2024 didn’t kick off great for us: we had to go to Suva because I had a cracked filling and the super-thorough Fijian dentist discovered quite a few more issues for both of us (Christian did a check-up as well and had to go back for another appointment)–looks like our nice French dentist in Tahiti was a bit slack (blow a noisy raspberry while shrugging your shoulders expressively and you’ve got the correct French gesture).
As soon as the most pressing building sites were finished we left Suva and did a daysail back to Ono to enjoy the upcoming calm summer weather–unfortunately with some bug as stowaway: a day later Christian got a fever, bad headache, all-over-ache (not great to have 39 degrees fever in a 35 degree cabin…). I didn’t stand a chance, no social distancing on a 41 ft monohull, so I prepared some meals ahead, baked bread (bug preparation resembles passage preparations) and got ill the next day.
Now, after a week of quarantine off an uninhabited island, we’re back on track, still a bit weak, but ready to enjoy the summer weather. We moved to an anchorage with a pretty reef yesterday and have been spending hours in the water. Near the shore the surface temperatures are higher than 30 degrees now and the table coral’s bleached to pastel colours and some even white, but they all look a few years old, so they must have survived such extreme temperatures before. We hope they’ll cope yet another time!
