Projects...

We've been in Savusavu for the last few days, and it's been pretty much non-stop work on the boat (I coulda sworn I had the boat 100% ready to go when we left Opua. Hmmm.). The big project has been putting up solar panels. We now have 375 watts of power, as of this afternoon (almost double what we had before).

Being able to turn the computer on, even when it's cloudy, and not have to worry about power usage makes it easy to do things like... write a blog post? Yup! Doesn't hurt to have a few cold beers now and then either. More to do, but the boat's starting to feel quite well set up. Michael from Whatcha Gonna Do (great cruising friends from last season) said: "You have to cruise twice - once to figure out how to do it, and once to do it properly". I think there's a lot of truth to that, and this season should be more comfortable as we've got things more set up the way we want them.

Meanwhile...

We got together yesterday with a number of other cruisers and talked with people who have been to Fiji about where the best places to go are and what some of the highlights of previous trips have been. We both got pretty excited - Fiji sounds just incredibly cool.

One of the neat things is that anytime you drop anchor, you have to go ashore and meet with the local villagers, bring a gift of Kava and have sevusevu, which is basically a welcoming ceremony where you get permission to stay and visit whatever island you're on. We're REALLY looking forward to this opportunity to interact with some of the local Fijians - last season was a little insular in terms of our propensity to make friends with the local people. This season promises to be a little different. Apparently it's hard to leave Fiji without making some real and lasting friendships with Fijians.

The cruising sounds awesome too - lots of great diving, well protected and interesting anchorages, and good sailing in between. It really sounds pretty outstanding.

For now, we're in Savusavu still, finishing up a few more boat chores, and waiting out some wind and rain. We were trying to decide when to leave here, and Amanda said "let's leave when we're ready". It's such a simple concept, but hit me like a ton of bricks. Yes! We'll leave when the chores are done, the weather's good and when we want to... no need for an arbitrary date. I'm enjoying the more relaxed pace of this season already.

We juuuuust managed to get an internet connection up and running, so pictures tomorrow. I think.