The past two days we've had early starts again, primarily to catch buses. Yesterday we headed to Nadi for Elaine's doctor's appointment, followed by her physiotherapy appointment, which ended up taking up most of the morning and feeling more like a torture chamber, since the physiotherapist had to work to get all the spasms out off both Elaine's feet and legs, after her disastrous walk last week. Fortunately it also marked a major milestone in her rehabilitation; although really difficult, weight-bearing strength training has started. Feeling a little overwhelmed by it all, we have made the decision to rather return to Malolo Lailai for at least the next two weeks rather than sailing around the other Yasawa Islands, which will allow Elaine to focus all her attention on this, all important, final stage of her recovery.
On our return to Port Denarau, we enjoyed lunch at Cardo's before the morning caught up with Elaine. Exhausted she spent the remainder of the afternoon in bed. We did, however, head ashore in the evening for an ice-cream and to enjoy the Fijian Dance Show.
Roy also surprised Elaine with a gift to help her monitor this final stage of her recovery and beyond; a fitbit. Very nifty device indeed!
Today we had a lovely surprise just before boarding our bus to Nadi / Lautoka en route to the airport. Roy bumped into Take Off (Louise and Jordan) from last year's World ARC in the marina office. They then accompanied him to the bus stop, to see Elaine, where she was waiting for Roy.
After catching up with them, we spent the rest of the day collecting our parcel from the post office at the airport and provisioning. Eventually received this parcel meant Roy was able to fix the last of the issues that occurred on our passage from hell; the mast winch. We also squeezed in an inexpensive lunch at one of the local Indian restaurants, before returning to Paw Paw for our 4th July "celebrations" aboard.
The day ended on the best note possible ; facetiming the family in Oregon and having William actually call Elaine "grandma" for the first time. Needless to say, her heart simply melted! Numerous attempts to get him to say "grandpa" failed, however, since he kept repeating a very enthusiastic "hi" to Roy.
