The Dreaded Pizza

What can change your course or plans.  The weather.. new information…a piece of pizza?  What?  Cheryl made pizza, not unusual on Interlude but then she bit down and broke a tooth.  Oops, so off to Suva we go.

Instead of heading the next to the southern Lau, to island called Falanga, we are off to a dentist 50 miles away in the capital city of Suva. We chose to go to Lami just a short bus ride outside Suva, where Tony, the owner of Vuda Point and Copra Shed Marinas has some mooring balls.  Karen called him and he said sure go ahead and use the mooring balls if one is free and gives Karen the caretaker, Sonny’s, number to see if one is available.  Yup we are in luck. We called Sunny when we were close, as it is Saturday, he had left for the day, but gives us some details and we are fine.  Cheryl had written to Ian on Summer Spirit and he contacted some people in Suva to get a name of a good dentist.  Cheryl has an appointment for Monday at eleven so all is good.

Sunday we go for a walk, after finding out the place to leave the dinghy which is behind the police boat!!  No problems the gentlemen are lovely.  We walk into Lami, a nice suburb of Suva.  As it was a Sunday we could hear the singing from all the churches in the area and we even lucked into a make shift local market, on the street.

Like all cruisers we had some parts come in but we didn’t get it in time when left Vuda so we heard a friend of a friend was going to Vuda and heading to Suva so arrangement where made.   As it turned our delivery person is the one who gave Ian the name of the dentist a good friend of both Colleen and Ian on Summer Spirit and who is currently looking dog sitting Koli, previously introduced as Wiggle Butt.  So we met up Nirmala lived in Lami, or so we thought and so she did until two weeks ago!!  Anyway we meet up with Nirmala and her daughter Angel, and instead of just passing on the goods, we gabbed for a couple of hours and made plans for the weekend if we were still in Lami.

Monday we headed into Suva, a short taxi ride.  We locate the building with the dentist and get there an hour early.  No issues, the dentist had a cancelation and Cheryl was done, before she was scheduled to go in.  There she stood at the reception with her tooth in hand, or rather the rest of the tooth in hand and a prescription.  We fill the prescription and head back to the boat. Now with another hole in her head…hummm

We had met a couple diving in Kadavu, Gail and Don.  We phoned to say that we were in Suva, certainly sooner than they expected to hear from us.  Anyway, we arranged to have dinner at their place on Friday.  Gail has done a lot of travelling and figured that one of the things we would want to do was laundry.  So in the end, we had lovely company, a lovely dinner and clean laundry!!  Heaven.

It looked like we had another weather window to head to the Falanga so we provisioned on the Friday and then it window slammed shut.  Okay we are in Suva, there must be things to do!!  Lets call Gail and Don.  Oh, Victoria Wines is doing a wine tasting, awesome.  And Gail and Don have been before, all we need to do is see if Cheryl is up for it after all it is only a day after she had her tooth pulled.  The night was great fun and good wine to taste, yup even for toothless.

We are in Suva, so of course we must go to Cost u Less, but really once or twice is enough.  We went to Cost u Less before the dentist.  Then 2 days later we saw a movie, Futureland, actually quite good and of course since Cost u Less is by the movie theater visit number 2.  Then we went to Sunday Jazz at Bad Dogs restaurant beside Cost u Less  with Gail and you guessed it we went in to Cost u less.  Okay 3 times is enough we need to get out of Suva.

Then Karen got the bright idea she wanted to see rice paddies and after searching the internet found a study about rice growing in Fiji.  Gail is selling a friend’s car, but not before she takes us in search of rice.  While we had a lovely day, we didn’t see and rice paddys.  Talked to several people at several government agricultural sites around the east end of the island.  Talked to a man who had been growing rice, but the government never fulfilled its side of the deal, and the land has been let go fallow, so no rice paddies but a lovely drive anyway.

Saturday we had dinner with Nirmala and Angel.  We went early so that we could be part of the cooking process.  Karen was very happy, got to help, got to make roti, had great company, great food and were sent away with leftovers for a very hardy lunch the following day.   

So I am to roll this thing and make it round not the shape of Texas ...hum I need some more work on this.

Moondance arrived in on Tuesday, yes there was a free mooring.  They had a very rough passage, parked just inside the reef at 3 30 in the morning, coming into our anchorage the next day.  After some food and a nap Carla and Doug joined us for a walk into Lami and then we took a taxi to the Royal Suva Yacht Club.  Karen was staring at a lady, finally said “where do we know you from”.  The answer, Erie Spirit, it was Mark and Susan who we had spent some time with in Panama!

While it seemed like we really did have a weather window, so we left on Wednesday afternoon for Fulanga along with Erie Spirit.  The seas were lively for the first few hours, then we sailed and motor sailed for 18 hours and then took the sail down and motored the rest of the way, a swell from the south west, no wind.  Took the pass into Falanga just after high tide, in the slack time, experienced no current.  Just the way a passage should be!!

 

Finally Falanga Southern Lau