{"id":574,"date":"2005-07-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/?p=574"},"modified":"2009-04-15T08:59:57","modified_gmt":"2009-04-15T13:59:57","slug":"s_logs-dashew-dashew229h","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/s_logs-dashew-dashew229h\/","title":{"rendered":"Musket Cove, Fiji"},"content":{"rendered":"
R&R in Musket Cove<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

We’ve spent the majority of the past three weeks just hanging out in Musket Cove.<\/p>\n

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It is a pretty spot, with several modest-sized resorts and a variety of restaurants. The big attraction, however, is the boat watching. All manner of cruising vessels, from a variety of megayachts down to the smallest of ocean cruisers are at anchor.<\/p>\n

There’s a small store for resupply food stuffs and the odd bit of hardware; diesel and gas is available, and the various courier services drop your package off with the Musket Cove office at the Nandi Airport, from where it eventually reaches the island. And if you get tired of the bustle, there are lots of secluded anchorages within a few hours’ sail. Or, if you hanker for the big city lights, Denerau Harbor, which is next to Nandi, is just 20 miles away.<\/p>\n

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We’ve spent the last weeks in the company of old friends. The Schmidts on the Deerfoot 72 Wakaroa<\/em> are anchored to the left of the photo, and in the background our glider-flying friends from Tucson, the Parkers, are anchored on their Sundeer 64 Raven<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now that we are denied the ability to go daysailing, we are considering short trips off the hook to go fishing. We did this twice, with outside experts both times. <\/p>\n

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The crews of Raven<\/em> and Wakaroa<\/em> had a fishing contest, with Wind Horse<\/em> taking the house cut. The pickings were skim, but still enough for several nice meals for all concerned.<\/p>\n

And then our friends on Raven<\/em> took pity on our Unsailboat status and invited us for a daysail.<\/p>\n

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We might be biased, of course, but Raven<\/em> is a very nice boat to sail. Mike and Carol sailed her off the hook, and then back on – through a nicely crowded anchorage – the highlight of the week for boat-watchers. We went through the full sail inventory, from working jib through code zero to asymmetric spinnaker. The sails look great after four to ten years of use – a credit to North Sails detailing and fabric.<\/p>\n

We could have hung out for a couple of months, just enjoying kicking back, doing the occasional boat chore, and thinking maybe at some point we should get productive. However, we still have close to 5,000 miles of ocean to traverse and we are missing the family, so we’ve been forced to move on.<\/p>\n

We’re headed around the top of Vitu Levu, and thence to Savu Savu on Vanua Levu from where we’ll take our departure East. The trip around the island is through reef-strewn waters, and even though we now have reasonable charts with which to work, we prefer to move when we have good visibility.<\/p>\n

We made it as far as Tavua, and then the sun was obscured with overcast and we could no longer see below the surface.<\/p>\n

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So, we’re tucked in behind the reefs at present, securely anchored in 33 feet (10m) of water, with good holding in medium-firm mud. A trough of low pressure is overhead, and it is overcast with steady drizzle.<\/p>\n

Except for a few local small boats fishing, there is not another vessel to be seen. Shore is a couple of miles away, and there are few lights in the evening. We’ve been here for two days now, enjoying the solitude. The water tanks have been filled with rainwater, and we’ve had a chance to catch up on paperwork, e-mails, a few boat chores, and work on a DVD project. And we’ve been working through the movie inventory (which in the social whirl of Musket Cove has lain somewhat dormant).<\/p>\n

With the wind now in the southwest, probably tomorrow the fair weather will return and we will push on through the reefs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

R&R in Musket Cove<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dashew-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}