Under Way!

It's 5:30 am. Brian started pulling up the anchor about an hour ago. We're under way down the coast of Viti Levu, still in protected waters. Fifteen miles to Malolo Passage out into the great Pacific. Then, 1100 miles (more or less) to Opua, New Zealand. The last few days have been filled with cleaning the boat, inside and the bottom; cooking meals ahead for the beginning of the passage when we don't feel like doing anything; wrapping up the table top refinishing project at Marine Reach (they look great); and saying goodbye to friends.

We've encountered just in the last few days some new things. One is cumquat limes (they are small and when overripe they look just like orange cumquats) that are sweet and limey mmmm. Another Fiji novelty is "bele" which is the Hindi word for a green maple shaped leaf that is cooked like spinach. Not too bad. We have handfuls of it which Rakesh picked for us from his garden, along with long beans, corn on the cob, and eggplant. We went to church with the leaders of the Marine REach base on Sunday. The building is a flat roof with posts holding it up from a cement slab. One side of the square is walled up to about 3 feet with cement blocks. Otherwise, it's open to the cool breeze. There were about 25 of us there of all different races. At one point the pastor said, "ok, let's all pray for Brian and Megan for 60 seconds, out loud, very forcefully." This, was a very new thing for us. But it felt amazing. I felt like we were wrapped in a cocoon of loving prayers from many different languages. I couldn't stop smiling. It sure helps my pre-voyage nerves to know we have prayers like that carrying us.

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