Author Archives : Chris French

New scenery to explore


Time to hop over to a nearby anchorage, after coffee we pulled the hook and motored a couple miles to a sand spit beach (only at low tide). A beautiful idyllic spot in just a few meters of water. Later in the morning I cruised the shore via paddle board and stopped on most of the beaches to look around.…

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Wow, are our hosts awesome


In the morning we headed back to the village to give our hosts some sheets that were no longer needed and some fishing lures. It being Sunday, we came across someone walking to church and after the formalities he asked if we were headed to church. Maybe we explained, but we needed to see Alfred and Bali. As we walked…

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Diving with the sharks and meeting our host family


Oh the exciting life of a sailor, yesterday I washed in a bucket a pair of shorts, underwear, a t-shirt, and my swim rash shirt. That was enough for the day, but this morning I took on the placements (one color for each meal of the day) and our cloth napkins (way past when they should have been washed). It…

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Oktoberfest!


After breakfast, we pulled up the anchor and made the short hope to the south island in the atoll, Oqea Driki island. A beautiful little spot where we tucked in tight to shore in quite shallow water 0.8 meters under the keel and water levels still dropping (at low tide we were about 6 inches off the bottom). A plan…

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Exploring the hundreds of tiny islands


Another good night’s sleep and start to the day with the Sky Pond traditional coffee salute. Recently we had noticed the water pump was pulsating, indicating an accumulator tank failure. So Carl and I dove into checking it out. A series of pumping, testing, removing the Shrader valve, cleaning, pumping testing ended in failure. So we removed the accumulator and…

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Passage to Ongea (the Southern Lau group of islands)


We had been watching the weather for a few weeks and hoping for a weather window to get to the Lau group. With the trade winds from the east 99% of the time, we weren’t sure but our chances did not look good. A small window could get us to Kadavu, about half way there, but with typically a month…

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One exhausting day, but it had to be done


It was going to be a huge day, we lifted anchor at 4:00am and with the cruise ship and mega yacht’s lights it made it easier to remain oriented for the ourselves. Exiting from the blue lagoon, we weaved around the islands and reefs timing the sun’s arrival with our exit into longer straight stretches. And with it, up came…

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