We spent a little over a week in Denerau and it rained every day.  Some days it was a light drizzle and some days it was a downpour.  Sometimes we just stayed on the boat and sometimes we waited it out ashore.  We had two little awnings up over the hatches but even so, everything was damp.  Capt Jack’s litter box flooded and had to be dumped overboard.  Luckily I had a spare bag of litter.  Several times the dingy filled up almost to the top and had to be bailed.  And then came the ultimate gully washer.

I had decided to take advantage of a break in the rain to get the laundry done.  I rounded up the dirty clothes, soap and a book and had Alan row me ashore  The washing machines here are better and cheaper than the ones at Vuda.  You actually get hot water without paying extra for it.   A couple of hours later everything was sparkling clean, dry and folded.  I called Alan to pick me up.  We put the clean laundry in the dingy and then Alan said that he needed to go talk to the electrician.  Just as we headed back to the dock the sky opened and the rain came pouring down in buckets.  We ducked into the closest restaurant as the staff struggled to roll down the storm screens.  All I could think of was my nice clean, dry laundry and the book that I had been reading which was in the laundry basket. The minute there was a break we ran for the dock, grabbed the laundry, and my book, and made another dash for the closest restaurant.  A glance at the sky had made it clear that we did not have time to row back to the boat.      

The wind and rain continued for over an hour while we sat at Cardo’s Restaurant and drank draft Fiji Bitter and ate taro chips with the bag of damp laundry by our feet.  By the time it was over the marina office was closed and I did not have any more laundry tokens so we rowed back to the boat.  Once again, the inside of Rhapsody was festooned with damp clothes hanging from every hook.  When I went to put them away the next day I discovered that the closet had a leak so all of those clothes were damp.  Guess I will just wait until we get back to Vuda and hang them all out on the line, if the rain ever stops.