I wanted to write another comprehensive Internet update yesterday evening, but was unfortunately overcome by tiredness. I’d been working on the Zeeman Challenger all day long in the full heat of the sun. I got back to the hotel just before 8pm and got straight on the net – which was once again so incredibly slow that it took nearly an hour to send a few e-mails – and then it was finally time for a well-earned shower. They only have cold showers here (though we’d probably consider them more lukewarm), but in such a tropical climate that’s actually a blessing. It cooled me off nicely in any case, and when I was finished I put in my iPod’s earphones and stretched out on the bed.

I don’t remember how soon it happened, but in any event I went to sleep very quickly and didn’t wake up for another five hours – at 2am – when I was roused by the air conditioning not working properly as usual. To cut a long story short, the electrician is ill so my airco won’t be fixed until he’s better. And no, we won’t be getting someone else in.

That got me interested. “Jeez, how long will he be off for?” At least a few weeks apparently, as he’s got Dengue. Ah well, that tells me what I’m up against at least, and I’ve also learnt that there’s a disease that’s even worse than malaria being passed around by all the bugs around me. So I’m not going to pay for that airco, though it’s precisely that problem that disturbed my night’s sleep and is still doing so now as I’m typing this report.

Bear in mind I’ve got a penthouse with five beds, but on the upper floor with a flat roof and windows on three sides, so it’s absolutely baking inside. Not that it’s as bad as in the Toyota Corolla I’ve rented, which I can only park in the sun – I bet they only offer the black model to white tourists as well.

I’d leant the doors of my hotel room against each other to keep them open and left the light on. Yes, naturally that’s just asking for Dengue. I was covered in mosquito bites, literally from head to toe – it can’t have been too difficult for them to find a place to land amidst the sparse hairs on my crown, and they’d made ample use of each of my toes as well. Luckily my skin has the same properties as that of a black person’s, which means that the bumps caused by mosquito bites disappear again after two hours, but that wasn’t helping me much right then. I was itching in a hundred places at once, so I was wide awake straight away and was busy until 4am getting rid of the whole grey cloud around me, though the constant buzzing around my head led me to suspect that plenty of them were still alive.

The airco would still turn on at least, and it supplied a bit of wind. Every five minutes it would discover it was leaking again, though, and cut out, at which point the buzzing would come back and I’d have to quickly press the power button on the remote again. This went on for over an hour.

And then there’s the boat, which is coming along well. When I’m working with it, pausing every once in a while to take a good look at it as I do, I must say I feel the greatest respect for it. The Pacific crossing has so far cost me blood, sweat, tears, bruises and blood poisoning, not to mention a few teeth, but the Zeeman Challenger has had its intensive care; that gaping wound on the underside has turned into a nasty scar, but in my eyes that only lends the boat a certain charm. We’ve been putting in some old familiar teamwork form morning till night over the past few days, and we hope to keep at it for a long time.

All the technical stuff is finished. The recabling is done. The new stereo is pounding away like never before and everything’s working so well together. Got the stereo speakers and remote, all Kenwoods, tuned into each other, and I’m really loving this remote control. What a luxury it is to be able to control your stereo from the deck. Actually, I don’t know why I’m calling it a luxury – a few years ago there was an English rower who crossed the Atlantic Ocean with a built-in fridge containing forty litres of wine! Compared to that I think a stereo remote isn’t too bad.

The Sea Me active radar reflector is working perfectly again with its new cabling and switch box. The auto-pilot is running smoothly again. Both the Geonav and Garmin GPSes are working just like old times.

It was time to go through and recount the food supply. And what did I find? The plague of fruit flies was nothing compared to the forces of nature at work in Fiji. Over the past few months these islands have been struck by an excessive amount of rain, driving winds and floods that have resulted in a colony of cockroaches taking refuge in the Zeeman Challenger and got stuck into my food supplies. The remaining food had been saved and stowed away safe and dry inside, but unfortunately there was another surprise waiting for me when I came to sort it all today – I ended up in pitched battle with yet another colony, this time one of mice. There were droppings and chewed-open packaging lying everywhere.

The experience taught me something about the lives of mice, though. They like to eat muesli for breakfast, spaghetti for dinner and chocolate mousse for dessert. In any case it was clear that they didn’t like porridge, vanilla pudding or chicken curry very much, as they’d left those packages untouched. The whole place was swarming with vermin – I could see them everywhere, running between the remains of my food, leaving their droppings along the way. I decided to look for mutual interests and told them about my love for saunas, which it turned out they didn’t share. A steaming bath from the kettle went unappreciated, and brought our association to an end.

I drove back and forth to the supermarket a few times, and after three journeys I’d built up a nice three-month supply again, which I spread out evenly across the boat. I sorted out, repacked and arranged the rest of my gear before coming across another problem. I’ve no idea how it happened, but for some reason a small drill hole has appeared in the well of the boat. I saw air bubbles coming out of it at some point while walking across the deck, which must mean the boat’s underbelly, beneath the sealed floor plate, was full of water. Today I and a number of other men tiled the boat onto its side and I drilled a hole one centimetre wide just next to the keel. A bit too much, you might’ve thought, but no – a spout of water came out of both sides and kept flowing for over an hour. Tomorrow we’ll let it dry out thoroughly and then close it all up again.

Now everything’s progressing swiftly my departure has been brought forward by almost a week. If everything goes well the boat will be launched into the water on Friday and inspected by Customs, and I’ll be on my way again as early as 9am on Sunday. Weather-permitting, of course.