31 August 2007
Royal Suva Yacht Club, Suva, Fiji
Our stay in Apia, Samoa, was rather short when we found out that there wasn't a real German consulate over there in which I could obtain a new passport. We did manage to tour the island with our friends from PADDY WEST'S and we got to know the local Trans-Ocean guys as well as Cap'n Fatty Goodlander and his wife on WILDCARD. All in all it was a pleasant stay, but we were itching to get rolling as we still had a lot to do with the cyclone season approaching.
So, after about a week, we headed out to sea again. Unfortunately the weather was the most unpleasant in a long time. All the way to Suva, Fiji, we encountered one heavy squall after another. Very strong winds and plenty of rain made everything into a chore and of course things started to break down absolutely everywhere. On the very last day, we lost the topping lift and a big shackle sank into the depths, which ruined my mood even further.
For a change, we looked forward to the end of the trip instead of enjoying the passage. Naturally we arrived here at night, the next day being a Sunday. It really is strange. It has been like this every single time for the last two years. So we slowed down the boat to arrive at the entrance in daylight and went through the pass under engine alone.
We had to re-anchor three times to satisfy the regulations from Quarantine, the Harbor Master and the Pilot, who needed a lot of space to turn container vessels around. Slightly exasperated we finally found a spot in a depth of 20 meters - definitely not ideal conditions.
On Monday we waited all morning for the officials, but when they finally arrived, everything was so easy and the Fijians were so full of good cheer, that the bill of US$ 67 for the ROBERTS DUNSTAN, which brought them all over to the DHARMA BUM III dampened our spirits only a little bit. We were eagerly asking questions which were mostly concerned with the coming cyclone season and what to do about it. New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, North Pacific or what?
That question got settled very soon as Fiji wouldn't allow us to stay that long anyway. Unless, that is, we flew out and came back. As this was going to cost around US$ 5,000 for the three of us, it was not really an option. Reports from Australia and New Zealand ranged from bad to horrible, so that we weren't all that interested in this option either. We don't like the cold at all, we don't enjoy dealing with excessive red tape and regulations and we sure as hell don't want to spend a small fortune to buy materials and even more money for mediocre to bad workmanship. The power of prejudice, you might say, but as the reports from other yachties were pretty much the same, it would be folly not to heed them.
First thing we did, was to get the ball rolling to get new passports for Aurora Ulani and me. Then I trudged off to buy a new 6 Volt battery, which cost about twice as much as it had cost in the Caribbean. We had heard that the catamaran NYEKI had gone onto the reef from the outside because the ranging lights had been changed from red to blue and this again confirmed to us that it isn't such a good idea to enter an unknown harbor at night. It seems as if almost everybody does this, though, rather than spending another night at sea. Not us, that's for sure! We manage to hit reefs in broad daylight. ;-)
We were in for a bit of a shock, as we found out that even the biggest travellift in Fiji can't take us out of the water. The reason is our beam of 6.39 meters. The widest slipway here can only handle 20 feet. In the end we had no option but to use the government shipyard, which costs about 100 bucks a day. And since we would be spending quite some time up there, this was very bad news indeed.
By now we had made our decision to spend the cyclone season in Kiribati, Micronesia and the North Pacific. This decision lent a new urgency to our repair efforts and soon I had a date set for the haul-out. We waited for the divers for an hour or so and when we were finally positioned in front of the lift - not so easy with the wind from the side and between numerous wrecks and commercial ships - we found out that the big winch on the slip wouldn't work. The tide was now against us, another ship waited for the crew and so we had to go back to our old anchorage in front of the Royal Suva Yacht Club. Here you pay five bucks a day, but the advantage is that it is in walking distance of the city.
In the afternoon Felipe from the shipyard told us that the motor on the winch was not repairable and that they would have to get a new one, put it in and make it work. No idea how long that would take. While all this was going on, I was busy making inquiries about all kinds of things and opening up a local bank account. That alone took about three full days, as the documentation required is quite mind-boggling. All to ensure that I am not supporting any terrorists or to prevent me from money-laundering. "What money?" I was thinking. It laundered itself quite effortlessly out of my pockets and into those of the government (almost 40% import duty on my batteries) or the various shops where I bought stuff for my boat. Who needs piracy when one can get all the money one needs from the yachties quite legally? Jokes aside, yachties have now definitely become a financial resource and (truth be told) lots of them are throwing money at their boats as you wouldn't believe. For the rest of us, life is becoming increasingly difficult.
The broken motor in the winch turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it has been raining pretty much non-stop since that interesting day. Today I bought 100 meters of 12 mm double-braid rope for DHARMA BUM III, I had a hole in one of my blocks enlarged (local shackles won't fit) and traced several electrical problems on board. Still, the to-do list is uncomfortably long and in about six weeks we want to head out of here. Not much time, but we don't want to experience something like our friends Karl & Libu Hauschke on their ROSINANTE when they got hit by hurricane DEAN in Martinique recently. No, we've got to go and we've got to go where it is warm and where the South Seas haven't only lost their innocence a long time ago but where they aren't beginning to lose their charm as I write this.