LouiseAnna: A strange sea of floating stones…

Who:                          Louise, Anna, Kim and Geoffrey

Where:                        Fiji, Pacific Ocean

Multihull:                   Nautitech 40

Blog:                          www.sailinglouiseanna.blogspot.com

We’re heading for Fiji. The weather is lovely and the sailing good. The fishing lines are in the water and a fish nibbles on the bait. It’s a mahi-mahi and it’s heavier than the girls (who weigh 22kg!). We hooked it on our bad fishing line but Geoffrey still managed to get it on board. This time Louise is a little intimidated by the size of the fish. She doesn’t want to play with this one! The blue of the fish is beautiful but unfortunately the colors start to dull once the fish is out of the water. We have just passed by the Lau Islands in eastern Fiji. We are not authorized to stop there as you have to announce your arrival a day’s downwind sailing in advance. To get back here would mean sailing upwind for more than a day. The thought of not being able to come back here saddens us. Night was falling when we heard strange grinding noises from along the hull and on the deck. We quickly grabbed our headlamps and were surprised to discover that all around, there were stones bumping into the boat. We were sailing on a sea of stones! The waves were bringing them on deck too. We knew that an underwater volcano had erupted in August. We had found lots of stones from the eruption on the Tongan beaches but thought that they would have disappeared by now. Later on, in Fiji, we met a couple who had been unlucky enough to be there when the volcano had erupted. We hadn’t suffered any damage because thankfully the stones were too light. Next, we arrived in Levuka to sort out the formalities. Immigration and health were quickly dealt with.