August 2020, In Search of Coconuts! Follow Global Yacht Racing YM Traineeship Graduate Greg's Adventures - In Search of Coconuts! Still on a mooring in Savusavu, having finished preparations to depart for Lau. Yesterday, I went off for a long kayak in search of coconuts, for use in a little project I have in the works to circumvent the price of alcohol in Fiji. I had to go a fair way down the coast, as most of the waterfront was embanked with a road running along it.Eventually, I reached a resort, with an apparently deserted island nearby. I could tell that it was a resort from far off because all of the roofs were thatched--no respectable Fijian would want a roof made of grass. Crossing over to the island was a difficult piece of pilotage, since there was a shallow reef running continuously between it and the mainland. I had to thread

23rd August 2020, Follow Global Yacht Racing Traineeship Graduate Greg's Adventures - Into The Yassawas! Just after my last note we continued to head north into the Yassawas, reaching the northernmost island. We sailed in company with another family boat called Moxie on the way up from Blue Lagoon, as our electric charts didn't quite cover all of the area. There was one nasty moment when we came within a few boat lengths of a reef. Although the charted depth was later found to be three meters and there were no breakers about, it was a nasty moment all the same. Lessons were learnt, however, and we have now updated our charts. The anchorage, the furthest properly safe haven in the group, was in the lee of a limestone monolith which could have done a decent stand in as a minutearised sort of Gibraltar. The trees which covered it were a

23 August 2020, Two Years Before The Mast & Feeling Grateful! I turned up in Cowes, having never sailed offshore before and without even a set of foulies to my name. Two years and over 20,000nm later, I've climbed my way up the hawse pipe and sailed all the way to bloody Fiji! My thanks go to everyone who helped me out, from buying me a beer when I was broke to giving me a place to kip or an opportunity to race, as well as those saints who put up with my many, many mistakes and defects. I won't name anyone here, but you know who you are, and all of you have my sincerest thanks. For now, the adventure continues

13th August 2020, Caffari and Harayda picked for GB at mixed offshore Euros Graduate Trainee James Harayda along with RTW yachtswoman Dee Caffari will fly the flag for Great Britain at the EUROSAF Mixed Offshore European Championship, the RYA has announced. Caffari and Harayda will go up against teams made up of Europe’s most talented offshore sailors in the next major step towards the Paris 2024 Olympics where the mixed offshore keelboat event will debut. The pair were picked after an impressive second-place finish in their SunFast 3300 Gentoo at the recent Drheam Cup, a 428-mile race starting and finishing in France. Caffari was the first woman to sail solo and non-stop around the world in both directions and is the only woman to have sailed non-stop around the world three times. With one Vendee Globe and two Volvo Ocean Races also under her belt, Caffari has now set her sights on the Olympics. “James

14 August 2020, Manta Rays & Musket Cove! Currently at anchor among the coral in Musket Cove. Checking into the country was laughably easy in the end--they didn't even check out fridge for fruit. The day following our clearance, I took the bus into Nadi to do some chores and get a feel for the place.The land here seems a good deal greener than the West Indies--greener than Antigua at least. Grenada may have been more verdant, but was also steeper, and viewed but fleetingly from seaward or through the lens of alcohol. In Fiji, the palms are more numerous and casually advance far inland, while the land itself is for the most part under subsistence agriculture. Fiji is in many ways the reverse of Antigua. In the West Indies, everything is expensive barring alcohol, whereas in Fiji, everything except alcohol is dirt cheap--booze is heavily taxed and you have to get