The Joy of Easy Company
While all our guests have been fabulous, there are guests and then there are ‘boat owner’ guests. The latter put their bags down and ask ‘What needs to be done? What needs fixing?’ That’s Greg and Cathi.
Having friends aboard who understand boats is wonderful. They know that breakfast might be interrupted by a water pump that suddenly stops working, and lunch can be delayed because an electrical issue turns into a discussion about engines. They don’t mind. In fact, they seem to enjoy it.
Greg and Cathi arrived in Denarau for a quick visit of just over a week. We had caught up with them in Perth earlier in the year, but with both of them busy with work and travelling for work, it had been one of those catch-ups that evaporated far too quickly. Having them aboard FELIS felt different. Within hours, we had slipped back into the easy rhythm of old friends.
Greg is an engineer, and Cathi is known as ‘technical Cathi ’ for a very good reason. They owned a Riviera motorboat, so they understand the attraction of spending money on things that float and then spending more money fixing them.
We started, as usual, in Denarau and then headed to the Mamanuca Islands. Our first anchorage was Mana Island. The entrance to Mana Island is narrow and involves a few dog-leg turns, but it is well marked by Fiji standards. Once inside, the pace slowed. There was no particular agenda. No list of things to see or do. We talked, drank margaritas, sampled the cava we picked up, and ate delicious food. You know you’ve had a big day when Kim got me out of bed to move FELIS as we were too close to the motor yacht. I was at the helm with Kim and Greg on the deck, they picked up the anchor, moved 20 meters forward, and reset it without me knowing it was down. I then went back to bed.
The island is used for filming the television series Survivor and had been closed to visitors for six months while two seasons were filmed back-to-back. We’d visited one of the earlier Survivor islands during our Pacific crossing in 2008 and something about seeing another one all these years later appealed to us. We’ve been looking for the 2008 island but can’t locate it. The reality was slightly less glamorous than the television version. There were plenty of Survivor locations to visit, but we weren’t particularly interested in recreating the television experience. We did go for a walk on the village beach, but it wasn’t very appealing. Broken glass along the shoreline meant we didn’t stay long or return. Fortunately, the outer reef was a completely different story. The snorkelling was excellent, with colourful fish and healthy coral and the local dive operator had conveniently installed a mooring where we could secure the dinghy.
From there we headed towards Malolo Island. On the way, a pod of dolphins escorted us. They appeared beside FELIS and began playing in the bow wave, matching our speed as if they had decided to join us for the journey. It is difficult to remain focused on navigation when dolphins are playing just metres beneath the bow. They kept us entertained for quite some time.
Having Greg aboard meant the boat jobs eventually caught up with us. The davit winch was first. It had been giving us trouble. It was noisy, getting slower and clearly not happy. We did our best to service it, but soon after, the electric motor finally gave up completely. The problem appeared to be a failed commutator in the motor. We later took it to a local engineering company, but they couldn’t repair it. In the meantime, we improvised. A helm winch, some additional lines and a little creative thinking allowed us to continue operating the davits manually. It wasn’t quite the elegant solution I had envisaged, but it worked.
We also returned to an old problem that had been following us for months, the freshwater pump. Initially, the pump failure seemed like an isolated issue. Then the navigation equipment began intermittently rebooting at the same time, which made things considerably more interesting. We’d spent months testing, disconnecting, reconnecting and generally trying to understand what was happening. Eventually, we decided the problem was probably a faulty negative cable. It is amazing how much time a small electrical fault can consume on a boat. We also started planning a new electrical cable run for the portable backup fridge. Because apparently, when you have finally identified one electrical problem, the sensible thing to do is start another electrical project.
We laughed a lot. We caught up on everything that had happened since we’d last seen each other, played far too many games of Mexican Train and generally enjoyed the luxury of having nowhere particularly important to be.
There was, of course, the obligatory visit to the resort pool for cocktails. After all the maintenance work, sitting beside a resort pool with a drink in hand seemed like a perfectly reasonable way to spend an afternoon.
Greg and I took the dinghy out to Seventh Heaven, the floating beach club anchored offshore. We found a spot, turned up the music and settled into watching the crowd dance and enjoying the perfect afternoon.
From the floating bar we could see a cluster of yachts in the distance and beyond them, what looked like a sizeable surf break. ‘Is that Cloudbreak?’ It was. One of the world’s famous surf breaks was sitting just offshore, looking almost deceptively calm in the distance. There was something wonderfully surreal about sitting on a floating beach club in Fiji, looking across at it with a cold drink in hand.
Before we knew it, our week together was coming to an end. We returned to Denarau, enjoyed one final farewell curry and began the familiar process of packing bags and saying goodbye.
It had been a remarkably easy week. There had been boat jobs, broken equipment, electrical problems and the inevitable maintenance list. But none of it seemed particularly important. Greg and Cathi understood that boats are part of the deal. They knew when to help, when to leave us to it and when it was time to put the tools away and go and have a drink.
That’s the joy of easy company. The islands were beautiful. The dolphins were spectacular. The cocktails were well deserved. But what we’ll remember most is how comfortable it all felt. Some friends come aboard as guests. The best ones somehow become crew.
