Musket Cove

So we arrived here in Musket Cove on the small island of Malolo Lailai in the Mamanuca Group of islands on Wednesday morning and had to pick up a mooring buoy outside the Marina and wait for high tide as there is a sandbar in the entrance which is too shallow for yachts to pass over at low tide. By 3.30pm in the afternoon there was enough water for us to enter the Marina and we dropped our anchor and reversed back onto the dock and tied up with stern lines. There is water and electricity on the dock which means no need to run our generator which saves diesel and it is quiet! The water was much needed to give the boat a good hose down as it was covered in salt from the sailing we had done. Musket Cove is actually a small resort and marina and everything is close at hand. There are even DIY barbeques available on the beach! We were told about the BBQs by Charles and Marie (Dreamcatcher) who came over to introduce themselves to us whilst we waited on the Mooring Buoy. Dreamcatcher is another Hallberg Rassy but 48 feet so bigger than Trompeta and it took part in the last World ARC but had to leave in Fiji as their boat suffered damage in the Tsunami that affected the Galapagos islands. They have spent the last 2 years in New Zealand having work done to the boat and cruising around. So we ordered our BBQ pack from the shop and met up with Charles and Marie at the island bar to do our own BBQ.A very enjoyable night. The following day the majority of World ARC boats arrived and we had the formal rally welcome drinks and a BBQ. It was a good opportunity to catch up with the other boat crews we had not seen for a while. Yesterday (Thursday) there was a Sports afternoon and Trompeta, Piligrim and Royal Leopard joined forces to participate in Volleyball, Tug of War and a water game. Overall we did well winning the Volleyball, Joint 1st place in the Tug of War and 3rd in the water game. The water game was not easy as it involved filling plastic drinking cups with water from a bucket and passing them over your head to the person behind who then took the cup and passed it between him legs to the person behind and so on. The last person in the line emptied the cup into an empty bucket and after a set time the water in the bucket was measured. Anyway it was all a bit of fun. That evening there was a Fijian Feast with a spit roasted pig and local veggies and salad. Peter and I sat with the two Russian boats Piligrim and Royal Leopard and had an entertaining evening. Today we are doing last minute preparations before leaving tomorrow morning for the passage to Vanuatu. Peter has already seen customs and immigration for the clearing out formalities. There is a briefing for the Skippers at 5pm tonight and we will do another DIY BBQ afterwards.