135. Hauling Out

After one month of cruising the Fijian islands, it was time to head to the main island and get the boat ready to be stored for the cyclone season, which extends from November through April/May. We sailed to Fiji’s largest island of Viti Levu and dropped anchor for the night near Denarau Marina. We perused the expansive, luxury marina complex and got dinner with SV Kismet and SV Steel Away, who we hadn’t seen since Tahiti.

The next day, we moved into a recently developed marina called Marina Naisoso and began long-term storage preparations. We removed and folded the head sail, flushed and stored the outboard on deck, and began transitioning the v-berth into a storage closet. To manage the humidity and potential mold during the summer, Eitan decided to get an air-conditioning unit to run inside while we were away. After calling a handful of places, we found a decent AC unit on sale and in stock. We took a taxi over to the store and picked up the large box which, sadly, did not fit in the back seat or trunk of the taxi. So, Eitan had to sit in the open trunk holding the box for the 30-minute ride back to the marina.

The next day, we motored over to Vuda Marina to wait for our haul out time. After waiting for a couple of hours the marina informed us we would be hauling out the next day and assigned us a slip for the night. For some reason, Vuda Marina did not adopt a normal marina layout with docks. It’s a circular basin with the boats positioned side by side by side, around the perimeter. The marina staff secured our stern lines to the moorings in the middle of the basins as we squeezed between two other boats, going bow in. Getting on and off the boat is nearly impossible and almost dangerous at times, having to pull the bow line as hard as you can to inch the boat forward close enough to climb over the bow pulpit and jump to the small wooden platform. Depending on the tides, getting on and off the boat was a two to three-person job.

Luckily, we only had to deal with the marina basin for one night and were notified the following day that the travel lift was ready for us. A few hours later, SV Sierra Wind was up on the stands for what would be her resting place for the next several months. Normally, boats are stored for the cyclone season in pits dug into the ground to lower their center of gravity during high winds. This type of storage is much more expensive and requires you to pay for 7 months, regardless if you use it or not. Eitan opted for regular stands and tie-down straps, hoping this would be sufficient.

Although Eitan was due to fly out in two days, I would be stuck here on the hard for two more weeks, since I had booked my nonrefundable flight based on our original haul out date at the end of the month. The next couple of days were relatively relaxed as we checked off all the things that could be done while Eitan was still there. Our friend Scott on SV Tengah arrived and, since his girlfriend was back in Denmark, we helped him to get his 54-foot ketch into the marina which proved much easier with a bow thruster.

Eventually, it was time for Eitan to head to the airport and I tried to say my goodbyes without being an emotional wreck. I’m normally not an overly emotional person and, to be honest, I never really missed him in our times apart. Now, we had spent the last 250 days together, every single day, almost 6,000 hours within 36 feet of each other. By comparison, the average couple spends about 2.5 hours per day together so our last stint equates to about 6.5 years in normal couple terms! Sure, we got sick of one another other from time to time, but we learned to co-exist quite well. Suddenly, this person who had become so integral to my day-to-day life was gone and I wasn’t sure when I would see him again.

The loose plan was that Eitan would go back to work for a while, I would fly home for the holidays, then fly to New Zealand to be with some of our cruising friends who had continued on to NZ. Maybe Eitan would meet me there or we would meet back at the boat around April to cruise Fiji and Tonga next year. In a past blog post, I wrote about how Eitan’s and my relationship was always intended to be short-term. We have different long-term goals and understand one day our paths will separate, but for now, we plan to keep sailing the world together. Still, I need to be open to the fact that everything could change at the drop of a hat. Being faced with potentially 6 months apart brought out a lot of insecurities within me. Needless to say, it was an emotional couple of days as I got used to living on the boat, alone for the first time.