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Copra Shed Marina
The Copra Shed is the largest and best known of Savusavu's three marinas. We picked it more or less by accident. They have a couple dozen moorings. There is room for three boats to stern tie and one to tie alongside. Mooring fees (as of 2011) are F$10 per night, or F$63 per week. There […]
Clearing into Fiji
Scream arrived in Savusavu, Fiji on Saturday 28 May, 2011. We took a mooring from the Kopra Shed marina, who assisted us with clearing in. We were boarded by officials from Health, Customs, and Biosecurity (which appears to be a buzzword for quarantine). They we're all friendly and courteous. Even with the weekend arrival the […]
Cruising on a limited Budget
The base fact of cruising budgets is that most boats spend all of the money that they think that they can afford. From the other cruisers we've spoken with, the thinnest budgets for a cruising couple on the smallest ocean-going boats are about $1,000 per month. These boats are eating whatever is cheapest, doing a […]
Tiny Bubbles
The Kiwis are a resourceful bunch, and we've discovered that they really enjoy do-it-yourselfing. But, like us, they prefer doing it themselves with a touch of ease. We've gotten on the bandwagon of just a couple of the things that the locals are making for themselves. Our first foray into this territory was my Christmas […]
Family Visits
One of the great things about visiting New Zealand was that I got to spend time with my extended family. Every member of my family, aside form my mom, lives in the Antipodes. With the exception of my uncles and two cousins who live in Australia, they all live in the Auckland area. So I […]
Lubricating your seals
We've had a leaky faucet on Scream for about a year now. A leaky faucet is a big deal when your fresh water supply is disappearing and you are a thousand miles from land. So you'll understand that we've tried everything to fix it. We've had it apart so regularly that we've broken bits that […]
Breaking free from wifi
One thing that you'll notice when you start cruising is that most cruisers are addicted to the internet. Less so than our land loving brethren, but addicted none the less. Sure we go weeks without internet, but when cruisers are at anchor we stay in the places where there is wifi. You'll visit all kinds […]
Campervaning New Zealand
We took a whirlwind, ten day, nine night tour of New Zealand by campervan. Here is our van. It has the boring name of "Delta 08", so we renamed it the Lois McKendrick, of Coffee Share fame. Lois seats four but only sleeps two. The interior space is cramped for sleeping and living, but not […]
Trust Lois
We're just finishing day four of our whirlwind campervan tour of New Zealand. We arrived in Christchurch, which is making a fine recovery. Our first stop was at the Department of Conservation camp ground at Waihi Gorge. It is a nice quiet spot beside a stream. On Tuesday we went to Dunedin, which is a […]
Christchurch 20 days later
We flew into Christchurch on March 14, twenty days after the recent eartquake. We saw litterally thousands of buildings from the air and later from the ground. We only saw two damaged buildings. Outside the centre everything is back to normal. At the suggestion of our campervan rental company we stopped for groceries on the […]