When we finally had a good wind angle, we made an early morning departure for a day sail up to Somosomo, Taveuni. It was a fast sail, close hauled with 20 kts of wind, and I have to admit that after a late-night drinking rum with Breeze I was just a tad bit hung over for this passage. Finally, we got in the lee of Taveuni, and the wind totally died, so we motor-limped up through Somosomo straight (between Taveuni and Vanua Levu) and anchored off the town of Somosomo.
As we approached, we got a VHF call from Fluenta, and they were anchored just a little ways north, and we arranged to meet up in the morning to hit the veggie market and say one last good-bye. Immediately after that call, we got a call from a boat called Ariel IV. They are a Swedish couple who cruised before with their kids when they were young and are now doing it again just the two of them. We had heard about them from both Breeze and Field trip, because they were also planning to go up to Marshall Islands. It was great to make contact and exchange email addresses so we could hopefully meet up somewhere on the way north. (Spoiler alert: it turns out to be a very good thing we had “Dr. Eric” in our Northbound Fleet.)
We spent the evening getting our last internet fix for a while, and then in the morning we went ashore to see Fluenta. Liz and I rode with Max’s parents down to the next town to the south, I think it was Waiyevo, to buy some fresh fruit and veg. It was no Savusavu market, but it did the trick.
In the meantime, the kids hit the MH grocery store and shared one last tub of ice cream together, for old time’s sake. I found myself focusing on the little bit of provisioning I wanted to do instead of on my last bit of time with Liz, but fortunately email reaches us wherever we are, and we’ve been able to stay in close contact as they headed south back to New Zealand, and we headed north to sweat our butts off.
Finally, we had to say good-bye to Fluenta. And a sad good-bye it was, indeed. It was especially sad to think that little Benjamin likely wouldn’t remember us. The boys had grown quite fond of him, and I think the feeling was mutual. Benny, as the kids call him, loved to come to Exodus and play with “Aggie” and “Bummie.” As he was just beginning to talk, these were his personal versions of “Alex” and “Brenden.” He had an extra special name for Tim which originated from our time in Suva together. One night at a yacht club happy hour Tim took Benjamin around looking at the geckos on the walls and ceilings, so of course Benjamin knew Tim only as “Gecko.” (He never did say my name while we were together, but Liz assured me that we separated he would often randomly list off our family members, and sooner or later my name was included too.)
Gresham Family Exodus 