Musket Cove

A Low was coming down from the tropics and it looked like heavy rain and winds were coming to Fiji so we headed a day early to Mololo Island where the Musket Cove Marina and Yacht Club is located.  They just finished up the 30^th Annual Regatta the day before we arrived.  Musket Cove is a great place.  Lifetime Membership is $3 US but you must have sailed there from somewhere outside of Fiji.  We are member numbers 16,181 and 16,182.  Probably the largest Yacht Club membership in the world. This allows us to receive reciprocal privileges from other Yacht Clubs throughout the world.  Much cheaper than keeping a membership in Harvey Cedars for $1000 per year. We will need this in Australia.

We were on a mooring with LIGHTSPEED and CYNERGY nearby.

Every night the staff stocks a barbeque area with wood and everyone is welcome to bring and cook their own food or you can buy pre-made packs that you then cook on the grills.  It is a great idea and makes a wonderful time to meet others and socialize.  We made use of this every night, even the couple of nights that we had rain.

Initially we weren’t too concerned about the America’s Cup race.  However, every day when the race was on, the management set up an internet video feed to a big screen in the bar.  Even though it looked like the US was getting their butts kicked, we still went and watched.  Out of the 100+ people watching, almost all were Kiwis and Aussies.  There were probably 5 Americans in the whole place.  Well, after the Americans started to win, there were a lot of quiet pissed off people in that room.  I think they all are still in shock that they got beaten so badly.  They take their sailing very seriously down under.  We delayed our departure from Fiji so we could watch the final race and then sailed to Lautoka to clear out.  ELFRUN had been waiting there for 2 weeks so we joined up with them for the formalities.

We left Lautoka to anchor for the night behind the Cloudbreak Reef where there is one of the best surf spots in the world.  There is a floating restaurant called Cloud 9 where we were going to spend the remainder of our Fiji Dollars.  The wind was whooping and it wouldn’t have been a good night so we went back to Musket Cove with ELFRUN for another barbeque dinner.

We left at sunrise for the 700 mile trip to New Caledonia.