Wednesday 31st May 2017

It may seem churlish to complain but ITS TOO HOT! After seven months out of the tropics it is taking us a few days to acclimatise. With high humidity and temperatures around 30 C every small amount of effort brings us out into a sweat and sleeping is difficult. The Copra Shed Marina is half a mile up Namaka Creek and right in the middle of Savusavu town, so its not the best place to swim, emergency cooling down is achieved by driving the dingy ten minutes out into the bay and jumping into the water.

Our first job, once the customs formalities were completed, was to clean up the boat. The decks and fittings have been liberally hosed down, four bags of washing have been processed for me at the marina laundry and the new washing machine onboard has done a good job with all our jumpers and winter clothes, that are now, along with the heavy weight quilts, packed away in deep storage. And the cabins and salon are almost neat and tidy, ready for Penny and Stephen who arrive today. In between times we have been enjoying the company of John and Deb from Moonshadow, who are tied up next to us, with the odd drink, excursions to the excellent local chinese restaurant and swims in the bay.

Savusavu is quite a large town by Pacific Island standards and besides the Chinese there are another half dozen restaurants and plenty of shops. The town lies almost exclusively on one street that runs parallel to the creek, a line of colourful but ramshackle buildings. 

There are few purpose built structures, everything from the customs office to the bus station to tiny, scruffy electrical stores are elbowed into whatever space is available. There is a large fruit and veg market that looks pretty good, there are a couple of supermarkets that aren’t badly stocked and we have found the ‘it’s better on the inside’ meat store that friends on Kinabalu told us about in Opua.  It has taken us a day or two to get out of the everything always available mindset that we had in New Zealand and back to the buying what you can when you see it statergy, that works best here. With a bit of flexibility provisioning for four people for two weeks shouldn’t be too much of a challenge.

We should get our cruising permit signed and sealed this morning, so once Penny and Stephen arrive we shall head out. First stop just a few miles down the coast but with clean water and a snorkelling reef I’m sure that the heat will be more easily endured.