Interim
In the name of total honesty, Leona has wandered quite a bit between the time we said goodby in Pape’ete and now.
This is a quick summation of her adventures.
In July David and Jeff reunited to sail to Fiji with two other crewmates. Jan had done the Atlantic crossing back in 2017, and Jeffers filled my role of open water noobie. Yours truly couldn’t be there, so I have to rely on third person reporting.
According to David, it was “a straight shot with the wind off our beam.” They took a short line and held to it, enduring a bumpy ride for the sake of a quicker trip. and bypassing some of the most beautiful spots on earth: the Cook Islands, Tonga, Samoa, Palmerston… David admitted to feeling a trifle “negligent” on this boys’ trip, but learned what a boat delivery might feel like.
Leona hung out for the end of the summer in Nadi, the marina on Viti Levu in Fiji, having her bottom scrubbed.
David and I managed a quick trip to the Yasawa islands on the west side of the Fijian archipelago, but nothing much happened other than a near miss with a family of reef sharks, a sundowner with the oldest woman to circumnavigate the globe single-handed, and a cava ceremony with the chieftain’s son. We became members of the Musket Cove Yacht Club (an automatic entry for those who sail their own boats into the cove) and drifted for hours, ogling at a rainbow vista of coral and fish and sea stars and…and…and…
We also spent extra days at the harbor, thanks to stinky weather.
Shark attacks are rare in Fiji, but I wasn’t about to tempt fate by jumping on top of Big Daddy and his family of black-tips
So welcome to another aspect of the on-board world: marina life. There is a sense of camaraderie that builds as you walk down the pier carrying a towel and bottle of shampoo, marina key in hand, nodding and greeting other salt-stained sea-dogs. Ex-pats, retirees, and families with young kids spending a year (or two…three…?) traveling the world make up one piece of this community. You identify their boats by the mismatched towels hanging off the stern rails, the kayaks and paddle boards secured to the bow rails, and the well-loved sheen to the hulls.
Then there are the tanned and confident crews of charter cruises and super yachts, those eager young things from the world of “Below Decks.” Shining every piece of metal into submission, oiling and rubbing every bit of hardwood like a competitive body-builder’s bicep, these energetic hustlers in khaki shorts and matching polos are always vying for the next crew contract.
In the marina cafes and bars, the laundromat and anywhere boaters gather you can hear the constant exchange of information: weather patterns, routes taken, secret anchorages. And of course there is the silent eyeing up of other vessels. Whose is bigger? newer? sleeker? faster? more seaworthy? And then you spot the boat that just has It, that undefinable combination of proportion and elegance that lifts her above the rest.
Of course, Leona is clearly one of those…
In October, after days waiting for just the right weather window, the Mario Brothers headed south into a section of the Pacific known as the “washing machine.” It is common knowledge that this reliable parade of weather depressions coming East out of the Tasman sea means you are going to get spanked either on the front or the back end of the trip, given the five-day cycle and the seven-day trip length. Jeff and David opted for a front-end spanking.
This was the home stretch, lending a sense of certainty to the finish. Pulling into the Bay of Islands marina in Opua on the North Island felt almost like coming home.
So now we begin a new chapter, one focused on cruising, rather than voyaging. Bay of Islands…here we come!
The Mario Brothers come home to the Bay of Islands Marina