We knew it was time to leave Fiji when members of the marina staff began to gather along the rim of the basin in front of our boat with guitars in hand. It was time for the goodbye song. Once they sang, we did not get off the boat again until we were all checked in to Samoa, two weeks later.
A few days earlier we had cruised over to Musket Cove. We made it to shore this time, which we had not last year. We joined the yacht club (about $10) so we would be able to show off our lifetime membership cards (can’t think of another reason), and had a couple nice meals and cold drinks on the deck of the cafe. It was there that Jan, our new crew member, announced that she had a medical concern that she wanted to see a doctor about before we went out to sea. Jan had been added to our crew list before we left home in March. It was the fact that she would be leaving Fiji with us that allowed her to travel in to Fiji on a one-way plane ticket. In the eyes of the government, we couldn’t leave the country without her leaving the country, too. But her Fijian doctor would not clear her for extended time at sea without further testing to resolve the medical issue. No one knew how long that might take, or what the end result might be. With that new wrinkle, it got complicated in a hurry. Immigration was already involved, and we wouldn’t be allowed to leave until there was a course of action. We had a few days of flexibility overall, but the windows to get home are relatively narrow considering the distance. We really could not afford to lose another year. Some hard decisions were made quickly, Jan flew home, presumably to see a doctor in the US, and we were allowed to leave only after the customs officer verified with the airport that she had actually boarded the plane. They have their rules. Clearing all this up became one more colossal distraction from prepping the boat and ourselves. Just what you don’t want when you’re in final countdown mode. And there had already been more than enough other distractions already.
Looking at a map, the shortest and easiest way to get to Samoa would appear to be by staying within the Fiji reef system and going between the main islands to Savusavu before checking out there. From there, we could approach Samoa from more of a southerly direction with more favorable winds. But, once checked out of Fiji, you are given a limited time to clear Fijian waters, and you are not supposed to touch land again. We did not think we could clear Fijian waters from Savusavu during daylight, and due to the number of rocks and reefs we’d be finding our way around, we didn’t want to get stuck after dark, either before or after we got to Savusavu. So we chose a more direct route out, leaving the reef the same way we came in, near Momi Bay. This reef pass is lighted and marked for night use. Unfortunately, it would require us to then turn north and go almost completely around and over the north side of Fiji to assume a route to Samoa.
As evidence of how flustered and on edge we’d become with the external distractions, as we approached the pass we noticed a patrol-type vessel approaching rapidly behind us. It appeared to have flashing or flickering lights on top. I watched it for a while, then my curiosity got to me and I grabbed the binoculars. Not only did it have flashing lights, but they were red and blue. It caught up to us as we were in the middle of the pass. Then they hit the siren. Now what? It was still behind us on the center line of the pass, but had already started to pull around to overtake us. It said POLICE on the side of the hull in big, block letters. Inside its cabin I could see several people standing in the window. All of them were waving with big arm movements. My heart skipped a few beats, and I certainly felt guilty of doing something majorly wrong, but they continued on by. They exited the pass ahead of us, then turned south. We turned north. Maybe it was just the overall friendly nature of everyone. Maybe the siren was just to alert us that they were overtaking. Maybe it was just my expectations after everything we’ve dealt with the last few months.
It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t easy, but we did finally make it to Samoa. I say finally, because we tended to believe that it would be a relatively short shakedown cruise to check everything out while getting some easting in for a better angle on the trade winds before turning north to Hawaii. How hard could it be? A better question might be, How many things can go wrong in one passage? Going from Vuda Marina to Apia Marina ended up taking two full weeks, and It felt like it took a whole lot longer. Almost every day, some little worn out overtaxed piece of something broke or caused us problems. We had hoped we might get to Samoa in a week, but after about day ten, it really gets frustrating to realize, once again, that you won’t be spotting Samoa today, either. The problem was the wind direction was right on the nose, much higher than forecast (20 to 25, gusts over 30, rather than 12 to 15) and the seas were bigger than expected. We ran the engine a lot more than we’d planned. And even with that, found it hard to power directly into the wind and seas. We hove-to twice. Once, because we just couldn’t make headway worth the amount of fuel we were burning, and another time to wait for daylight before trying to enter Apia Harbor.
The procedure for Apia Harbor is supposed to be to call Harbor Control before entering. We tried multiple times, stating at more than an hour out, but nobody answered. We tried to call the marina, but again nobody answered. We came into the harbor anyway and anchored in the designated small craft anchorage, then called the marina on the cell phone. The cell phone was successful and we were told to come to the marina, but to keep trying to raise the harbormaster and ask them to alert Customs. We called them on the radio from apparently right outside their office. Not only did they answer this time, but they said they saw us, too. The marina helped us get tied up, but we’d have to wait until we were cleared before we could get off the boat. No problem.
It didn’t take long for the officials to show up, but then there was the almost-crew medical issue again. The Samoan health inspector was concerned about the unknown medical condition that caused her to be removed from our crew list, and suggested we might have to be quarantined in case it was contagious and we’d been exposed to it. But since it took us two weeks at sea to get from Fiji to Samoa, we had effectively already quarantined ourselves.
There aren’t many other boats here, but just like everywhere else we’ve been, the few people we’ve met have been outstanding in their friendliness and helpfulness. From our taxi driver, Tai, who even took us on a four hour tour of the island (no, I did not actually stay fully awake the entire time), to the folks on the boat already here when we arrived, Sao Nicolau, everyone has been going out of their way to offer help. She’s a physician, and he’s a German physicist who worked at Lawrence Livermore in California. They bought their boat in Portugal. If it wasn’t for the help of Wolfgang and the very long hose on his drill-powered transfer pump, and Tai making so many runs to the gas station with our combined load of jerry jugs in his trunk, we might still be working on refilling the diesel we burned trying to get here (there’s no fuel dock). I’d seen those little drill pumps before and always dismissed them as something I really didn’t need, but now that I know you can empty a jerry jug in about four minutes, from all the way across on the other side of the boat, without even lifting the jug off the dock or from where it’s stored on deck, it is the latest must-have on my shopping list.
Before we started this South Pacific trip in 2016, we did what we could to prepare for things that might happen. We put a lot of effort into anticipating troubles caused by being remote landlords, maintaining bank account access, paying bills, staying in communication with family, etc. No matter the preparation, and no matter how many levels of spares, backups and redundancies you try to build in, things never happen as expected. And some things you just can’t prepare for. Once again, soon after we arrived we learned of another death in the family. Kind of takes the wind out of the sails, so to speak. We’re on our way home, at least. Next planned stop is Oahu around the first week in July.