Does this thing still work?
After being home for one of the strangest spans of eight months I can remember, full of surprises both pleasant and not, where things happened, but not always in the way we would’ve expected; where so much of what had been familiar became some kind of bizarre topsy-turvy world where true was false and fake was real; where, at one of the lowest lows, we discussed selling the boat right where it was in the pit; we have, instead, returned to the heat and humidity of Fiji. It’s time to get the boat and deliver it home.
We arrived on a crowded, cramped, eleven hour night flight from San Francisco to Nadi. Other than being painfully uncomfortable for both of us (A few days earlier Julie had fallen through a rotten porch and banged up her leg–which already had a bad hip), I realized during the night that for all the years Julie and I have been married, and all the places we’ve been to together, we can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times we’ve actually sat next to each other on the same airplane. It was a rarity to be seatmates. Once on the ground, we breezed through Immigration with the help of a “Facilitation Letter” from the Vuda marina, signed and stamped by officialdom, explaining why we were traveling with no return ticket. Don’t leave your boat and go home without one.
We brought along at least 300 pounds of luggage spread over seven separate bags. With virtually zero sleep during the previous 48 hours of final preparation and travel, the first thing I did in Fiji was forget to pick up one of those seven bags at the baggage claim. I pulled it off the carousel, but then apparently left it behind on the floor as we moved on to the next stop in the carnival fun-house that is arriving by air in a foreign country: Customs. The letter from Vuda was again very useful at clearing our way without having to pay import duties on the more expensive items we brought along with us, such as the custom-made replacement for the critical piece of our self-steering system that broke off and is somewhere on the bottom of the Pacific offshore of New Zealand.
The bag I had forgotten to pick up was full of odd-looking metal parts: a carburetor for an outboard motor; a hefty, solid-bronze pump shaft; various stainless-steel and aluminum parts including axle hubs designed for robots (don’t ask), and lots of things with wires and circuit boards. I would imagine that to an x-ray machine or Customs officer (all bags are x-rayed in Fiji Customs), none of these things look like normal tourist items for a beach holiday. It wasn’t until more than an hour later, while we were sitting at an airport coffee shop trying to wake up from not sleeping, that I realized this particular bag was not with the others stacked on the cart next to us. Slightly panicked, I could not remember seeing it since it came off the carousel.
I could only imagine what might’ve happened had this been a US airport. You know, “unattended suspicious package,” terminal evacuation, remote-controlled bomb-sniffing x-ray vision robot, police barricades, sirens, flashing lights, news helicopters, etc. Fortunately, this is Fiji. It was a relatively painless process to be escorted back into the secure area, claim my missing bag, which had already been taken to a separate room, and go through Customs with it again. Good to know that there are people in the world who still see the simplest explanation as the most likely to be true.
So, momentarily awake, or so it seemed, we were ready for our next mistake. Since it was still early morning, we asked our taxi driver to take us through the nearby Denarau Island area because we wanted to see where a certain marine store was located before going back the other way to Vuda. I would guess that only when not thinking clearly following 48 hours of sleep deprivation, would one decide that being driven around aimlessly by a taxi driver was a good idea. I fought hard to keep my eyes open. I think I mostly did, but not sure how much I actually saw. I remember stopping at a very impressive, intricately-colored temple (or was it a dream?) where our driver asked if we wanted to take a picture or tour the inside. But I don’t know if we ever saw the store we were looking for. I guess it could’ve been worse. We had agreed to a set price before we left the airport.
Once back at the marina, we were greeted and welcomed back like old friends. Someone asked if our daughter was with us this time. We said she was home finishing her first year of college. Martin, the ten-year-old, multi-lingual child-of-the-world that we continually ran into last year, first in Nuku Hiva, then all along the way to New Zealand, is a year older now. He recognized us and said, “You’re back!” Obviously, many of the other boats we sailed with last year have long since moved on by now, but there is still enough familiarity here that we feel like nothing much has changed. Even our boat is exactly the same as how we left it.
We had hired Ritesh Kumar, of Krishna Yacht Services, to mind our boat while we were gone. He monitored the batteries, aired the interior, placed dehumidifiers in the cabin, washed the deck and periodically ran the engine while we were gone. He also took photos every month or so, which he emailed to us. He’s an engine guy, knows his stuff, and we can’t say enough good things about him.
Unfortunately, while we were gone the boat didn’t get any younger, fix itself of the things that were broken, or magically make more space inside. I guess we need to get to work on all of that. That is, maybe as soon as we sit a little longer in the cooling afternoon breeze. And have another beer. After all, some acclimatization is in order since we made a pretty sudden change from a colder than normal Seattle winter.