Denarau All change all change !!!!

Since arriving in Denarau Marina about a week ago it has been all go. This is a busy place with some berths for cruising boats in the marina, many berths for tourist ferries and charter boats, and a small number of swing moorings. While anchored outside in front of the hotels we came ashore and organised a mooring with the marina folk. We motored in the next day and Denise made a perfect pick up of the buoy in front of the hundred tourists waiting for ferries, the hard drinking holiday makers in the bars on the wharf and the other moored boat owners!! The D and D team made it! (better than the next boat in which had four frustrating goes at picking up their mooring)
It is good here with plenty of activity going on around the harbour all day. A new shopping area on the wharf, bread shop, small supermarket, water, diesel etc.
The town of Nadi is only a short bus ride away and is a busy place with a great fruit and veg market. Denise had made out a list of victuals we needed and we brought a big load back to the boat by taxi from Nadi.
New crew Ted flew in on Tuesday. We met him at the airport and it was great to catch up with his news especially as he had been in Canada for the last 4 weeks traveling round and also cycling for a few days there.
Denise flew back to New Zealand on Wednesday. I was sad to see her go as we have had such a great time cruising around so many interesting places over the last few months. She is a great navigator, crew, and her cooking skills are of the highest french cuisine quality!
However I know our family at home will be so pleased to see her. She is of course very excited to see them all and to see how our granddaughters have grown and changed while we have been away.
Today Ted and I went by bus to Lautoka to sign him in with immigration as my new crew. We had a look around Lautoka then went by bus to Vuda Point Marina. This is an amazing place with about a hundred boats in a circular Marina. We caught up with Tom and Janis an American couple who Denise and I had first met in Samoa. They will leave their boat on land there while they fly back to the USA until the cyclone season is over by next May. It is an interesting system used - a hole is dug in the ground to house the keel and the boat is taken out of the water, dropped into the hole and tires are packed around underneath the hull.
Ted and I are watching the weather files on the computer carefully and may leave early next week depending on the weather by then.

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