Day to Day Life at Vuda

The only negative we’ve found about Vuda Point Marina is that the constant coming and going of boats keeps us up at times as a neighboring boat leaves and a new one arrives. You need to carefully monitor your fenders, lines, and in our case, our large solar panel array as new boat shoehorn their way into place. You go bow into the shore and use very long lines off the back tied to a central anchor to keep the boat in place. As the tide goes up and down the distance of the bow to shore changes, making for some tricky late night jumps to get back on the boat.

To escape the work being done on the boat we hang out at The Boat Shed

In between repair jobs, we do get to relax and socialize. Our first night in Vuda we ran into Florian and Martina, an Austrian couple on Esperanza who we’d met via the Mag Neg SSB network. We attended 1/2 pizza night at The Boat Shed Restaurant, the local hangout at the marina.

From L to R:  Kathi, Wolfgang, Maria, Maurice.

Next Plastik Plankton, another Austrian boat with Dr. Kathi and Wolfgang arrived. We treated them to a nice dinner at the Boat Shed in thanks for everything they’ve helped us with over the last year. The next day we took the bus into nearby Nadi with them to explore and get some groceries and fresh meats from South Pacific Meats. It’s great fun being around younger people (they are both younger than our kids!) for their positive attitude and energy levels.

Exploring downtown Nadi.

The Nadi Market had a great selection of fruits and vegetables.

If you've ever shopped with Meryl you know what this woman is thinking.

These peppers are so hot you could cook with them without using the stove.

These ladies were wonderful to talk with.

I loved this booth since the lady in pink actually balances the tomatoes upon each other -- no toothpicks where used to hold them in place. Plus she taught me how to say "thank you" in Hindi.

Next came Maurice and Maria from Toronto on Captiva. We went next door to the First Landing Resort (actually the location of the first settlers to arrive in Fiji) for a great dinner and dance show. 

We enjoyed the meke dance show at the First Landing Resort with Maurice and Maria.

We also had a great dinner at the Eshaa Restaurant at the high end Nila Resort just down the beach. We were going to walk down but a local guy didn't want us walking at night so he gave us a ride. Then we found they were shooting a "Bollywood" movie which was fun to watch. Finally the restaurant served some of the best Indian food I've ever had. Excellent.

At Eshaa Restaurant we had excellent Butter Chicken, Lamb Curry, and naan and riata.

I was photographing this and the guy invited me down to explain this was to celebrate Ganesh, a large festival that takes place in Bombay. At the end they put the seashell lamps in the ocean and watch them float away.

They were filming a Bollywood production at the resort and had over 300 cars lined up for a scene. Someone said that was basically all the rental cars in Fiji!

Today our friends from Oklahoma, Charlie and Jenni, arrived on their Catalina 47 called Lady. We had lunch with them yesterday and will go to 1/2 pizza night at the Boat Shed (do you see a trend here?).

All in all we’re enjoying our stay in Vuda and hoping we have a penny left in our bank accounts when this is all over.