So Sunday morning we were all up early, retrieving our anchors from the coral maze beneath us (which went surprisingly well). Steelheart with Jack aboard took the lead, and we followed a zigzag route more or less as it is laid out in the Calder cruising guide westward along the shore inside the main reef. Steelheart decided to linger another day in an anchorage near the pass, while Jack jumped in his tinny (an aluminum skiff) and took himself home. We exited the pass without incident and remembered to make the track into a route for a return visit.

Unfortunately the day kind of ran downhill after that. Here we were on the last leg, the home stretch, as it were, where, going west, we had every right to expect a good sail. The forecast was for 15-20 with gusts to 25 from the East, yet we had barely ten from dead astern. We gave up sailing as the boat rolled in the swell, the sky clouded over, and the GPS calculated that it would take us twelve hours at 2.5 knots. NOT! Don says he's going to calculate the number of engine hours used in our trip around, but I don't think I'll publicize it!

As we bore down on Point Passage off Lesiaceva Point, it started to rain. It was misty to start but got serious as we rounded the lighthouse, blotting out the boats at anchor off Cousteau. We'd hoped to pick up Curly's mooring from which we left almost two months ago, but it was taken by another boat. Ah well, close enough.

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation