A Family Visit, and Decommissioning

Our kids and grandkids arrived in Fiji at the beginning of November. They had a ball.  It was perfect weather.  We cooled off in our private pool, we had drinks at the Island Bar Musket Cove Yacht Club, we swam in the lagoon and the saltwater pool, we hired a boat to take the whole family out to the best snorkeling spot out on a reef, and we took Cool Change out to a floating bar called Cloud Nine for a day of adult refreshments and swimming. And we women had our spa day.

Everyone had ample time to take long walks on the beach or whatever else they wanted to do, but we ate together every night, each family rotating food preparation.  Dan’s family made friends with an Australian family with a daughter about our granddaughters’ age.  The whole trip was memorable, and I hope everyone keeps those memories close to their hearts for a long time.

While Drew and Angela left according to plan when the Airbnb rental was up, Dan’s family decided to stay longer.  After we all somehow managed to spend the night aboard Cool Change together, we sailed them over the next day to an island called Mana, about a ten mile sail from Musket Cove.  There we had found them a little surfer-cottage right on the beach.  We visited the nearby Mana Island Resort, and Dan’s family again made friends with another couple from Australia with a young daughter.  We only had three days there, but they made quite an impact. 

One of the things we did was to visit the local school and offer them some gifts of school supplies we had bought for them.  Once there, Leanne, Dan’s partner, came to understand that water was an issue on the island and for the school. Specifically, they would run out of fresh water because water came exclusively from rain catchment systems, and they didn’t have enough water tanks to store enough rain to make it through the dryer season.  So, Leanne decided to personally address that issue. She talked with the Headmaster of the school, got the phone number of the tank vendor (which is on the main island), and arranged to pay for a huge water tank to be purchased and delivered to the school!  That blew me away.  Hats off to you, Leanne.     

Once our family had departed, it was time to decommission for the season – not my favorite task. We decided to make it somewhat less painful by doing most of the decommissioning at the other marina in the area, called Denarau Island.  It has real floating fingers on the dock so you don’t risk a fall when disembarking, the showers are wonderfully clean and convenient, and the laundry facilities far surpass those of Vuda.  Besides, it is located right in the middle of a commercial center with tons of restaurants, souvenir shops, clothing stores and grocery stores.  The ‘real Fiji,’ it is not, with the only Fijians being workers and not residents of the Island. The “island” was artificially created by moving a reef around to make canals and stable platforms for luxury homes, international hotels and commercial centers.  The whole area is gated and even the taxis need a  special  permit to enter.  Virtually all the customers are foreign.  But for our purposes, it worked well to provide us all the conveniences we needed to make decommissioning comfortable.  Also, there are boat maintenance businesses on the island right near the marina, and we were able to have our anchor system redesigned while we were there.

Finally, the time came to move over to Vuda Marina, have Cool Change hauled out, and have her tied down in a cyclone pit for the season.  Once she was hauled out, there was no more room in the cabin to sleep so we rented an air-conditioned cabin for the last four nights. That really made the effort tolerable. We are heading back there mid-April, when we intend to recommission her and put all our efforts into selling her.  

A few words about Fijian culture, before I close. We have only spent a little over two months in Fiji so far, and most of the Fijians we have met are accustomed to foreigners, so I can’t say we have had much immersion into the “real Fiji.” But one of my interactions was quite telling. It involved a Fijian bakery clerk. A tourist in line ahead of me at the bakery asked another tourist, who had approached the bakery counter and had started to order, to go to the end of the line and wait her turn. I don’t believe the woman in line was particularly mean about it, but the women who had stepped up to the counter seemed a bit taken aback. She withdrew from the counter, stood there a while, and then left without ordering anything. It was an awkward few moments for everyone, and the clerk made eye contact with me while it was happening. When I reached the counter, the clerk said, “That, what happened just then, is not the Fijian way. We help anyone who asks for it.” (Of course I felt a little guilty because I was quietly grateful that the woman in line insisted on respect for the line, because I was in it!) I think what the clerk was saying was that she thought the woman in line was rude to the one who walked up to the counter, because in Fiji, treating people with respect and not saying anything that might offend them takes precedence over social organizational structures like lines. It even seems to take precedence over rudeness. That certainly would explain how courteous and kind Fijians have always been to us and those around us, even when undeserved.

Our flights home on Fiji Airways were fairly comfortable; we got lucky because the middle seat between us on the long flight was unoccupied, and Fiji Airways didn’t change our paid seat selections, as they are often prone to do. We got home just in time to make a Thanksgiving dinner over the holiday weekend, unpack, and then act as caregivers for Rick’s sister Linda, who had a hip replacement.  We are looking forward to January, when we hope to have a little time to indulge ourselves in some of those routines of living at home that we miss so much.  

I think we all learned from COVID that we really can’t say what tomorrow will bring.  It is our hope that we will be able to find the right buyer for Cool Change and that we will be home sooner from the South Pacific next year than last. Meanwhile, we hope that any health issues we have will continue to be manageable, and that our loved ones will stay healthy as well.  This season in the South Pacific, in spite of all the adventure and joyful moments of discovery, was a time when we missed home more than we have in the past. After all, we had never really lived full time at home for an extended period after retirement until COVID hit, and I think we learned that we kinda liked it!  This may foretell a tendency in the future to plan shorter voyages and more time at home.  But we will see. Like I said, we really can’t say what tomorrow will bring, so all we can do is enjoy today.  Happy Holidays.