Fire?? Fire? More of this later… We departed the island of Beqa - bizarrely still pronounced in a similar fashion to the Arsenal manager - this afternoon around tea time, having spent the last day and night there. We sailed from Levuka early doors on Sunday morning, which I must admit I missed as the excesses of halliards were bearing down on me, and spent most of the day at sea on route to our next destination.
Little of note happened until our little incident around midday. I happened to be taking a pre-lunch nap at the time, and awoke to the sound of the engineer being called in rather urgent tones! One is not on a ship too long before the one realises that an engineer being called urgently is generally a bad sign - especially on a wooden boat such as the Soren. So we all quickly assembled on the forward deck, ably marshalled by our professional crew. It turns out the fire was more smoke than flames, and essentially was a small fire in the exhaust stack, caused by a build up of oil which ignited. Our engines were left to cool down for a while and we carried on under sail alone, which by then was feasible as the wind had picked up.
We arrived late afternoon in Lalita, having safely navigated the rather narrow entrance through the reefs, and with the Captain’s and Cook’s formal protocol completed with the local village, we were able to enjoy our dinner in a stunning inlet in a - nearly deserted island - well apart from an exclusive resort round the corner, which we later discovered was closed.Today was a day spent with the locals initially. I went ashore early doors with some of the other crew to visit the village and meet the locals: the children really took to our group and soon we had an enthusiastic entourage giving us the royal guided tour!
Great fun. Later in the morning most of the village came over to the Soren for morning tea & coffee and the professional crew ended up carrying out welding repairs on two forks and an outboard engine!Their generosity was rewarded with the gift of a crayfish from the elders for dinner this evening. The rest of the afternoon was spent on watersports, some swimming and one lone windsurfing enthusiast in me. It was good fun today as the wind was a good breeze.
Now I am looking forward to the last night watch I will do on board, I can’t quite believe how quickly it has gone.
I’ll be on the 4-8 and since we are on engines alone, the crew have decided to split the watch in two sections, with me opting for the 4-6 and what I hope will be a splendid sunrise - the sunset this evening was the best we have seen at sea, and the stars are very clear now that the full moon has passed.
I even managed to identify the nebula next to the Southern Cross before dinner by the big black blob of space in the middle of the maze of stars.
Signing off now to get some shuteye before the call comes, coming more quickly than one hopes every time!
Rob
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