One Day and Night in Lautoka - More Than Enough

We got to Lautoka and were expecting to stay over a couple of nights. It is a fairly large town with good shopping and places to get mechanical parts. Our windlass, which we use to raise our anchor chain (rode) and anchor, has a piece that keeps the chain from doubling on the capstan wheel. The chain started jamming and when I looked at it closely, found the metric bolts holding the plate to keep the chain right had stripped out of the aluminum casing of the windlass. Over the years, with the salt water coming off the chain and from the seas breaking over the bow, the aluminum had corroded from contact with the steel of the bolts and literally dissolved in to aluminum salt, which is soft.

So, I went looking for a helicoil insert to repair it with. Helicoils are often used to repair buggered-up threads on engine blocks for studs and sparkplugs. No luck on that. The town is nice enough though and it has a cineplex 4 movie theater so we were going to stay over another night and see the latest Harry Potter movie. Well, Lautoka's economy is based around the port with lots of container ships loading and unloading, but even bigger, is the sugar mill which processes all the sugar cane from the area. It is a big mill and famous for dirtying up boats in the harboar from the soot from the dirty stacks that belch dark, thick clouds of burnt off cane into the air. We woke up the first morning and found the boat COVERED with small pieces of greasy soot!! It was a mess. We decided to leave that day so went scurrying in to town to get some provisions, a haircut for me, internet and the helicoil. We got everything except the helicoil and potato chips which we will regret. I will just drill out the windlass holes and put in bigger bolts to repair it, but the potato chips will be sorely missed by yours truly.

Hooray! we did meet up with our old friends on White Swan (Bob and Dianna). We all decided to go four miles to a little bay south of Lautoka. Saweni Bay is small and pretty and much quieter. We spent the night here, had a little party on MD with White Swan and Scot Free II, and will head out today to the Mamanuca Islands to get away from it all even farther. It is a short trip over to Navadra Island which the Swanners tell us is remote, quiet and beautiful with great snorkeling. We'll go from there north up to the Yasawa Islands then back south to Musket Cove before heading back to Lautoka to check out of the country to go to Vanuatu in early August.

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