M/Y Iron Lady

Dropping back a few days before Nadi, it was actually fortuitous that we did not proceed directly from Suva to Nadi. With the engine Murphy gauge issues sorted out, it was too late to proceed direct. We reviewed our Lonely Planet guide for Fiji and set our sights on Beqa (pronounced Binga). As a quick aside, we have found the Lonely Planet guides really useful – we highly recommend them as an additional cruising guide. From now on, we won’t be without them.

Beqa, it turns out, has a marvelous resort on it (the Beqa Lagoon Resort) that we would rate at 4 to 5 stars. The central pavilion is constructed in a traditional manner and is just charming. There are 12 Bures (small huts) that accommodate up to 24 people. Each Bure has its own small freshwater pool and view of the lagoon. The Lodge caters to divers and each day, the lodge transports folks out for two tank dives on the local reefs. The afternoons offer snorkeling, lounging by the wonderful freshwater pool, day hikes, crafts and many other activities.

It didn’t take Deb long to spot the day spa with its substantial list of services. Deb signed on for the works.

Steve and I walked the grounds, took care of some boat chores and went snorkeling on the local reefs. While nice, we are spoiled after some of the truly magnificent reefs we have seen.

The lodge proprietor, was wonderful and invited us to stay on for dinner. He also suggested that we come by at 6 PM for cocktails and listen to the Ravi Ravi Church choir from the local village. They apparently are well known as one of the best small choirs in Fiji.

When we arrived, the sun was setting and lanterns and torches lit the entire area – it was lovely. The choir was indeed excellent. I am in the process of figuring out how to upload video to the blog. Once I do so, I will put up some of their music.

The food was excellent. We had lamb shank with vegetables and potatos, creamed soup and a souffle for desert. The proprietor is an Aussie and he said that’s what Sunday dinners had to be. We agree.

We sat with a couple from California (the wife was Swedish) and they shared some of their pictures from the days dive. We talked about some of the places we had been in Sweden.

Really a great day and evening.

While in Suva, we stopped by the local tackle store and bought all the latest and greatest lures they suggested for this area. We also bought a large spool of 80 pound test line and re-spooled one of our 50’s with 80 pound. We could get away with this because both the rod and reel are rated for 80 pound – just not as much line capacity. As the Shimano Tiagra 2 speed reels are 50 wides – that is still a lot of line. Besides, the coat of an 80 pound Tiagra in Suva was around 13,400 Fijian Dollars – ouch.

We tried all of the latest and greatest on the way up the coast and left Son of Shabby in the box. No joy. As the structure was absolutely great, we suspect that the Chinese fishing fleet had a lot to do with wiping out the area.

Once north of Beqa, I decided to retire the latest and greatest stuff and dug Son of Shabby out of the tackle box. His first day out was less then spectacular – no fish – and we wondered if he was made of the same stuff as his father.

The answer came this morning enroute to Nadi. Son of Shabby snagged an absolutely beautiful 15 KG yellow fin tuna. Deb made a small filet for lunch – and it was the best fish ever.

Steve Dashew suggested we go to Tata’s in Denerau. Sorry Steve, tuna steaks onboard tonight.

Once in Nadi, we went to town and hit the local markets. This Pelangi (white guy) needed a haircut so I stopped by the local barber shop. The tab – USD 3.

Across the street was a market, so we picked up all of our fresh veges, fruit, rice, eggs and kava. Kava is a root and a member of the pepper family that when pounded into a pulp and mixed with water makes a mild narcotic. The roots are to be presented to the village chiefs for a ceremony in the out islands.

Back aboard, we had an island feast. Grilled tuna with a wonderful sauce that Steve made, boiled taro root and bok choi.

Thanks Son of Shabby!

Awhile back, I did a post on Iron Lady’s booms and their authorized and unauthorized uses. We now have one use that falls in the “never again” category. Enroute to Suva, Deb encouraged this bird that had been hanging about to take up residence on one of the booms.

It obliged and settled in for the night.

When morning arrived 120 nautical mile later, our feathered friend was still there.

Well everybody knows what birds do – I just didn’t realize that birds do it at night while sleeping as well. And this was a rather large bird so his do do was – well – substantial. He had managed to coat the boom and the deck area under the boom. When I saw the mess, I started to rattle the lines to send our friend on his way. He refused and then proceeded to poop on Deb who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He finally yawned, stretched his wings and took off leaving us to deal with his poop.

Once at anchor, Steve put his training on the yards on square riggers to good use and washed off the rest of the poop on the boom.

Going forward, birds will be strictly prohibited from taking up residence on the booms (or any where else on the boat).

Plans for the day were to pull the hook very early and head for Nadi from Suva – roughly 11 hours and a reef entry at Nandi so we wanted to reach there while it was still light. At first light, we started the John Deere and got a warning on the LCD display that we had a Can Bus failure. The only suggestion in the Deere manual was to contact a servicing dealer. We weren’t sure if the Can Bus was just part of the instrumentation system or actually also functioned as part of engine control. We immediately shut down the engine and put a call in to Todd Rickard (Sunday our time, Saturday his time). Todd was busy with Sarah Sarah (FPB64 – 2) at Trawlerfest, so it certainly wasn’t the best time for him to have to deal with our issue.

None the less, Todd dropped everything and ran down the way to talk to Wayne Gregg of Gregg Diesel. In short order, Todd had some trouble shooting suggestions for us and stated that Wayne was waiting for our call if we needed more help. Bottom line – we should try a hard reboot of the engine control system by shutting off the main battery disconnect. Wayne said that 90% of the time this fixes things. We tried that and no joy, so we called Wayne and after a bit of discussion, suggested that the issue was with the Murphy gauge controller on the Deere Main Engine panel. He suggested we try disconnecting and reconnecting the unit to see if that solved the problem. He also said that it was completely safe for us to proceed on our way – particularly since we had a completely separate engine warning system in addition to the analog Murphy gauges in the engine room. We tired the disconnect and reconnect and still no joy, so we called Todd back and he said he would get a replacement expressed to us in Nadi, Fiji (parts are real tough to come by out here).

Lessons learned:

1) When all else fails, reboot the ailing system and disconnect and reconnect the plugs – even if the ailing component is a toaster. Everything today is electronic.

2) Buy an FPB 64 – the back up systems that are standard left us in a position where we could proceed with a failed engine monitoring system because we had a stand alone back up system that covered us – how many other builder/designers go to those lengths?

3) Buy an FPB 64 – when you are cruising this part of the world you really are on your own. It’s awfully comforting to know that you can call the FPB team and get real answers, tech support and the odd part expressed to you that isn’t already part of onboard spares. Not in days or weeks, but often in less then an hour. How many other builder/designers would go to those kind of lengths for you?

Oh yes, the errant component came back to life on the way out of the harbor. Just another one of life’s great mysteries.

Now I know why they are called Murphy gauges – must have been made by the one and the same who wrote Murphy’s Law.

One note – the FPB team STRONGLY encourages all owner’s to tour New Zealand until they have 250 hours on the engine – that way help is close at hand when the inevitable issues arise (and they will even on a boat as well done as the FPB). Good advice and touring NZ is hardly tough duty. We are now at 370 hours.

Well, we lost the ability to go to Nadi today. Just out the front window is Beqa of Hindu fire walking fame. Great lagoon, nice resort, walks to waterfalls and traditional island feasts – we may just have to stay on a few days and get to Nadi later in the week. Oh well.

The transit from Tonga to Fiji took us a total of 44 hours at sea. While it was my first tradewind passage, it was pretty much what I anticipated it would be. The winds blew a consistent 15 to 25 knots from east to west and the seas were generally from the southeast at 2 to 3 meters. As the passage progressed, both the winds and seas dropped to the low end of the range.

We ran at a steady 1600 RPM – barely loafing along for the big John Deere. That gave us a speed over ground of just over 9 knots. There was no need to rush as we wanted to make our landfall in Suva at first light. The engine turned over 300 hours during the trip which translates to over 2700 miles at sea since launch.

Approaching Suva, the island presents as a high, rugged island that is volcanic in origin. There are rain forest on the upper reaches as the peaks catch the moisture from the trades in the form of rain.

Suva harbor was a bit unusual by my standards as it is virtually open visually to the sea from the south. It is well protected, however, by a thorny reef with a narrow passage. Once inside, there is little wave activity.

Customs and Immigration formalities were efficiently handled. The Royal Suva Yacht Club gathers all the officials and brings them all to the boat at one time. The only complication was visiting all of the government offices the next day to pay our fees and obtain cruising permits for the outer islands. That part took Steve the better part of an afternoon as the offices were scattered all over the city and even the officials weren’t quite sure where they all were.

After the small villages and small cities of Nava’U and Nuku Alofa in Tonga, it was a bit of big city shock when we arrived in Suva. Suva is a bustling port city of 350,000 people and I will admit that it took a bit of adjustment to get accustomed to the hustle, bustle, sights and sound of the “big city”.

We were warned by the good folks at the yacht club to be careful of our possessions as pick pockets are a major problem here. We were also warned about hustlers who would charm there way in to your day and make money by guiding you to establishments that gave them kickbacks on your purchases. We had an encounter of the latter kind with Alec – once latched on, he was like a remora. We finally ducked in to a higher end establishment where he was asked to depart and leave us be.

The chore list today is to re provision our perishables at the market, pick up some more fishing gear and odds and ends that we need. The city is an odd mix of modern shopping mall and open air market as can be seen from the following.

The Chinese are here in force with their fishing boats to capture yellow fin tuna. They also have a significant economic presence here – my impression is that it is all set up to their advantage and not the Fijians.

The plan is to move on to Port Denarau tomorrow where some replacement parts are awaiting us and a spa is awaiting Deb.

Cheers

Our dear friend who has supplied us with countless fish has met his end. This morning, a major wahoo almost took him, but the fish got off and Mr. Shabby survived. Later this morning, he hooked up a nice lunch size Mahi Mahi but it got off at the boat as well.

Mr.Shabby was really looking shabby after these latest encounters. The feathers were gone; the rubber skirt was chewed to bits; and the eyes (he originally had four) were all gone. We decided to restore Mr. Shabby’s name to the Purple Wonder and give him another 30 minutes of swim time before retiring him and giving him a suitable burial at sea.

Such was not to be the case. The Purple Wonder had other plans. We were just debating whether to have egg salad sandwiches for lunch or hope for another fish when the reel just absolutely screamed. By the time Steve and I made it to the back deck, a very, very large Marlin had already taken several hundred yards of line and was tail walking all over the place behind the boat. I cranked down the drag on our 50 pound class tackle as far as it would go and the line just continued to just scream off the reel.

Our attempts to stop the fish were futile. I have no idea how big it was, but it was huge – the biggest marlin I have ever had on the other end of the rod. There was nothing for us to do but cut the line before it spooled us and wrecked our gear. When the line parted, it sounded like a gun went off.

Farewell Mr. Shabby (I mean Purple Wonder) – I am sure that was the kind of end you wanted instead of being retired to the bottom of the tackle box.

Your replacement (Son of Shabby) alias the Pink Wonder is now in service. He has a lot to live up to.

1120 Local TIme – May 11, 2011 – May the Purple Wonder rest in peace wherever you are.