Happy Birthday Martin!

 Best Cap'n ever takes a break to go dive.

 Diving with Megan Ross

 We've had overall mediocre sailing conditions here in Fiji but yesterday coming back to Viti Levu we had 15-20 kts of wind, great sailing.

Happy 45th Birthday Martin! Tonight we'll celebrate with a well travelled box of Ghiradelli chocolate cake mix(it has made the same trip as we have, from NC) and dinner at the Boatshed restaurant. We're making final preparations to leave Fiji on Saturday and make the passage down to New Zealand, about a 1,000 mile trip. We'll wait out the cyclone season there until May 2016. Pau Hana will get some rest and a tune-up after the big trip.

Dolphins ride the bow wave

No matter how many times this happens, it's always a complete delight. Footage from the Galapagos, pre-GoPro.

https://vimeo.com/141604143#t=NaNs

Megan goes boating

Clown fish in an anenome, Mamanucas

We had a great time with Megan on board this week. She was a great sport and even got certified for scuba while here. She delivered lots of goodies from home and generally brightened up the place. She even even endured a showing of Jack goes Boating. Thanks for the great visit, Megan!

 This little damselfish was very curious with the camera and swam right up to me several times.

Fantastic coral formation in the Yasawas.

This little yellow chromis fish was giving the manta ray a run for its' money. Mantas only eat plankton, so I can only think he was just catching the wave made by the big ray. Martin thinks he was showing off for his friends. These 2 rays were 10-12 feet in wingspan and swam 6 feet under us while we were snorkeling. Just curious, I guess. 

Yasawa Islands

currently anchored at
S 17*10.3'
E 177*11.3'

We got buzzed by two Manta Rays while snorkeling this morning.
Tonight we'll go ashore to a nearby resort that has a beach bar and wood fired pizza oven.
No cell signal so no posting photos from here, but I got some great pics of these Mantas.
Low clouds with slight drizzle and about 72* F

Martin

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Mamanutha Islands

Currently anchored at
S 17*27.5'
E 177*02.6'
Megan Kempt is aboard and recently completed her SCUBA training.
The water clarity is excellent here, and the sun is rising after a few gray days.
All is well on Pau Hana
Martin

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Lexi Gulbranson shared a video with you on Vimeo

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Sailing into the calm, Fiji

We arrived a couple days ago and have been busy with boat projects and getting ready for my friend Megan to fly in on Monday from Bozeman. We're gonna head off to a group of islands called the Mamanucas for a week of sailing and diving. There's a famous surf break here called Cloudbreak that I'd like to check out, too. Tom Hanks' movie Castaway was filmed here. The infamous TV show called Celebrity Love Island was also filmed here as was a movie called The Blue Lagoon (yep the Brooke Shields one). Go Megan!

Sent from my iPad

Lexi Gulbranson

S/V Pau Hana

South Pacific 2015