Kari and Bret Come to Visit in Fiji

by Stan Once we were settled into navigating Fijian reefs, it was time for visitors and our daughter Kari and son-in-law Bret were the first to come to the South Pacific. The goal was to wear them out and send them home tired after doing all they could in the short period of time they […]

Meet our dinghy, Plug Nickel, who took us to Cloud 9

Check out our custom aluminum tender, and the very unique place she took us today. Given that our goal is to spend a minimum amount of time tied to a dock where we can step from boat to shore, and the maximum amount of time at anchor, dinghies are essential elements of the cruising life. […]

Bula! Welcome to Fiji

We made our landfall in Lautoka, on Fiji’s Island of Viti Levu, on Wednesday afternoon, a bit less than 48 hours ago. All my wave pictures from the passage turned out to be rubbish. No surprise I suppose; I only took 250 of them, and my ratio of ‘deletes’ to ‘keepers’ is more like 500:1, […]

Passage New Zealand to Fiji, Day 5

This should have been the day we made our landfall in Lautoka. But with all the scurrying hither and yon avoiding nasty weather, we lost a day. The great news is conditions have been lovely last night and especially today. Lat: 20 26 S Long: 176 03 E Winds: light and variable, NW, expected to […]

Passage New Zealand to Fiji Day 3

Lat:27 03 S Long: 171 26 E, a little over 600 miles from Fiji, heading northeast The last day/night have been no picnic, but things are settling now. Last night and early this morning we had 30-35 knots, and 18 foot seas cresting 8 seconds apart. We tried to take them off our bow as […]

Passage New Zealand to Fiji, Day 1. No, really.

Those of you watching our SPOT tracker will see we have been having a merry time exploring an unremarkable patch of ocean. But hey, we were told it would be good to put more hours on our engine. Turns out we did that. After gathering as much info as we could and the Stans poring […]

Day 1 New Zealand to Fiji… or not

We are just about 24 hours out from our departure from Marsden Cove toward Fiji. The past day has been an ideal one from the cruising power boat perspective: very light winds, comfortable slow-rolling seas, no rain, running at nearly 10 knots. The four of us had a marvelous meal last night, pan-seared New Zealand […]

Casting off, New Zealand to Fiji

Today’s the day. Our friends Stan and Diane arrived from Ventura a week ago, and they’ve been invaluable in helping with all the final labors and preparations. Having two Stans aboard can be a bit confusing, but for my part I’ve solved that dilemma by thinking of Diane’s husband, for reasons not expedient to elaborate, […]