{"id":4279,"date":"2016-09-15T01:12:57","date_gmt":"2016-09-15T01:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/?p=4279"},"modified":"2016-09-15T01:12:57","modified_gmt":"2016-09-15T01:12:57","slug":"the-parting-glass-viti-levu-fiji","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/?p=4279","title":{"rendered":"The Parting Glass – Viti Levu, Fiji"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
The crews of Rehua and Toucan, Vuda Point Marina (and no, Seathan wasn’t drinking a milkshake!)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fiji seems to be the major interchange hub on the Pacific blue highway \u2013 throughout the year boats congregate here from across the Pacific, others come from New Zealand or Australia, but as the cyclone season nears everyone has to make the same decision – \u201cwhere to next?\u201d. And there\u2019s plenty of choices \u2013 some decide to stay in Fiji, many go back to New Zealand or travel west to Australia, and others go north out of the cyclone zone and into Micronesia. We\u2019ve grown accustomed to the ebb and flow of cruising relationships, but it\u2019s never easy saying farewells, particularly when we have no idea how long it will be until the next reunion. So we don\u2019t say goodbye\u2026. we say \u2018a bientot\u2019, \u2018see you later\u2019, \u2018until next time\u2019 and hope our paths cross again before too long\u2026.<\/p>\n

The last couple of weeks we\u2019ve been back at Musket Cove, enjoying a few (oh OK quite a few) parting glasses with our friends from Rehua and Escape Velocity while we accustom ourselves to the fact that they\u2019re moving on, while we, for the time being, are staying put. The wind has been blowing a constant 20-25 kts from the south-east so our plans to do some snorkeling on nearby Namotu reef had to be shelved. The reef surrounding Namotu is home to the mecca of surfing, the famous \u201cCloudbreak\u201d \u2013 definitely not for the faint-hearted or the inexperienced as the surf breaks right over the shallow reef. In the last few weeks we\u2019ve heard enough gruesome stories of injuries sustained here to convince us to stay well away\u2026<\/p>\n

\"beautiful
beautiful Namotu Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The reefs surrounding Namotu, Cloudbreak out there on the horizon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Cloudbreak
Cloudbreak – the Nirvana of surfing (photo gleaned from the internet)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"And
And this is why it’s so treacherous… (again, not my photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After we\u2019d soaked up enough of the Musket Cove ambience (and Bruce and Seathan had soaked up all the remaining alcohol in the bars) we returned to Vuda Point \u2013 they\u2019d overcharged us for our marina stay and the only way we were going to get our money back was to collect it in cash, in person. It just so happened that Rehua were checking out there the next day, so we enjoyed the live music at the waterfront bar and yet another couple of parting glasses while we reminisced about our shared experiences over the past 18 months. What fun we\u2019ve had!<\/p>\n

Now Rehua are on their way to New Caledonia, Escape Velocity will be heading off soon on their way to Vanuatu, and we\u2019re making a much more mundane passage about 5 miles south to Port Denarau Marina, where we\u2019re hoping to get our freezer fixed. Such is the cruising life!<\/p>\n

“So fill to me the Parting Glass<\/p>\n

And drink a health whate’er befalls<\/p>\n

And gently rise and softly call<\/p>\n

Goodnight and joy be to you all”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"IMG_4238\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fiji seems to be the major interchange hub on the Pacific blue highway \u2013 throughout the year boats congregate here from across the Pacific, others come from New Zealand or Australia, but as the cyclone season nears everyone has to make the same decision – \u201cwhere to next?\u201d. And there\u2019s plenty of choices \u2013 some … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Parting Glass – Viti Levu, Fiji”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Parting Glass - Viti Levu, Fiji","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-svtoucan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6B46t-171","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4279"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4290,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4279\/revisions\/4290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}