BOUNTY ISLAND ADVENTURE

Yesterday I met with Tammy and Reed, friends of a friend, and we sailed out to nearby Bounty Island. The sail was very pleasant with a nice following breeze.

I watched over Tammy and Reed as they went SCUBA diving. The water was not as clear as I'm used to in Fiji. I suspect the recent severe tides caused a lot of silt to get stirred up.

I noticed some extremely erratic behavior by the divers and I became quite worried. As it turned out, the had a Remora fish trying to latch on to them. A Remora is a hitch-hiker which usually grabs ahold of a shark or Manta Ray.

The Remora was very aggressive and eventually caused the dive to be aborted.

We went ashore at Bounty Island. It is a backpacker's place. I must say, I have never had quite such an unpleasant reaction to any other stop in Fiji.

We were charged a "landing fee" of $FJ 5.00 each. Although this is not very much, US $ 2.75, it was the principle that bothered me. Furthermore, I really sensed that the employees were genuinely unhappy and didn't hide it at all. This is the very first time I experienced true surliness from anyone in Fiji.

I met a pleasant young man from Argentina and his VERRRRRRY pregnant, bikini-clad wife. She was beautiful and absolutely glowing. We had a very nice conversation.

Sadly, during our conversation, one of the Fijian employees sat down at the adjacent table and was obviously listening in on our conversation. This "spy" was absurdly obvious. I felt as though was sent over to find out if we had anything negative to say about Bounty Island. I don't think anyone else knew why he was there, but I've never seen that happen before. The rest of the employees were stand-offish and not warm at all.

We returned to Torrid and the wind had shifted 180 Degrees and we enjoyed a very fast, pleasant sail back to Vuda.

My guests had brought me a "Care Package" from the States. You cannot imagine how happy I was to have a cordless screwdriver, toggle bolts, reading glasses, polarized sunglasses and toggle bolts. I was up 'til 0100 playing with my new toys.

I'm down to about 3 more minor repairs before I leave for Vanuatu. Then it will be a matter of reprovisioning, refueling, checking out of the country and setting sail.

As much as I really like Fiji, I'm nevertheless anxious to get back to some blue-water sailing again. The crossing to Vanuatu should take 5-7 days depending on the wind, weather and whatever breaks!