Hello to all following the Adventures of Elysium!!! After a great visit back to America, celebrating my birthday and seeing great friends and family, I am back on board and underway to the Lau Group.
Upon arrival in Vuda Point Marina, I started cleaning the boat while awaiting my three crew to join the boat. They will be on board for the next three month's adventure through some of Fiji and then heading on to Vanuatu Islands, doing some great dives in great locations.
As I prepared Elysium for the trip, Dorothy arrived the same day as I did. Dorothy, a Corporate Counselor as well as a dive instructor, is from Singapore/England. Both of us started working towards cleaning and organizing the boat for a total of four people to be on board. We cleaned every nook and cranny of the boat, unloaded and reloaded the boat, took inventory of what was actually aboard, made space available for all of our dive gear and dive compressor, and enough food stores and bottled water for four people for three months.
Patrick showed up from California a week later, after closing the last few days at his job. He is a mechanical engineer and had some time off between jobs. After a few days with Patrick helping out in some very important areas of preparing the boat, we finally saw light at the end of the tunnel. A few days after Patrick's arrival, Roberta, a Cajun from Louisiana, arrives! Roberta, whom I originally met in Honduras four years ago while she was on board NOEL, is a Registered Nurse, a dive instructor and a very seasoned sailor bringing with her many years of sailing experience in the Caribbean and two Pacific crossings. Even with the jet lag, Roberta jumped in and sorted out all of our medical items and organized us, so we have several great medical bags for almost any emergency.
Well, you can imagine, after the boat is finally reloaded with everyone's dive gear, clothing, new dive compressor, extra water and extra fuel, the water line had gone down somewhat. At last, after over a week in the marina, we were ready to depart and begin our journey, initially to Taveuni Island, where the White Wall dive site is, and then on to the Lau Group of Island, where very few people get to see and visit. We left the marina and sailed only six miles to the nearest island for a nice swim, as well as cleaning the bottom of the boat and the propeller. We had a lazy night watching The Good Shepherd. The following day, we headed for Lautoka to check out with customs. The girls spent only a few hours getting some last minute items at the store while Patrick and I returned to the marina by taxi to get a spare shift cable for Elysium. We all met up at the internet cafe and headed to the boat. I visited customs and checked us out for the next major port in Fiji. We were then able to get underway and motor sailed for about five hours, dropped anchor near a point close to Viti Levu and spent the night there. The following day, we were up and underway for Savusavu. With light winds, we motored for a few hours until the winds came up. After a great overnight sail, we are now arriving at Venua Levu on Saturday afternoon. We will check in with customs on Monday to avoid the overtime customs charges for weekends. We plan to make our first dive on the west end of the bay of Savusavu tomorrow.
Thank you for following the Adventures of Elysium. More will be posted during our trip to keep you updated on our journey.
Captain Louis
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1 comment:
Rock on Sailor Man :-)
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