September 7 - 13, 2008: South Pacific Musket Cove, Malololailai Island, Fiji (S 17.46.22 E 177.11.07) http://maps.google.com

After gingery threading our way through the coral heads we dropped anchor at Musket Cove at just after noon. Musket Cove is usually the last jumping off point for any yachtie going to Australia or New Zealand assuming you've made your way to Fiji. Its also a very well developed resort so there is lots to do here. You can also see it was pretty full of boats. There must have been 20-30 anchored in the bay or tied up at their docks.

On of the great things about the place was a common barbecue and bar set up. You could buy your meat at their store bring your sides from your boat and cook it up on their grills while communing with the other yachties. The facilities were really first class. The best we'd seen since San Diego. When we were in Rarotonga we heard about a boat that was suppose to have hit a whale on their way to Tonga. We met the captain at the barbecue. He had also just run aground while coming to Musket Cove the night before ( talk about bad luck) and needed to have major work done on his rudder because of the grounding. It least he could get it as this area had major marine facilities to do just such work. This was his second trip across the Pacific so it doesn't matter how experienced you are before you number comes up.

First on our agenda was the diving. This is the area where the film "Cast Away" with Tom Hanks was made. That's a picture of the island.

The water was clear and the coral was nice but not a lot of large marine life. Its amazing how picky we had became in judging the dive sites. The dive boat came right to Present Moment to pick us up so it was well organized and convenient.

The Mamanucuc Group is a major tourist destination full of resorts ranging from very high end, built over the water like in French Polynesia, to the family budget resort. They were busy with Australian and New Zealand tourists. Its definitely worth visiting and the prices are much more reasonable than French Polynesia.

Having worked out the Club Med cravings in our system, we moved to Port Denarau on September 10th to do more provisioning and clear formalities in Fiji. We also took the opportunity to rent a car (very inexpensive) and tour the main island of Viti Levu. We drove from Nadi, which has a major international airport, alone the coast to Sigatoka. Sigatoka is a neat grid of a town tucked into green hills on the large Sigatoka River. The countryside was nice, mostly sugar cane fields.. Other than the tourist areas it was economically very poor. A Dengue fever epidemic had just broken out in Port Denarau so it was time for us to move on . On the 13th we started our 585 mile passage to Vanuatu in very calm winds and seas.