a boat, not a one! I had no time for such luxury. I hardly walked the show at all. Get this: over five days, I consumed only two Painkillers.

But it's all good, I was there to work, to spread the word about Good Old Boat, The Sailing Magazine for the Rest of Us. Who are the rest of us? Like I told a thousand show-goers, "If you own and maintain a fiberglass sailboat, this is the magazine for you." On the first two days of the show we set records for signing up new subscribers. What a pleasure to have met at least a hundred regular readers during the show. (And what a pleasure to have met about a dozen readers of this blog!)
For those who've never been, this is the mother of all boat shows. Everyone is there. Some of my favorite moments were meeting long-time friends face-to-face for the first time.

Here's a (partial) photo essay (there were lots of great moments that happened without my camera at hand, lots of other heroes I met):

I took this about midnight, the night before the show was set to start,
from across the bay.

Inside the show at night, everything buttoned up and ready for the opening.

Our booth looking sharp...this was long before we ran out of the
2,500 magazines we gave away. That's Karla behind the counter
and Chuck in the captain's chair.

This is Carolyn Shearlock, tireless promoter of all things
galley. Have you been to theboatgalley.com lately?

Mark Pillsbury (center) is Editor of Cruising World magazine.
Jeremy "Mac" McGeary (right) is a master wordsmith who
graces the Good Old Boat masthead and who started work at
Cruising World shortly after the sextant was invented. He
has an endless supply of good stories. After this photo was
taken, I sat back and listened to Jeremy and Mark
remind each other of different anecdotes regarding a
stuffed purple monkey--I think I've got that right.

Her shirt should read "#BrittanyStrong." This is the Windtraveler writer
herself, here at the show just weeks after Irma turned her life upside down,
here to raise money to help her island community. She's a dynamo.
Buy your own shirt or donate here.

Ah, Tim Murphy, another master wordsmith who has long made
others' words great on the page. Lucky for me, Tim is the editor of
Voyaging With Kids. 

Wendy Hinman is a fellow freelancer and boating author.
Everyone has heard of Tightwads on the Loose. Her new
title is Sea Trials. 

I swear, every time I run into Lin Pardey, she seeks my
advice on sailing. I think here she'd just asked me about
heavy weather sailing and I'm explaining the best
approaches. I think someday she is going to be
quite the sailor.

My good friend Jen Brett. She bought some of my early
stories when she worked at Blue Water Sailing years ago.
She is now the Senior Editor at Cruising World and
still a pleasure to work with.

Behan! Imagine writing a book with someone and corresponding
for years, and then meeting in person for the first time--this is
what that looks like. Such a pleasure. Her Totem is a short distance
from circumnavigating.

I was Wendy Mitman Clarke's biggest fan when she was writing
a column for Cruising World years ago. We've met before, but
since then she and her talented daughter contributed to
Voyaging With Kids and it was a real pleasure to
catch up in person. I'm reading her latest now:
Still Water Bending.

Jimmy Cornell has done a lot, but I appreciate most his
World Cruising Routes, love it. Better still, he's a fan of
Good Old Boat!

My second family; we email each other daily. From left to right:

the word guy Jeremy "Mac" McGeary, me, the money gal Karla
Sandness, the artsy gal Nancy Koucky, and the ad man Chuck
Koucky. Together we put out the magazine we all want to read,

and have fun doing so.

Headed for the Annapolis Sailboat Show By MichaelWASHINGTON, DC

That was my sunrise view out the window of the A330 I just flew aboard from Nadi, Fiji, to LAX. I realized this was my 7^th flight across the Pacific, the 6^th on Fiji Airways. It’s a terribly long, overnight slog, but thankfully direct—and Nadi (pronounced nan-di) airport is an easy one to fly through and with a comfortable international terminal (they actually have these large, bed-like platforms that passengers are encouraged to spread out on).

I left Windy and the girls in Fiji and I’m headed for the Annapolis Sailboat Show. I’ve been to the show nearly a dozen times, but this will be my first visit where I’ll be working the show, from the Good Old Boat magazine stall. I’m not a salesman and have been anxious about the prospect of spending 4 days spreading the word about The Sailing Magazine for the Rest of Us. But that was then.

I just spent a few days in California visiting family as well as boatyards and marinas from Morro Bay to Oxnard, passing out magazine copies to sailors and telling them about Good Old Boat, my role as editor, and what we’ve got planned. I always received a warm, encouraging reception and I look forward to more.

I’m also looking forward to meeting in person all of the people I’ve known for years, but have never met. First are the fellow Good Old Boat folks with whom I email daily. Then there are all the editors of the magazines I’ve sold to over the years, my publisher Lin Pardey, my co-author Behan Gifford of Totem, my friend author Rob Avery—and I learned just this morning that my friend Brittany of Windtraveler will be at the show. It’s going to feel more like a party or festival than a boat show.

If your a Log of Del Viento reader, I hope to see you there too. Stop by the Good Old Boat exhibit and say hello.

--MR

Hemispheric Travelers By MichaelVITI LEVU, FIJI

Looking back at Del Viento from ashore.

So we got our window and made our short passage north, from Savusavu, Fiji, to Futuna, the smaller of the main islands that comprise Wallis & Futuna, the simply-named French protectorate out in vast Pacific Ocean.

It was sort of like returning to the Marquesas. Granted, everything is in French (though the 4,500 people on the island speak their own Polynesian language, Futunan, at home—and just them! The 9,500 people on Wallis speak Wallisian, blows my mind.) and the small supermarchés were filled with duck pâtés and cheeses and bread (bread that was much better than anything we ever got in all of French Polynesia), but what I'm talking about is the dense, green, rugged hillsides punctuated with dramatic sheer cliffs. "It reminds me of the Marquesas," is what we kept saying to each other after dropping the anchor.

All of this was unexpected. I'd focused solely on the understandable admonitions about Futuna, same as the widespread advice offered to us before we sailed to Pago Pago, American Samoa: "get in and quickly get out." I didn't expect else but the roadstead anchorage and the dinghy-killing pier. Following is the soundtrack aboard Del Viento en route:

"Girls, you know we're seriously only going to be here for the time it takes to drop anchor, check in, and check out—maybe as short as a couple hours."

"Seriously?! But we can't be stuck on a passage for two days and then not even spend the night."

The only place we found to get internet
on-island, outside the closed Gendarmerie.

"Guys, this is the whole point of this trip, to check in and check out and get back to Fiji. Besides, the anchorage is a shallow indentation and our weather window is closing—we can't be in this anchorage when our weather window closes and the wind comes up."

We arrived on a Saturday, early morning. We hit the beach running.

The Gendarmerie gave us the bad news: "You can check in and check out in this office today, but you must also go see the port captain for your zarpe and he won't be in-office before Monday."

Crap. We were told in Fiji we could do our check in and check out on a Saturday.

Fortunately, a quick check of the GRIBs showed that our weather window had accommodated us, expanding to give us the two placid days we needed.

Life is like that sometimes.

We didn't rock and roll in the roadstead anchorage, instead we sat peacefully for two days in a lovely, lovely setting, enjoying an unexpected Futuna experience.

Life is also like that sometimes.

Our sail home was as pleasant as our sail there. Both ways we crossed the antimeridian, exactly halfway around the world from Greenwich, England, and meaning that in our short trip we traveled east from the Eastern Hemisphere to the Western Hemisphere and then back to the Eastern Hemisphere.

--MR

Arriving Futuna.

Futuna streets.

Could be a Marquesan street for sure.

This is what the sail back to Fiji looked like.

Del Viento back on a Waitui mooring in Savusavu.

First thing we did upon returning was get together
with our friends Robin and Fiona from MonArk.
The couple are Good Old Boat contributing editors who
also run a site that encourages younger folks to get into
sailing and cruising. Check it out: youngandsalty.com

Dreary Paradise By MichaelSAVUSAVU, FIJI

Frances with a roadside vendor.

We've not enjoyed a lot of sunshine this month. Lots of drizzle—not a good thing. Drizzle is for San Francisco. Precipitation in Fiji is usually the warm, Tropical-rain kind, the kind that allows us to collect water in the tanks and bathe on the foredeck with a smile on our face. This is cool drizzle that turns dust to mud streaks. This drizzle is off-and-on and sends us opening and closing our hatches like jack-in-the-boxes.

It's where we are, Savusavu. It's got its own little wet climate, a result of the moisture-condensing mountains around us. There's a rain forest a few miles from our mooring.

All of that wouldn't be so dreary if I didn't feel stuck. The clock is ticking on Del Viento's time in Fiji. We've been trying to get her out-of-country since I arrived back from the July I spent in the States—a 2-day passage to Wallis-Futuna and two days back—but the weather hasn't cooperated. Not the drizzle this time, but the contrary winds that make that trip notorious. We're just looking for a break.

Is that all?

No.

I've got the job of my dreams, editor of a great sailing magazine. I can work from Fiji and anywhere, it's a dream job that allows us to cruise indefinitely.

But what does that look like?

The crab Eleanor found.

I'm working more than 40 hours a week. I'll remind you that this cruising life is work in and of itself. Getting water, fuel, groceries, and sundries, and disposing of trash, and doing laundry, and repairing and maintaining the boat, is nearly a full-time job. The cruising life is best when the cruisers are unencumbered to tend to the demands of self-sufficiency, like we were for the first five years of this adventure. Cruising doesn't easily accommodate full-time workers. It doesn't feel like we're cruising anymore.

And while working full-time in paradise is still more appealing than a conventional land-based life in the States, there's more.

Our kids are turning teen (Eleanor turns 14 next month!). This means we're confronting the characteristic needs for social lives that involve a more constant presence of other young adults. I cannot relate, but I cannot ignore.

Added into our life stew are aging parents; my mom in particular isn't doing well.

We've met cruising teens who pine for richer social lives. We've met cruisers who need to spend time caring for aging parents. But these were other people, these were their stories. We never saw our story the same way.

We're not throwing in the towel, this isn't my farewell post. I don't know what our cruising life holds. We're actively trying to figure that out. We're a family accustomed to an uncertain future, we just need to find the best way to make that future the best it can be.

Maybe when the drizzle clears.

--MR

Frances was keen on having a spa day aboard Del Viento and sold
Windy and Eleanor on the idea. This is what it looked like and on the
girls' faces is Frances's own oatmeal concoction.

At the nearby Waisali Rainforest Preserve.

A Fijian village near a stream. Note the women doing laundry.

A deserted beach we found--I love this little motu.

This dock and a few moorings comprise the Savusavu Marina
where we've spent a lot of time, and where we plan to again leave
Del Viento (on a mooring) over the cyclone season.

In the Front Door By MichaelSAVUSAVU, FIJI

Frances was obsessed with me
capturing this photo. I think this
is take number 17.

I wrote a while back about how the cruising life has given us unique access to many fancy resorts. There's a symbiotic relationship between snazzy beachfront resorts and cruising boats (seen as yachts by resort managers and guests alike) anchored off the beach. Anchored yachts make a snazzy place seem snazzier. The hick-up to this symbiosis is that there is an unalienable third party to this relationship, the unbathed, poorly dressed cruisers aboard these anchored yachts. While there may be a fortress-like guarded gate at the land entrance to these places, the beach is a wide open path to a snazzy pool and other amenities. Resorts usually either welcome us or they just tolerate us. We've seen it both ways, we don't care.

The other day was another such occasion, only this time we were invited to drive in the front entrance, of La Dolce Vita Holiday Villas here on Venua Levu.

Thanks Susan and Jeff.

--MR

This floor mural is made of countless tiny
tiles.

Another tiled mural. The detail was exquisite.

See? These are people in one of those arches.

Another tiled mural. If you're noticing an Italian theme, the place is
owned and built by Margaret and Luigi. We ate great pizza from one
of two huge wood-fired ovens on the property.

Frances looking out at the saltwater play lagoon.

One of many Fijian totems we saw here and many places in Fiji.

Happy Windy.

Happy Frances.

Crossing Windy.

Pictures to Windy's left are two of the guest villas. As you can see,
the place was empty, we had it to ourselves all day.