Wednesday 27 July Denerau

From the sublimely quiet and picturesque Saweni bay, through strong head winds and into Disneyworld Denerau. Denerau is a recent headland development of reclaimed mangrove swamps 10 miles from the international airport and the gateway for ferries to the Mananuca islands. Packed onto this former swamp land are Sheraton, Radisson, Wyndhams resorts and around the marine, a modern shopping complex with restaurants, the ferry terminal, pontoons for yachts and 15 mooring balls. We're not staying long so picked up a mooring ball ahead of Stray Kitty and behind Tahina. Ashore we marvelled at the Hard Rock cafe and the herds of tourists – the newly arrived whiteys in sweltering in jeans and the departing lobster pinks in shorts and vests with braids in their hair.

In the chandlery we met up with David from another Amel, Kilkea, who asked for David's help disassembling his bilge pump to fit a new part. We'd done the same exercise last year replacing the same part. While David helped David Marian and I caught up on where we'd been in Fiji and what we'd seen. While we were on board Eric from Oso Blanco walked past and invited us to a party on his boat this evening.

View from anchorage

view of the anchorage

It was a swinging party for the members of the Strawberry Monkey yacht club; Stray Kitty, Tahina, Tyee and Kilkea. David was targetted by the 6 children for a gun battle and hand-to-hand combat which both he and they loved though he looked more roughed and tumbled afterwards than they did. We eventually went home at 11pm. A very late night for a cruiser.