Enjoying the sun and smiles in the tropics.
Freewind is currently moored in Savusavu where its full-on at the Junior Sailing Club, in preparation for the Oceania Games in Noumea, New Caledonia later this month. Four young sailors from Savusavu will be representing Fiji in Laser sailing and Freewind will be there too to support the team. The local community and visiting yachties have been very generous with their contributions to all the fundraising efforts and the club’s young sailors are training hard to be in top shape for the races. The strong trade winds that have been blowing this week are giving the kids a good run with the boats.
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Savusavu kids sailing the Lasers in strong trade winds | The natural hot springs in town, next to the hotel |
Eco-friendly innovative water heating at the Hot Springs Hotel, Savusavu
One of the attractions of Savusavu is the natural hot spring which flows right in the centre of town, next to the local primary school and the aptly named Hot Springs Hotel. Early in the morning, when it is still cool, yachts moored opposite the town can see the steam rising from the ground where the hot spring water flows into the sea – quite an unusual sight.
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The heat exchanger used to heat the water at the Hot Springs Hotel | The heat exchanger being lowered into the hot geothermally active ground. |
Last week, when visiting the Hot Springs Hotel, I had the opportunity to see the unique water heating system which takes advantage of the geothermal activity underneath the hotel grounds. All the hot water in the hotel is heated by a heat exchanger buried in the hot, thermally active ground. The water, which enters at a temperature of about 25ºC, gets heated to 50ºC. The system is gravity-fed, so as well as being a great eco-friendly way of heating water, it saves the hotel on the heating bill.
Read more on this in the Fiji Times article and see photos here.
Well, that’s all for now. We are starting to think about the next leg – the sail from Fiji to New Caledonia in about 2 weeks’ time. Freewind’s pretty much ready to go, so it will be mostly provisioning for the trip and the stay in New Caledonia (where food is much more expensive) just before we leave. Until then – warm greeting from Savusavu,
Ron
