Zulu News

December 1, 2012 and Postcript January 8, 2013


Dawn breaks with a mist of rose. Palms are reflected in the Marina waters. Boats rest quietly on the hard, cushioned by tires—keels resting on blocks in pits, and others tied stern-to-the-wall secure for the hurricane season. 

A rainbow arc dips into the sea--background to the Sunset Bar, our back yard for two months. The day slips by with busyness and calls to my sweet children—my link to my core being. 

Now at last I sit awhile, my last day on my deck with a view of the sea from land. There are bird calls. Bright green parrot finch hop along the deck railing expressing themselves with short whistles. Minor birds swoop across my line of sight with purpose. Up to where the coconuts cluster to deposit a worm or gecko. 

The wind rustles the palm fronds. The sound is restless. A branch falls to the ground and startles me. Rain comes down gently from gray skies--cooling, but seemingly with a message from the elements. The hurricane season is officially here. A white heron flies swift and low over the water, the first one I have seen. For me it is a sign of goodwill. A sign of peace and calm to come, a sign for hope. 

Five months in Fiji have been mixed with so much beauty and so much turmoil and so much of so much Fiji Time--all adding to my growth. 

There has been beauty in seeing the sea from the land—from being in this apartment with the most magnificent view—finding a center point from which to focus. I feel the elements all around me, but have not been buffeted by them. I’ve been protected. I’ve felt safe. And at will found long respite under the shade of big trees, in walking the beach, and swimming what seems for an eternity: swimming in the heat of the noonday sun, swimming in the rain, swimming into the sunset--always invigorated and energized and released afterward. 

There has been beauty in getting to know the Fijians—to see how little they have, how much they share, how little they ask, and how easily they show a happy spirit. Bula! Hello! They wave, and smile, a flower in their hair. Of course, this profile is narrow as is my path they’ve crossed. 

There has been turmoil in realizing my world really does not belong to me. Rather it is borrowed, temporary, provisional, transient, impermanent. It seems as if it has been taken away by swift surprise. It is a feeling I have that I’ve lost my compass course and don’t know the coordinates for new destination. I feel lost. But know time will give me new direction. It is as if I need to now look backward from life’s end point to the present time and calculate and design what to shape in between. Destiny will intervene. 

There has been Fiji Time in learning that there is no ‘no’ here. Just ‘yes’. Whatever you want done you will get a ‘yes’. When it does not get done or gets totally botched up you will get a ‘yes’ it will soon get done and done properly. And soon in Fiji Time has little end, especially when no one is in charge. I’m talking about—not to get personal—Yacht Help at Vuda Point. But guess what? It all indeed did end for the good. Sort of. 

Fiji Time has come to an end. I must now gather up all that was good: the smiles, the sincerity, the celebration, the beauty, my strength and growth, Zulu’s new deck and dodger paint job, and fly in the jet stream of the white heron toward southern shores—again those shores that rim the Land of the Long White Cloud, Atearoa, our home away from home, NZ. 

Russ is working hard with the help of Lloyd, a young Fijian with a toothy smile to put all the hardware back on Zulu. “What are you going to do with all the money you made? Russ asked him. “I’m going to buy my son a Christmas present.” He said with wide smile. 

And I have got a day’s help from Elanoa, who with a flower in her hair will work with me to get Zulu’s insides (disaster zone within chaos) back as an operating platform for the high seas. She and I did work! Like Trojans cleaning garnet shavings from the blasters in every nook and cranny inside the boat, including draws and cupboards. Perspiration streamed down her body so much so that she looked like a chocolate ice-cream melting. As for me? I looked like a red overcooked lobster. 





Lloyd and Elanoa help us clean Zulu. See her fresh topsides make over!

We’ll wait for a weather window, and pray that in about 12 plus days--unlike other boats who have encountered harsh storms, who have had sails rip and gear break, who have sunk, whose skippers have died short of destination—we will make passage safely with the image of the swift white heron as our talisman. 

After yet another hurricane season in NZ—Zulu plans to point her bow east along the southern route back to French Polynesia: Australs, Tuamotus where I envision a string of ocean pearls. And then North West to Hawaii where a berth awaits a fresh crew for westward ho. Perhaps our Danish friend, Rob Larsen will make a passage. 

Until then, we send you Christmas greetings from the South Pacific as the tropical skies burst open and torrential rain now falls. I drink it all in as it pulsates down and pounds the earth and water with sound like a thousand strings, until it leaves crescendo and pitter patters irregularly, slowly, and slowly still, for Fiji Time suspended on and on into silver drops of silence. 

May the spirit of peace and rebirth be with you and happiness be yours for the gift of yet another new year. 

Always, Marilyn and the silent one, Russ Yacht Zulu 


Dawn breaks with a mist of rose and palms reflected in the water. 



An hour later a rainbow arcs from sky to sea behind the Sunset Bar, our back garden for a month. 

Postscript: January 8, 2013 

We are still sitting in Vuda Point Marina. Zulu is in the water. Hurricane Evan left its mark, however so soon new leaves and flowers emerge and new gardens are planted and the tall palms with clipped heads sway in the breeze in comical profile. The landscape comes back to tropical beauty one leaf and flower at a time.

Now Russ writhes in pain with a kidney stone. Karma is impacting strangely. We are yet to complete readying the boat for passage, and someplace out there the weather window awaits. 

Russ will return to hospital on Monday for another x-ray to see if this 1.8 cm stone has moved. If not, we will go to Suva and he will have it 'removed' surgically. The procedure will be with general anesthetic: a scope will be put up the urethra that is able to see and break the stone apart. 
  
Bev, Russ' sister and our dear friend Christian advise NOT to sail to NZ with a kidney stone--that infection could be serious and turn to sepsis. So we will take precaution on our side and wait for Monday's x-ray and procede from there. 

Russ remains on pain pills and looks forward to raising the sails again for fresh horizons this year of 2013. 

Soon we will let go of the lines and point Zulu to the south and east holding on to our friend Christian's weather forecasts--hopefully that of fair winds and safe landfall. He has said the plums on his trees are ripe and calling........

May this new year bring hope and love and fulfillment to each who read and travel on with me, and may you enjoy the juice from the plums of life.

Always Marilyn