[radioactiv]

[position] 19 51.036s 174 24.912w

[status] Still at anchor in almost-paradise: Uoleva, (an island sou’west from Pangai.) Turns out Paradise rains. Paradise rains a lot!! During the sunny bits, over the past couple of days team Moonfish and team Fusio have walked part way around Uoleva, had swims, met an Italian couple staying at Captain Cook ‘resort’, had beers and nibbled on fresh coconut at Craig & Wanita’s (his dog) camp resort called TALITALI’ANGA (awesome beach bar!! Well worth a look!), had BBQ’s, and one night we all watched a very funny Australian comedian do his stand up act – I think his name is Jim Jefferies (very rude, but well worth a watch as he is one of those smart-comedians who makes funny but well thought out social commentary). We’ve all met Barry the (so-called friendly) Barracuda. Sasha spotted him first, hopefully pointing him out and exclaiming “kingfish” (to date Team Moonfish has yet to catch a fish!). MALibu and Mike laughed at Sasha’s fish identification, Sasha
then suggested ‘Shark?’. Mike got his snorkel and mask and lay on the transom while tentatively putting his face in the water to get a better look – definitely a very curious Barracuda with those big fangs!! Mike fed him a salted pilchard as he skulked under Moonfish’s hulls , Barry made short work of that, guzzling it down quickly. Layne was keen to swim with him – she is keen to swim with anything that has large teeth, that looks very well equipped to do one serious harm. The next day she did end up swimming with Barry, but wouldn’t have known if it hadn’t been for Warwick pointing Barry out to her. Sasha got gopro footage of Barry, so he will be one of her holiday-movie’s guest stars.
While MALibu walked right the way around Uoleva, the rest of us attempted to go kiting yesterday morning at the northern tip of Uoleva. It was windy when Mike and Sasha set out in the dinghy (well past 10am when Sasha finally decided it was time to get out of bed, after her cuppa and a read). The sea conditions made the tender ride to the supposed kiting spot unbelievably uncomfortable, we got there and Layne and Warwick were already there amping to go! Mike and Sasha beached their tender, and walked out to meet team FUSIO on the sand spit, unfortunately their dinghy parking wasn’t that flash and soon their loaded-up tender was getting swamped by waves, Mike ran back to save it, and began bailing. Once that was sorted, we made the decision to kite closer to where the boats were anchored - this was our undoing. By the time we had got to the designated spot, pumped up our kites, walked out our lines, the wind had gone. There was much disappointment at this point in our trip, a
nd in jest Sasha’s sleep-in was blamed as the key reason for this disappointment. On that note, Sasha’s sleep patterns seem to be one of the favourite conversation topics here in paradise – Sasha can’t understand why she is being berated for sleeping when it is one of the best things you can do for your health.
Yesterday afternoon the rain set in, and it has rained all night, not ideal when you need hatches open to ensure the boat is ventilated – we did purchase one large black plastic fan that can be wired in, which may well be a job for Magic Mike one of these days. While Mike and MALibu had a few beers on MALibu’s last afternoon, Sasha made burger buns from scratch, and started preparations for Mega Awesome Moonfish Hamburgers, homemade meat patties, fried red onion, cheese, pickle, mustard, tomato sauce, beetroot - they were soooo good! Sasha was up early today – to listen to GHR – it only took her 15mins in her sleepy stupor to realise she had messed up her timing calculations yet again, and had unnecessarily awoken one hour earlier than need be. Ha, thought Sasha…. math eh… pretty useful stuff to know even in the islands.

[speed] 0knots

[heading] 90M

[weather] RAIN! We are having a lot of warm wet RAIN! Easterly wind, and we can see blue sky on the horizon – thank goodness!

[END]