I can't believe it is June 18th already, it feels like our entire cruising season is slowly slipping away from us. It has been 5 weeks since we arrived in Fiji and we have yet to go anywhere except from Suva to Lautoka where we have been for the last 14 days. It seems the parts required to repair our transmission are still not in Fiji though we are told they are expected today, or tomorrow I guess. Anyway, there is not much we can do about it and that is the part that drives us nuts.

Yesterday I went into Lautoka to shop a bit. The market (public produce market) was much nicer then the one in Suva I thought. It was larger and more airy and it looked cleaner, though if this is true it is only by a small amount. The vegetables were wonderful and so inexpensive it feels like stealing every time I buy something! Some things however are not so cheap and are staggeringly expensive. These items are always hard to find of course and include scallions (green onions) and green peppers, the first being indispensable in the preparation of almost anything Chinese, which we eat at least twice a week, and the second being my favorite vegetable on the planet excepting perhaps onions and garlic which hardly seem worth mentioning they being such basic ingredients in almost any dish from almost any country. Where a bundle of eggplant weighing two pounds or so might cost one dollar, 3 green peppers might cost five dollars.

I also visited a local hardware store to pick up a garden hose adapter. The Fijian garden hose taps have a smaller opening then the standard American/European hose fitting. After that I got in a taxi and came back to the marina and spent the rest of the day at the pool with Kate and Jonah. Having the resort next door has been the only reason staying here isn't a living hell as far as I am concerned.