So Sunday morning we were all up early, retrieving our anchors from the coral maze beneath us (which went surprisingly well). Steelheart with Jack aboard took the lead, and we followed a zigzag route more or less as it is laid out in the Calder cruising guide westward along the shore inside the main reef. Steelheart decided to linger another day in an anchorage near the pass, while Jack jumped in his tinny (an aluminum skiff) and took himself home. We exited the pass without incident and remembered to make the track into a route for a return visit.

Unfortunately the day kind of ran downhill after that. Here we were on the last leg, the home stretch, as it were, where, going west, we had every right to expect a good sail. The forecast was for 15-20 with gusts to 25 from the East, yet we had barely ten from dead astern. We gave up sailing as the boat rolled in the swell, the sky clouded over, and the GPS calculated that it would take us twelve hours at 2.5 knots. NOT! Don says he's going to calculate the number of engine hours used in our trip around, but I don't think I'll publicize it!

As we bore down on Point Passage off Lesiaceva Point, it started to rain. It was misty to start but got serious as we rounded the lighthouse, blotting out the boats at anchor off Cousteau. We'd hoped to pick up Curly's mooring from which we left almost two months ago, but it was taken by another boat. Ah well, close enough.

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

We picked our way through the reefs on our way in from Buca Bay, grateful for the full sun, because our CMap charts are still off. Conveniently, the NZ sloop Steelheart motored right past us, so, since they'd been to Viani before, we followed them in to the center anchorage right below the home of the Fisher family, who own much of the acreage here. Jack Fisher, a stout man of about sixty, is known for guiding visiting yachties whether on treks in the hills or to the delights of the reefs. Jack came by shortly after we got the hook down, and we made a plan to dive the next day.

However, within an hour, two more boats arrived in the anchorage. Another Kiwi boat called Tokimata and the American 44-foot Voyage catamaran Wind Pony. The Voyage cats' charter base is in Soper's Hole, Tortola, so every time one of these handsome craft sails by we enjoy a little nostalgia. The crew on Wind Pony, Dick and Lynn of St. Paul, MN, and their visiting friends Joe and Molly were also interested in a trip out to the reefs, so pretty soon the plan was modified for us ALL to go aboard Wind Pony.

For this kind of thing, cats just can't be beat. There we were, eleven people including Jack, with an absurd amount of space to enjoy the ride. And, in a way that wouldn't have happened easily otherwise, we all quickly got to know one another.

The good news from our point of view is they weren't all divers. On our first trip out, only three of us, Don, Peter of Tokimata, and I, dove the famous Purple Wall, while the others snorkeled the top of the reef. Jack gives a briefing on the site, and then he takes you out in your own dinghies, following your bubbles as you go with the current. For this service, he charges F$10pp. For experienced divers with their own equipment and an onboard compressor like us, this is a deal that is hard to beat! But for more novice divers or for people without gear, there is a professional dive operation at the east end on the bay called Dolphin Divers, so no one need miss out

The Purple Wall is one of the most beautiful dives I have ever done, and as you can guess, that is saying a lot. Ever since my trip to the Red Sea in 1984, I have had a soft spot for soft corals. Up until this dive, I have been disappointed that the soft corals we've been seeing have been the leather corals and other spongier sorts -- interesting, but usually drab. The soft corals I remember from the Red Sea were inflated bouquets of color – pinks, oranges and yellows.

Jack dropped us in up current, and we swam down the reef to about forty feet. For the first few minutes I was unimpressed. Then we rounded a bend and the wall exploded with a profusion of soft corals, which for some reason are all in purple hues! They were dark purple, lavender or white with purple trim! It was a spectacular display. Plus there were loads of fish, and lots of crinoids, relatives of feather starfish that filter feed at night but curl up in the day. Most eye-catching were the little orange basslets that mass around the corals providing quite the color contrast, and at one spot I saw a pair brilliant yellow goatfish against the purple. Talk about Nature's palette! We also saw two huge Napoleon wrasse, thousands of butterfly fish, and enough fish of "shootable size" to satisfy Don's meaty fancies. (It seems he doesn't need to actually be spear-fishing, he just likes to see something he could!) At the end of the dive was a swim-thru cavern, clad in every color soft and cup coral you can imagine, along with beautiful sea fans, wire corals, and gorgonians. Since this cave both ends the Purple Wall dive and begins the famous White Wall dive, you have seen it photographed in dozens of divemagazines.

Then, as if all this weren't enough, as we did our safety stop, what should swim up but a manta ray! He was not huge, probably about 10' wide, but he was deeply black and feeding at the surface. The snorkelers all jumped back in the water to see him.

The next day, we dived the Cabbage Patch. Relatively new divers, Dick and Lynn of Wind Pony had opted to snorkel yesterday, but encouraged by our great dive, they decided to give it a shot. Unfortunately, the current was much stronger here than we'd had yesterday, which made things a bit more challenging, but Jack put our dinghy anchor down so that Lynn would have a descent line. It was a good move for all of us. We crept up and over the edge of the wall and again enjoyed the profusion of soft corals, these of mixed colors, purples and yellows with lots of colorful fish. The soft coral wall was over too quickly thanks to the current, so the second half of the dive was up on the ledge going from bommie to bommie. A bommie is an isolated coral patch, often attaining significant height, each providing shelter for a huge range of fish. On this stretch, we saw many large fish between the bommies -- groupers and snappers and god knows what! We also had several sharks, including a 10' lemon shark resting on the bottom.

This dive ended a bit short when Lynn experienced some buoyancy problems. Her instructor back in Tobago had, for some reason, fitted her with a bit of belt carrying eight pounds of lead across the top part of her tank, "to help her swim more horizontally." I've never seen anything like it, and certainly saw no reason why she would need it. Apparently, she lost this weight during the dive, and of course, could not get back down. Once on the surface, she was caught up in the current, and had to be picked up by Jack. Before we found the explanation, Lynn was a little spooked that she had some incurable issues with buoyancy control. Jack kept saying she needed more weight, but on the dive itself I was fairly sure she was over-weighted. It turned out we were both right. When we got back to the anchorage, she and I got in the water and did buoyancy check. Discovering the missing weights, the mystery of her inability to get back down was solved, and after the buoyancy check, I was confirmed that she was carrying too much weight to start, hence many of her issues. We took several pounds off, and did a little tour under the boat, and she looked like a pro to me. It felt good to be back in the role of helpful instructor, however minor a lesson.

And it sure felt good to be diving again. Diving fabulous diving! Have I mentioned how much I love scuba diving?

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Labels: Diving, Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

To add to our discomfort, the pass east between Kioa and the mainland refused to reveal itself. It looked like we were sailing into a closed bay, and our guidebook let us down with no detailed drawings or pix of it as to where would be best to anchor! Fortunately, we spied by binocs a sole sailboat with a triple spreader rig and red sail covers anchored dead ahead that stood good odds of being the yacht Red Sky. Like Sequester at Also Island, we had not previously met Red Sky, but we had communicated with them by radio and email, so wanted to meet them in person.

Red Sky was anchored in a dimple along the southern shoreline of the bay. Actually they turned out to be on a mooring, of which there was only one, so we had to drop the hook in 70' (16*40.443'S; 179*51.363'E), and the afternoon wind being nor'east we settled right back with the shore off our stern. Hmmm. Steve and Carol promptly paddled over in their two-man inflatable kayak, and we had one of those instant impromptu get-togethers that cruisers have.

Steve and Carol had found this place by walking down the road from their previous anchorage further up the bay. What had caught their eye was a house and garden with a painted gate saying Welcome to Valesia, so they had walked in. It turned out to be the home of an enterprising young Fijian couple – Joe and Sau -- who have recently moved back here from Savusavu. Joe has undertaken a new baking business, producing loaves of coconut bread (with wholemeal loaves planned to start production next week) from a wood-fired oven in their back yard that are distributed not just around the bay but to Rabi and Kioa by ferry. Sau, an experienced seamstress, makes clothing and takes on various sewing projects. Red Sky was taking advantage of her skills and having screens made for their hatches. Joe and Sau plan to build a couple of bures for backpackers and hope to draw more cruisers with the bread-baking, sewing and laundry services.

We met Joe and Sau in person the next morning when we took Red Sky's suggestion to checkout the new clinic being built up the coast. The clinic, a huge undertaking of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, is a pleasant mile or so walk up the road. It is a large, modern concrete structure in a broad lawn of tall red coconut palms. We are told it is funded by a couple of doctors who have been organizing medical missionary visits here overr the past ten years. Indeed a large group of physicians were here earlier in the month.

The managers of the project – Wayne and Lois -- live up a road just beyond the clinic, so we climbed it to see if we might meet them. It turned out they were gone to Savusavu for the day, but Wayne's 80-year-old parents, recently arrived from Colorado, were glad to welcome us. They showed us around their son and daughter-in-law's interesting living arrangements: a sort of pop-up geodesic tent known as a yurt! The yurt sat annexed to a concrete kitchen/shower/laundry annex and a shady porch where we sipped lemonade. The view was outstanding.

Upon our return to Valesia, Joe produced a couple of cool drinking coconuts to refresh us and before we knew it we were seated at their kitchen table enjoying a fish soup and sweet potato lunch. That led to checking out some of the Fijian outfits that Sau has produced,…which led to my taking one home with me, a great buy at just F$20. At last I have proper attire for church or funeral! If we just had more time to linger, Sau would take my measurements and sew an outfit specifically tailored for me. I am tempted to come back with fabric and get some lightweight tops made with just enough shoulder coverage – no more no less – to be acceptable to the village fashion police; my stateside tanks are too skimpy and my cotton T-shirts too hot!

Just beyond Joe and Sau's place is a complex belonging to an Indian family. Sonny, the patriarch, has built several boats in his yard, including the ferry Raja, that came in and dried out with the tide for some bottom work while we were there. More currently, he runs a major grocery distribution center, which services all of Buca Bay as well as Kioa and Rabi. We took a stroll down the aisles and were impressed with the volume of staples. In charge during our visit was one of Sonny's two sons who are home for a month-long break from the University of the South Pacific in Suva.

That evening, Steve and Carol reciprocated by inviting us aboard their boat for cocktails. These two condo captains don't often get to go aboard a REAL sailboat. Red Sky is a Santa Cruz 50, and inside everything is built to minimize weight. There are no bulkheads, the barest furniture, and the sole is slats rather than solid flooring. Carol tells me that they go twelve knots where we'd go five, and that the boat can do much faster. Yikes, I think I'd get a nosebleed from the speed.

In the morning, all four of us went ashore to say goodbye to Joe and Sau. They had made lemon leaf tea and fresh coconut bread for us, and the men left with gifts of Sau-made shirts. Well, if they learn not to give everything away, I think this couple could be the future of Fiji. I asked Sau what she thought made the two of them so motivated compared to typical Fijian villagers, and she attributes it to her "urban exposure" and to her father and brothers having businesses in Suva, essentially just being a few generations up the experiential curve. It's an indication that things can evolve here after all.

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

Not by half! Marjetka rowed up to Tackless II the morning after our arrival with two gutted and scaled mackerel -- "a gift from the old man on the beach." Don's knee has been hurting him since it popped during the scrambling on the muddy hillside at Cawaro, so we had not even been sure we would bother to go ashore, especially since the cruising guides suggest that the Rabi people like their privacy. But Marjetka has been here for two weeks and is likely to stay another two weeks. She has gotten quite involved with the two local "families" (no young children here since the school is in Nuku), and rows them out fishing in her small patched dinghy, a big service since they have no working boat of their own.

In the afternoon Marjetka and her "Lady Tramp" dog Cherie came back, and we spent a most pleasant evening over wine and cheese learning their story. Marjetka hails from Slovenia (just east of Italy), and five years ago she gave up her job as a computer programmer and bought the Little Mermaid on Germany's Baltic coast. She thought she was embarking on a three-year circumnavigation, but like some other sailors we know, she is finding it is taking longer. The personable Cherie came into her life in Martinique, when Marjetka rescued the puppy by buying it off the owners who were carrying it by its hind leg. Having a dog aboard solved all Marjetka's problems of uninvited nighttime visitors who were sure they were doing her some favor, and once Cherie even woke her when she'd fallen asleep on watch and strayed too near a reef. Don and I were most taken with Cherie.

Marjetka has a Norwegian friend who flies in here and there to visit (har to imagine on the tiny boat!), but all in all she is content traveling solo. Alone she can spend whatever time she chooses in whatever place takes her fancy, and build whatever relationships there she wants. Clearly it brings her some special experiences. Don and I have been reading a collection of interviews of "travel writers" titled A Sense of Place, edited by Michael Shapiro and published by the Traveler's Tales folks. I say "travel writers" in quotes, because most of them see themselves less as "travel" writers than writers about place. However, a steady theme throughout the interviews was that when they are traveling for work, they travel alone, because when you are part of a couple, it changes the way you interact with people. Having been single for so many years, I think we both understand this intuitively, and while I for one sometimes miss that, I wouldn't trade back.

So Sunday morning I go ashore with Marjetka. Our first stop, after determining that "the old man is out fishing" is to feed our slop to two tethered pigs, who happily switch from munching coconut to chicken bones and mackerel heads! The "old man" paddles in from snorkeling with the bodies of three giant clams tethered to his belt. Lunch for his household, a son and another young man.

We enter the very low hut from the cooking area, the only eave I can get under. Inside I am surprised to see the complex "architecture" of the L-shaped abode, built of sticks lashed together, with open areas for windows, and complicated gables supporting a roof of thatch and corrugated mixed. It is a bit dark, but cool. After putting some pots to cook on the fire in the raised hearth in the cooking nook, the son opted for the hammock that swung a few inches off the ground and a newspaper from May, and we sat with Panea (the old man) on some comfy cushions over the ubiquitous mats.

Panea's English is pretty good, and he has a book he lends me for the evening telling the history and stories of the Banaban people of Rabi. However, Marjetka tells me Panea himself is actually of the Polynesian Ellis Island people that bought the next Fijian island south called Kioa to reduce population pressure on their own island. Panea definitely has a different look than Tina and her husband in the other hut down the beach who are of Micronesian stock and much darker and more angular. Panea keeps a log of the people who stop in Albert Cove to visit. There aren't so many, since it is slightly off the beaten track to Taveuni, but the boat signing the log ahead of Marjetka were the Swiss family, Andy and Marion we'd just met in Cawaro.

I stay and visit a bit with Panea, while Marjetka goes to put an epoxy patch on Tina's leaky canoe. Afterwards we pick up Don and go snorkeling on Albert Cove's inner reef. While Marjetka, Don and I are mostly sightseeing, it is all business for Panea. Over his shorts he dons a short-sleeve shirt over which he ties on a thin belt of twine. He's got mask and fins and is armed with a homemade Hawaiian sling made from a piece of 1/4-inch stainless-steel rod about five feet long fitted with a point at one end and strap, and an elastic arrangement I can't explain. From the pretty corals of the shoal, Panea sets off toward deeper water with Don working hard to keep up.

When Panea takes a shot at a fish, the whole spear goes flying free, dropping with or without fish wherever it may. Thus one must be careful about not shooting out into the deep! Don was impressed that Panea retrieves his spear on the same breath with which he shoots it! When he hits a fish, he runs a wire from his belt through the eyes before he slips it off the spear, so that he ends up wearing his catch around his middle. If he finds an edible shellfish on the bottom, he tucks that inside his belted shirt! Quite the system.

We'd already been in the water an hour when I realized I'd lost track of Don. Marjetka and I swam back to the anchored dinghy and still no sight of them. I had to swim back to Tackless, and climb up on the deck box with the binoculars to locate them in the glitter of the afternoon sun. By the time Don swam back to the boat, he'd been in the water two hours. As Marjetka rowed by with Panea (who had the decency to look frozen), he had added an octopus to his catch which he said he would cook up for our dinner!

All this, mind you, from a man who had a stroke a year ago and who still struggles to walk down the beach!

It is after dark when Marjetka rows back with the octopus in a blue plastic pail. It has been beaten tender and cooked in lolo (coconut milk). At first glance it appears intact, but, no, Marjetka says, Panea kept the head which is their favorite part. What we have is all eight legs attached to the throat! It was a big octopus! Marjetka, bless her, takes on the job of slicing him up into more manageable pieces, while I make rice and green beans. And afterwards we each have two legs left for another day!!!! We had a lovely dinner which only ended when, Cherie, taking a break in the dinghy, got overly excited about the fish jumping around the boat and plunged in after it. It took a little coordination of lights from T2 and Marjetka in the dinghy to fish her out of the dark.

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Labels: Diving, Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

We could easily have stayed a lot longer. The outer reef here is a lot closer to the anchorage than anywhere else along the north side we stopped, and we were itching for a dive out there. Jim himself was interested in our professional take on it, but it just didn't work out where he was free to run us out. We did make an attempt Wednesday to check out the diving in our own dinghy, but it proved just a little too far to get all the way out to the outer reef. Instead we scoped out some of the inner reefs, finding if not a good dive site, a very nice mound to snorkel.

We have also been pushing our luck with the settled weather. After Thursdays rain, when Friday dawned clear with continued light winds, we just felt we couldn't gamble any longer. Should the trades finally fill back in to 15-20 out of the southeast, getting around Udu Point would be a real challenge.

So we were underway early Friday, picking our way gingerly east out the Nukusa Pass. The rising sun in our eyes made the water and reefs hard to read, and we had a few moments of anxiety when shoals loomed up unexpectedly under the bow. But once clear, we had a lovely motorsail along the peninsula, finally landing a beautiful mahi mahi.

Udu Peninsular sticks out about sixteen miles beyond Lagi Bay, but the reef off its tip continues yet another four miles! It is quite the sight, but almost impossible to capture with a camera. Another surprise of Udu Point is the fact that we cross back into the Western Hemisphere! Once we rounded the reef point, we made a sharp tack to the right to beat hard southward 26 miles to the nearest anchorage – Albert Cove on Rabi (Rambi) Island.

As was inevitable, the wind increased as the afternoon wore on, and the sky filled with cloud. We arrived at Rabi around four o'clock, but without the sun the reefs were hard to see. We found the opening in the outer reef easily from the intermittent curl of a wave on its edge, but the entrance through the inner reef was another thing. Without the sunlight we could barely see the reef, let alone the narrow entrance to the protected cove that our charts showed. One other boat was at anchor, but no one answered our radio call. So we crept in with Don high in the rigging talking me in via the handheld radio.

Once in, Albert Cove is a picturesque anchorage with a white sand beach and waving palms, a refreshing change from the dark water mangrove coastline of the north side. A few simple thatch huts are visible ashore, and the fishermen on the reef are in canoes, not the punts or rafts typical to Fiji. That's because the residents of this island are not Fijian. They are Micronesians transplanted here from Banaba Island (also known as Ocean Island) in Kiribati.

The Banaban islanders had a rough time of it in the 20th century. First the island's rich phosphate reserves were discovered and mined by the British until World War II when the Japanese occupied the island and deported most of its residents. The deportees turned out to be the lucky ones, because the few that remained were exterminated by the hard-hearted occupying force! After the war, the island was so damaged that the displaced Banabans were offered resettlement on Rabi by a British company that had purchased the island. They are now Fijian citizens but mostly keep to themselves, still speaking a Kiribati dialect The main village of Rabi is Nuka about four miles down the coast. Only a few people live permanently along the narrow beach fof Albert Cove

Our cruising guide painted a charming picture of the anchorage but made one serious error. It described the anchoring depths at 10 meters, where the reality is more like 20-30 meters with lots of coral. The other boat here, the diminutive "Little Mermaid" which we recognized from Savusavu as the boat belonging to single-handing woman, was sitting over 90 feet of water as we passed her! Yikes. After much careful circling, we finally found a spot about half that depth to put the hook down, but we are hanging back over much deeper water.

A days travel is hardly a major passage in this part of the world, especially one with as easy conditions as we had today, but there is always something special about the first evening in a totally new place. And the dinner of fresh mahi in salsa Veracruz didn't hurt either.

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With our bundles of yangona in hand, we climbed the path from the stone jetty to the village center on the ridge. In a grassy area south of the church, some men were assembling a "pavilion" with lashed bamboo posts and "rafters," topped by sheets of corrugated roofing clamped down with more bamboo poles. Beneath the finished part, a group of men were sitting around the tanoa (the kava bowl), and as we appeared someone ran for mats for us to sit on.

We'd arrived at the beginning of a busy time. On Thursday was scheduled the funeral of the wife of Aposai, a respected and educated village elder, and groups of guests were arriving – by boat and footpath – from all over the east end of Vanua Levu. Isei, the chief, came and sat with us over several rounds of kava, inquiring about our travels and talking business with Jim, only to be interrupted as new groups arrived.

As each group arrived, it approached the pavilion, set down the palm-leaf baskets of taro, cassava, and other foodstuffs they'd brought (which at least once included a squealing pig strung by its feet on a pole between two bearers), and sat down with a bundle of yagona identical to the one we'd brought laid on the ground front of the speaker. Isei would move to sit facing them and listen somberly to their petitionary speech. He then would deliberate a bit, because he has the right to accept or decline the offering, before finally answering equally formally and picking up the yagona.

The yagona ceremony is age-old. Many cruisers do not like it. Some don't like having to dress a certain way, act a certain way, and follow a particular protocol. They feel they have a universal right to go where they please once they've done the official paperwork, and most of the world indulges them in this belief. Others feel they should be able to give something of more practical use to the village rather than a bunch of dried up roots (each of which costs F$10 at the market) to "one old man."

But our visit to Cawaro let us see that the ceremony is neither some imposition on cruisers nor is some traditional performance maintained for tourists. We saw each group of visitors to the funeral, people from neighboring villages and presumably invited, initiate their visit with the same formal ceremony over a bundle of ugly roots. The chief's acceptance of the yagona signifies his acceptance of you into the village and extends his protection to you while here.

Ironically, despite a friendly reception and despite drinking kava with us, Isei never did complete our sevusevu. It most likely was all the distractions of the arrivals for the funeral, or it may have been a tiny reprimand for delaying so long in coming to the village, or it may even have had to with some undercurrent between him and Jim. In the end, when Napote (husband to Tokasa who works at Also Island) pointed out to Isei that he had never actually done the sevusevu, Isei designated Napote to complete it.

We could easily have come and gone from Also Island without bothering to visit the village, much as we did at Nukubati and Palmlea. It is definitely easier to stop over in one of those places where it is not expected. But you get so much for it. By this simple ceremony, we were now invited to attend Thursday's funeral "festivity," something Tokasa had been urging us to stay for.

Electrification & Appreciation
Although Jim and Kyoko are not by any stretch official missionaries, they stopped here because they saw a chance to make a difference, to become a bridge between what is still an almost primitive culture and the modern world that is pressing in on them….quite simply, to help.

Giving to a culture like the Fijian one is fraught with all sorts of pitfalls. Because it is such a communal culture, there is no real understanding of personal possessions. If you have something, be it a thing or a service, and it is needed, then it is expected you will share it. And, as we saw at Jimmo's plantation at Nukubati, if you aren't using it, and it's needed, they just take it. They simply don't see it as a big deal. Marrying into a Fijian family (also Samoan or Tongan) can bring some big surprises, when you discover that you may be expected, for example, to pay for a cousin's wedding, simply because you have the resources. It is a big disincentive to get ahead!

In Jim and Kyoko's case, they have put the majority of their retirement savings into their operation at Also Island, where everything they have implemented– the boat repair and building, the coconut press, the store, the fuel depot, etc. -- has been in response to a need of the local people. It has not been an outright donation. They do expect to able to support living the rest of their lives here, but it is no kind of get-rich scheme and hardly what most Americans would choose for retirement!

What this has to do with electrification is that Jim is "expected" to provide his expertise for events like the funeral to wire the village meeting house and the grounds with temporary lighting. Cawaro as a village has none of its own. A few individuals have batteries and an electric light, but that's about it. So Wednesday afternoon Don went with Jim to tackle the job. Don made two trips back to the island for equipment and light bulbs (right out of Also Island sockets!), which Jim predicted would disappear before he got them back. They were about to make their third trip, when Jim discovered that the "stick" he relies on to pole his boat through low tide shallows (Jale had made us one for our dinghy) had been taken from his boat. I don't know if someone is deliberately messing with him or not, but borrowed or "thieved" (as we say in the Caribe), it was something like the hundredth stick that has disappeared on him, and on Wednesday, it became a "straw" that broke the camel's back. Jim stomped off the job leaving the pavilion unfinished.

The moral of which story, to us at least, is beware of altruism, in particular in cultures not accustomed to balance sheets. It can become a heavy burden to bear.

The Funeral at Cawaro
Thursday dawned overcast and threatening, with rumbles of actual thunder in the distance. It was also a very low tide. At nine o'clock, Jim collected us and Ted and Karen of Sequester aboard the Also V, and with our dinghies tied off to the stern (in case we wanted to leave at different times) carried us to a landing near the school that still would still have enough water for us to land…and where no one was likely to take his stick.

What we didn't realize was the school landing was at least a mile from the village over dirt footpaths. Jim also forgot to suggest we carry-in our change of clothes. So there we are in our Sunday best, and it starts to rain. No problem, we have an umbrella. Hah, imagine trying to keep dry under an umbrella on a hiking trail in the Adirondacks growing moment by moment more slick with mud. First to go was the shoes. Bare feet got a much better grip. Next the umbrella, which was put to better use as a walking stick. At first we were glad to see the river, happy for the chance to sluice off the mud, but then it turned out we had to follow the river bed over its very slick rocks, which was pocked with holes. I'll confess to a fleeting moment of nasty satisfaction that it was Jim, whose impatience with our slow progress was hard to miss, who went down, backpack and all, in a big hole in the river. It was gone the moment I saw his barked shin. Then, just when things started looking up, there was the proverbial log bridge across the river. I'd thought he was kidding on that one, but, no, there it was. I'm not good at the balance thing, and I thought the day was over for me, but the top of the log had been flattened and one of the nice village ladies came out to lend me a steadying hand, so I made it. Have I mentioned that there was a group of ladies "walking" with us? Somehow, they managed to make the trip without even seeming to get wet!

Once we arrived at the village, bedraggled and muddy, Jim took off to find Kyoko, who had (we now saw sensibly) been ferried over at high tide at 6am! Tokasa, who, with her little notebook, seemed to be the ringmaster of all that was going on, passed us into the care of her sister-in-law Kilisi, who also works at Also Island. Kilisi took us to her house, stripped off our wet clothes, hanging them to dry from a wire across her living room, and outfitted us in substitutes from her wardrobe trunk. I ended up with a coordinated skirt and blouse combo, but Don, who wears a sarong on the boat all the time, was loathe to go out in public in his loaner sulu, and preferred his wet pants.

To our amazement, the funeral started pretty much on time. With somewhere around two hundred people from outside the village, there wasn't a chance of everybody getting inside the church. Some sat cross-legged on mats under the bamboo and corrugated pavilion, and others on the cement "deck" of "the old chief's house," while the rest occupied themselves with preparing all the food for the big upcoming feast. Although as "special guests" we were urged to go inside, we all (Ted, Karen, Don and I) preferred to sit outside and listen to the singing through the opening windows. When that got old…and the rain eased…we wandered around taking pictures of the food preparation.

This would not be a good activity for the squeamish. Men were butchering the various meats – beef, pig, turtle and fish – with axes and machetes, after which someone else would cut them up into the bite-sized pieces required when eating with one's fingers. Women were clustered together in doorways peeling, slicing and dicing the various vegetables to be mixed in with the meats as well as the boiled root crops – taro, cassava and yam – that are perennially served on the side like potatoes. There were fires with grills and cookpots blazing in four or five locations, and little boys having fun with some of the unused parts…like the cow's head and hooves! Here's how we put it all into perspective: less than 150 years ago, Fijians were still cannibals and at such an event as this it might well have been people in the pot!

When the funeral service emptied, the casket was carried out of the church to the cemetery. Leoni, Jim's venerable carpenter, motioned for us to follow him into the line of mourners. As incredible as anything we saw was the job of the pall bearers bearing the casket down the steep hill and up the next to the burial ground. Great effort had been extended to cut steps into both hillsides, but thanks to the rain and many feet it was largely transformed into a slide. How they managed I don't know; maybe because they were the first up. The rest of the crowd slithered and slid, everybody helping one another while struggling to remain solemn.

This, as you have probably gathered is hilly country, with little flat land available, but still it was surprising to find the cemetery situated in a v-shaped crotch of hillside. Maybe a dozen concrete tombs poked out of the slope in a random fashion. The new grave was open at the bottom of the hill, and by the time we straggled up, the crowd had pressed close. The minister (Methodist) said some words at graveside before the casket was lowered in. Then men from the village took turns spading in the dirt and tamping it down, placing four sticks to mark the corners of the rectangle. Then they passed in large stones that were used to frame the grave top, which was filled in with more dirt. Then the mourners spread two woven mats across the grave and topped them with a piece of beautiful tapa cloth, on which was then laid all the bouquets of flowers. Only when the last bouquet was laid, did the keening begin, almost a high whimper like dogs might make. It seemed ritualized, but there was a lot of dabbing at eyes throughout the crowd, and when it was over it was over. The family gathered around and someone took pictures.

While waiting for the feast to begin, Karen and I followed two little girls creeping down a hallway in the "old chief's house" to its main room where a crowd of elder ladies were well into the Fijian version of an Irish wake. Several strapping young men, shirtless but for a necklace and armbands of leaves, served the ladies cups of kava from the tanoa in the center of the floor. Everybody was packed in sitting on the floor mats around the walls while four mature ladies made meke – the traditional chants and dance much like what we saw at Nukubati. Apparently it was hilarious! Even the little girl in front on me was laughing into her fingers.

Suddenly it was over and it was time to eat. Don, Ted and Jim had been summoned with the first round of men to the long mats laid in the town hall, but about ten minutes after their head start, Isei, the chief, spied us waiting and hustled us in to eat with our husbands. Bowls and platters of meat dishes, fish (boiled and fried) and "provision" (the Caribbean's collective word for starch crops) were laid out down the middle of the mats, constantly removed and replaced as they emptied. After watching the butchering, Ted and Karen rediscovered a vegetarianism that they'd let slide, but Don and I gamely tasted most everything. I am most sorry to say that the turtle was the best dish after the fried fish. To drink there was a Koolaid-type drink, and industrial-sized finger bowls were shared for rinsing off greasy fingers. When you were done eating, you stood up and left, so that someone else could take your place. Only that way could they rotate the crowd through the meeting hall.

We emerged from our "sitting" to find the sun struggling to come out and the tide well in. On the grass between the "pavilion" and the "old chief's house" were piles of goods over which Tokasa hovered, placing the name of each village group on a pile. These goods included woven mats, taro and a chuck of beef (often still including hide and hoof!) If I remember my reading right this suggests the traditional redistribution of tribute paid to the chief. Or maybe it is just the Fijian version of party favors. Even Jim got a mat. No one was disappointed he didn't get a piece of cow.

We all went back to Kilisi's and changed back into our own (still wet) clothes and then Jim and Ted took off to get the boats and bring them around to the main jetty. Don, unfortunately, had managed to pop his knee on the descent back from the cemetery and was hobbling gingerly. Only as we waited for the boats to appear did we meet Leighton, a tall, handsome young Fijian with the King's English. A resident of Aukland, he was visiting his mother's home village which is how he came to be a guest like us at the funeral. Had we met him earlier, he might have been the "interpreter" we needed to get a better grasp of what was going on around us, for although everyone here speaks a little English, a little English is as far as it goes.

But even without interpretation, the day made for quite the kaleidoscope of experience, so much that was universal, so much that was unique. On every precarious path and step, hands were extended to help, and everyone was unfailingly friendly, evidently pleased to have us there, cameras and all (they specifically encouraged us to bring cameras!), even though we were so obviously outsiders.

The German Question
Our party were not the only white faces in Cawaro. A family of four on a small boat flying a German flag, sailed into Lagi Bay on Monday evening. Despite the flag, the family -- Andrez and Marianne and their two tow-headed boys Simon (5) and Samuel (2) – turned out to be Swiss, doing a year's cruise on a friend's boat out of Australia.

Tuesday morning they went ashore on their own on the hunt for some children to play with theirs, so by the time we arrived that afternoon with our bunches of yagona for sevusevu, they were well-ensconced. A village girl had Samuel on her hip, while his parents went for a hike to the waterfall, and when they got back, their enthusiasm for the hospitality of the villagers was positively bubbling over, greater than Andrez's English could keep up with. Wednesday morning, they went back to the village and on Wednesday evening Andrez came back to their boat alone for clothes, because they were all staying the night ashore, and he, Andrez was going out with the men that night for spear fishing.

On the one hand, all this made us feel like a pair of old fuddy duddies. Where had we lost this youthful enthusiasm to throw ourselves so wholeheartedly into such an adventure? How wonderful an experience this must be for the children, who'd seemed more shy of us when we first met them than of all the unfamiliar faces of the village! This, it seemed, is what cruising cultural exchanges ought to be like.

But in balance, were they sufficiently culturally sensitive of their hosts? Marion's rather revealing attire was certainly not, and Andrez stood over the seated Fijians and talked down at them, a big no-no. Had they brought yagona and done their sevusevu? Was their extended visit an imposition on their hosts, who are culturally unable to say "No"? Was the hospitality they were so enthusiastic about merely the villagers native politeness?

I don't know the answers. I don't even have a clue. To me is emblematic of the central quandary of cruising: Is the visit that is good for us as good for the villagers?

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

This morning Jim got an email from her that she was coming home. Coming home to Also Island is not so simple a matter. Although there is a road to Lagi Bay, it is currently closed, and the Lady K had completed her weekly trip the night before. For Kyoko to get home she would have to be driven partway and Jim would then need to pick her up by boat. He called and asked it we'd like to go along for the ride.

We went by way of the Also V, a 22-foot runabout Jim built himself with a 40 horse outboard. With just the three of us our trip to the rendezvous point -- down the coast and then about ten miles up the Nasavu river – was fast and exhilarating, skimming over colorful shoals thanks the high tide. The river mouth yawed wide, with clumps of dead bamboo stalled on shoals looking like ghost skiffs at anchor. The run upriver was stunning, making us recall our trip to Angel Falls, although this ride faster and smoother. Mostly the river was broad and deep starting amongst mangroves and then twisting and turning its way into steep hills and rocky cliffs sheathed in mixed forest, with anything from bamboo to pine, and only a very few houses. At last we reached a village, and tying up beneath a tall trestle bridge, we climbed a footpath to a makeshift bus shelter alongside the dirt road.

We were grateful for the shade. Only two cars passed in the half hour we waited before Kyoko finally arrived, driven by Rizwan and Nazareen, the Indian couple who had been taking care of her, along with their two boys, groceries, Kyoko's bags and a 50 gallon drum of gasoline! We collected the boat and moved downriver to a landing and Rizwan backed his truck down to the water. With Don holding the boat wedged against the land with a pole, Jim and Rizwan executed the precarious transfer of the drum from the truck to the boat along the boat's bench turned into a ramp. Then we loaded everything and everyone else into the boat for the return trip.

About this time Jim may have regretting inviting us along! Between the load and the falling tide it was a much slower trip home.

Meanwhile, the trimaran Sequester was approaching the same pass we'd come in the day before. Don and I only knew of Sequester from Jim's radio net, which, covering such a large area, is in constant need of relays, and Ted's resonant radio voice and his excellent signal make him a reliable regular. But Ted and his wife Karen are old friends of Jim and Kyoko's's having spent time on the island in its early days. However, that time they'd flown in, and this was their first approach by boat, having recently sailed up after five years in New Zealand. Navigating with only paper charts and a handheld GPS and not with the handy-dandy electronic chartplotter we rely on, Ted and Karen were justly anxious about the complicated reef approach. They were especially anxious because several days ago they'd grounded on an unseen reef on which they'd been stranded a whole day until the next high tide floated them off. So, despite the packed boat, Jim diverted out to rendezvous with them and, making a flyby pass to the under-sail boat, deposited Don aboard to help guide them in. I'm not sure Don was happy with this assignment, but he did manage to get them in safely. All in all, it added up to a pretty long day for everyone!

Sunday morning there was some discussion of church, but with the crowd Jim opted instead to produce a pancake breakfast for all on the "deck of knowledge and responsibility," the social spot on Also Island. By the time we got ashore after the net with our contribution – a pitcher of smoothies a la Palmlea (papaya, banana and passionfruit), Kyoko and Nazareen had been cleaning for hours, the traditional homecoming ministrations of women in any culture. Over breakfast, we all got to know one another a little better. The two boys, Leon and Salman , must have thought they'd died and gone to heaven to be deposited in this island playground, bonding pretty quickly with Jale.

Since school loomed Monday morning for the boys, after breakfast Jim loaded Rizwan and family back in to the Also V for the run back to their truck. This time Ted and Karen went for the river ride, and we stayed and chatted with Kyoko, learning her family history and her take on their operation here at Also Island. Ethnically Japanese, Kyoko was actually born in China where her father was stationed at her birth, but ended up spending most of her life in California, where she worked as a graphic artist. A self-described fishing fool, she met Jim when he had his boat in Marina del Rey.

Although Kyoko had some misgivings about coming back to the island after the stroke, she seems to us to be doing markedly better than even yesterday. She still moves around pretty carefully, often with a cane, but her speech is clear and wit unclouded. Since she had much the same incident that my father suffered in the 80s (subdural bleeding), it is quite impressive. None of the aphasia that he suffered.

In the evening we hosted Ted and Karen and Jim and Jale to dinner on Tackless II (Kyoko begged off at the last minute), serving a Thai fish curry (to use the fish some villagers had given us for a pint of gasoline) and beef with honey and black pepper sauce (to use some stirfry beef I had thawed.) It was the first time in a long time I'd tried to cook two meals at one time, but it came off just fine.

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

We had a nice motorsail up here outside the Great Sea Reef. T2 never cares to go to windward, but the wind was light enough, the seas small enough, and the angle just off enough that we made excellent time with a pleasant ride, although, despite being on the outside of the reef, we caught no fish! The day was gorgeous, cooll without a cloud in the sky, and we arrived at Nukudamu Pass with good light for the complicated reefs we had to negotiate to get in.

Our Cmap-based chartplotter did a good job getting us through the maze all the way to the last bit. We got close enough to see Also Island, with the Also II, the Passport 42 that brought Jim and Kyoko here in the first place, on its mooring, but some river outflow turned the water abruptly brown in a broad band right across our route, and, of the promised pairs of markers, only one of each remained with no topmarks. Should that marker be taken to port or to starboard? What is reef and what is mud? We came to a standstill while Jim ran with his handheld radio to the top of his island and talked us through. Quite honestly, I'm pretty sure we didn't go where we were supposed to go, and when the depth sounder hit seven feet (we draw 5+) my heart about quit. Fortunately, it was dead low tide and, right or wrong, the rising tide would have rescued us, but we squeaked through with nary a bump.

The geology of Also Island seems very different than elsewhere on Vanua Levu. The island rises about twenty feet above sea level with sides of what looks like sculpted grey sandstone, and the topside of the island hangs over the edges for a rather Alice-in-Wonderland cartoon effect. Jim's base is in a sort of gorge on the west end of the island with a hodgepodge of buildings ascending from the beach landing to his living quarters at the top. At beach level are the sheds for his boat building business and fuel drums for the fuel service he provides, next a tool shed, then a separate kitchen with a deck known as the "deck of knowledge and responsibility", above that a generator shack, then a little store he maintains for the local village, then a guesthouse, a bathhouse, his coconut pressing set-up, and finally the main "house" which is also his office, all connected by cement pathways, steps and elaborate flower gardens. Above the buildings to either side are cleared lawn-like slopes, randomly planted with pineapple, pawpaw, banana and other shrubs, with a water tank at the very top and a bench pleasantly placed for an overlook. Quite the little domain

We came ashore mid-afternoon for tea. Tea was actually tea flavored with fresh mint leaves served with biscuits and pineapple jam. We were introduced to the main characters of Jim's regular staff, men, women and children from the nearby village on the "mainland", and, as it was payday, a lot of little envelopes were changing hands, most of it then being spent in the store. A couple of hours after tea, came the end-of-week grog. Grog is the colloquial name for kava, and although not quite a traditional venue, it was the most informal and authentic kava experience we've yet had. Over the kava we learned the history of how Jim came to this remote spot and it is quite a tale.

Here's the short version. Jim and his wife Kyoko crossed the Pacific in 2001 from California and Mexico on the Also II. They sailed into Lagi Bay (Lagi is pronounced Lang-ee) some five years ago, and like many handy cruisers he started fixing things, engines and outboards, for the local villagers. That grew to funding the bringing in of fuel and helping with boat building and other repair projects. One thing led to another and they soon found themselves completely entwined in village life and business. What really makes this story special is how the villagers reciprocated. They essentially gave Jim and Kyoko the island in the bay to keep them here!

It sounds simple and idyllic, but of course, nothing ever is completely. The red tape of the government seems constantly to throw obstacles in the path of all Jim's various efforts, virtually all conceived for the benefit of the villagers, while the villagers themselves have such a laissez-faire attitude, that Jim never knows who will show up to work, the man he has spent weeks training, or someone totally new.

As the afternoon wore on, Jim became distracted over the delayed arrival of the Lady K. The Lady K (named for Kyoko) is part of a fishing cooperative Kyoko set up. Every day, the Lady K tows the village punts like a line of ducklings out to the reef for the day's fishing, and at night she brings them back in again, and once a week she makes the run to Labasa as a transport ship, ferrying villagers back and forth and bringing in fuel for the depot and goods for the store. Labasa is three hours away by dirt road (it is currently closed by a landslide), but for the Lady K it is about an eight hour trip each way. Due around 4pm, she was late, but not only had her skipper not called to say he was running late, he was not answering the radio. Was the volume just turned down or was the boat in trouble amongst the reefs? Fortunately, just about dark, the Lady K finally pulled up to the beach.

Finally, after the boat was unloaded and the crowd dispersed back to the village, only Jim and 15-year-old Jali (pronounced like Charlie without the "R") remained, and they offered to share with us the supper that had been left for them. Jale turns out to be another interesting story. Several years ago a couple of cruisers visiting Also Island became aware of Jale's ambitions to become a doctor. After much consultation with Jale, his family and his teachers, the cruising couple determined to sponsor his education as far as he chooses to go. His side of the deal is he must make good grades. For this reason it was decided that he would live on Also Island in order to improve his English (the language in which all advanced studies is taught) and for Jim to help him with homework. In return, he helps out in the many ways a son would, setting the table and then doing the dishes afterward.

How easy it seems to make a difference here!

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

In the afternoon we had two visitors. The first was a panga-load of Fijian ladies being back chauffeured back by a lone man from their afternoon fishing to a village neither in sight nor on our chart. They rafted alongside to "chat" and peer in through the portholes! They were displaced by Jim Bandy, net control of the Rag of the Air SSB net, whom we are on our way to visit. Jim was making the run from Labasa to "Also Island" (his home base) in a work boat that could make the trip in about three hours – a trip that will take us altogether about twelve! Jim paused for a cold beverage and a quick chat about approaches tomorrow, before he was on his way, needing to make home base before dark.

Evening was stunning, with just the barest loom of Labasa to the west challenging Venus and her starry companions and the strand of lighted fishing boats out on the reef for the night.

We got an early start this morning, exiting through the great Sea Reef at Sausau Pass to sail and motorsail eastward to Nukudamu Pass.

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

Despite wandering the world, we are often in places where US yachties get together and remember the good stuff with all the trimmings. I am thinking especially of a great Fourth of July in Juncalito, around the bend from Puerto Escondido on Baja, with a gathering of some of the best cruising friends we have ever had.

"Meanwhile, our gang – T2, Lady Galadriel, Ryokosha and Mirador – put together a quintessential Gringo picnic to celebrate the home country Independence Day. Can we say cholesterol?! Onion and cheesy bean dips (and sashimi) for starters; cheeseburgers on the grill (with mushrooms), potato salad, Cole slaw, homemade baked beans, and – following a break for the pyrotechnics from the beach – peach pie with ice cream."

The ice cream was a story in itself. Jerry of Mirador started it by mentioning he had an ice cream maker on board, but he didn't have the power to run it! With our generator, we did, but then he couldn't find all the parts and pieces. But Jerry and Paul (Ryokosha) were set on ice cream and Lisa had made the pie, so the guys hitched into Loreto and returned with two half gallons – somewhat more than required for "a la mode."!!!!

But we are not in place with other Americans. We are still at Palmlea (delayed by a combination of actual bad weather -- our first on this side of Fiji -- and Don taking one last shot to solve our alternator belt issues), and everybody besides Don and me is either a Kiwi, an Aussie, or a South African. Well, Joe was born in the US, but he's been international so long, I'm not sure he counts. There's been no talk of cheeseburgers on the grill, baked beans or pie a la mode. In fact I think a fish curry is planned!

Worse, there's been a lot of talk about what's going wrong in America. A magazine called "Uncensored" was making the rounds last evening, with an article about the deplorable state of the US public school system, the sagging US literacy rate, and actual developmental poisoning by the widespread chemical additives in our lives (e.g. fluoride). On our own, from our perspective standing outside looking in, Don and I are pretty distressed about the state of our home country, the homogenization and processing that is running rampant in the name of progress, the outrageous materialism, our political egotism. These have a momentum that is more terrifying than terrorism!

But it still hurts to see it all reflected in other people's eyes, to suspect they know more about it than we do ourselves, like the child of parents who fight realizing the whole neighborhood knows.

So I am a bit depressed today, even though the low rolled through last night and the sky has cleared and the seas calmed. We are moving on for sure tomorrow.

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

However, thanks to our delayed departure from Nukubati, the timing seemed tight to get out there before dusk on Saturday, and when we finally face up to a finally accounting of our remaining time available to cruise this area, we realize that we have got to get a move on back around to the other side. It is testimony to how much we have enjoyed the easy, laid-back cruising that this side of Vanua Levu has offered that we have so lost track of any sense of schedule.

But the schedule is there. We must take Tackless II out of Fiji sometime before the third week of August and make a passage to another country to be able to return and have another year here. And, as we know, only a fool leaves such a thing to the eleventh hour!

Plus we have a visitor coming. Our friend Bill Church – a friendship dating to Don's early days as a sailor in Clearwater – is flying in July 25th to both make the passage to Futuna with us and then, upon our return, to enjoy a little Fiji cruising on our way to the west side of Viti Levu. We, of course, are loading him up with lists of parts and pieces to stuff in his luggage for us, so it would probably be the tactful thing to do to actually be back in Savusavu when he arrives! Plus, we still have some sightseeing to do at Vanua Levu's Udu Point, Rabi Island, Taveuni, Qamea & Matagi Islands. Yes, it's time to get a move on, and it would almost as bad to give Kia short shrift as it will be to miss it altogether!

And so we followed our track back again to Palmlea, where we need to change out all the loaner movies, get fuel, reprovision, and take our leave.

We dropped the hook as the sun sank into a mass of clouds on the western horizon. Imagine our surprise several hours later to see the nav lights of a sailboat approaching from the local pass. This boat turned out to be Stelite of NZ, with Peter and Faye aboard, along with David, a handsome young man from south Africa who crewed for them on the passage up from new Zealand. (Note: David is look for a crew position on a boat making the trip from Fiji to Capetown, South Africa or any part thereof. You can email him at davidwarnes@gmail.com. Peter and Faye said he was the best crew they've ever had.)

Peter and Faye met Joe and Julie in the same cruising season we did, but a little further along. They have built a fast friendship, with the Stelites making repeated visits to Palmlea to help with such things as solar powers systems and electrical stuff.

So Sunday was spent with lots of visiting: a fabulous breakfast with frittata and scones in the morning and a scrumptious lamb chop dinner last night. Peter and Faye are experienced commuters from New Zealand, and David is on the back end of a hitch-hiking circumnavigation. Unlike many such wandering crew, David actually seems to know a thing or two about sailing. His goal upon his return to South Africa is to get all the big-boat certifications and take himself off to the Med to work the yachting biz. As you might guess, this seasoned company of cruisers (Joe and Julie themselves have some 60,000 sea miles!) managed to generate a sea tale or two, and so the evening wore late!

Don is in Labasa with Julie this morning getting fuel, propane and short-shopping veggies to carry us the rest of the way around Vanua Levu. We plan to be moving on Wednesday, after we get the propane tank back. Our next planned stops are a midway anchorage called Blackjack Bay followed by a visit to Also Island, the base of Jim Bandy, net control of The Rag of the Air SSB radio Net, whom we met here at Palmlea a few weeks ago. After that, we'll make our turn around Udu Point and sail back south.

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

There were new guests, of course, another young American honeymoon couple with the place to themselves. This time the honeymooners weren't divers, so we wouldn't be competing for the dive boats. Or so we thought. Although we had called ahead and spoken with Jenny, we had a little miscommunication. She thought we were going to Kia Island first…because, well, we'd thought we might go to Kia first, and her boat and staff were committed to support a mooring installation project at the port of Malau near Labasa. So to our chagrin, we watched the dive boat whiz out of the resort at 7:30 am. Thanks to some mechanical issues, it didn't return until late the next day!

It may have been just as well, because on our first evening a gusty wind sprang up and blew hard the next several days! It blew so hard our second night there, tossing the palm fronds so hard that they sounded like rushing water, that Jenny insisted we stay ashore for dinner until it died down well after dark. As usual we had plenty to do. Don's success in the varnish department now spread to some small pieces that he'd bypassed in the first go round, and I tackled cleaning the bottom. Plus I'd borrowed from Jenny's library "A History of Fiji," by R.A. Derrick. Unfortunately, I only got halfway through – up to the mid-1800s -- before we left, but this very readable account of early Fiji – how the initial migrations likely happened, and how the people sorted out into the hierarchy of chiefs, warriors, "priests" and commoners (a hierarchy that persists to this day) and the constant posturing and battling between tribal city-states (usually started by intrigues in the chiefly class) -- revealed a lot about why Fiji is the way it is.

Diving on the Great Sea Reef

But finally, Friday rolled around with calm winds and high soft streaky clouds, and we were picked up in Nukubati's "aluminum inflatable' by Salote (Nukubati's boat woman) and Sisa our dive leader. Why we didn't start out in our dive suits I don't know, because the ride out was fast and wet. By the time we reached Ravi Ravi Pass and the outside of the Great Sea Reef 25 minutes later we were soaked, which made getting the suits on after the fact a struggle.

A little aside here: These boats have no GPS or chartplotter, yet Sisa piloted us out through the reefs in unbeaconed waters to the pass with no more than a few looks over his shoulder at the mountains behind! Very impressive.

The dive of the morning was called Fishmarket. Just around the outer reef from the pass, this steep outer reef bank started in about 30-40' feet of water and dropped away in a wall to depths only vaguely glimpsed. On the chart the depth contours suggest that the drop to 298 meters is close at hand! The visibility was superb, especially after weeks in the green waters near the shore, and we were quick to see why they called the dive "Fishmarket." Lots of large meaty-looking snappers and groupers in addition to plentiful tropicals and schools of boga with neon blue smears of their sides populate this reef, an exciting change from the seaward reef we dove in the Ha'apai last year, although the corals were not as pretty as that dive. Almost immediately, Sisa pointed out the first of four turtles, and Don sighted several whitetip sharks cruising below us, plus we were shadowed much of the dive by one large solitary batfish.. Like icing on the cake, the water at depth remained a balmy 81 degrees! Another improvement over that Ha'apai dive.

On the surface, Salote was having a rolly ride as she followed our bubbles, but she brought the boat right to us making our exit from the water as smooth as possible. We took our surface interval anchored in the shallows on the north side of the reef, enjoying the snacks the resort had provided along with their nice fluffy towels. Wow! It's mighty nice to be on the receiving end of such attentions!

Our second dive was a drift dive through Ravi Ravi Pass along its eastern side. The reef on our left presented a craggy face with hidey-holes for all sorts of creatures as well as some striking sea fans. Sisa promptly pointed out the cruising sharks, whitetips from small to large, and then turned his back to show us tiny white and blue nudibranchs on the coral no larger than an thumbnail! He was pleased to find two round stingrays – one small and one large in their holes at the base of the reef, and I was tickled by an even bigger ray ruffling overhead along the reef's upper edge. On this dive we saw many angelfish, the psychedelic regal angels, the handsome emperor angels, but also many large blue angels, which look like our gray Caribbean French angels only accented in blue rather than yellow! There were lots of parrotfish, some bi-color and some blue, including several large bumphead males. Everywhere, there were dusky surgeon fish and a larger fish like our durgons, as well as four or five different types of triggerfish. A highlight for me were the cave-lets in the reef providing protection for some elaborate growths of sea fans and gorgonians, the stuff that uw photographers fill the color pages of dive magazines with.

Our ride back into the afternoon wind was even wetter than our ride out. Don and I resorted to wearing our masks about half way which amused Salote and Sisa no end.

Nukubati Meke
We got back to Tackless II at about 1:30. We rinsed our gear, showered ourselves, ate some homemade veggie soup,…and promptly dozed off. What is it about diving that takes the starch right out of you? Still, by five we were up dressed and ready to go ashore for our "official" dinner ashore which just happened to be meke night.

Meke is the word for Fiji's traditional music and dance. At Nukubati, the staff gathers in the lodge in their flowered shirts and dresses for an evening that starts with the kava bowl before dinner and ends in an evening of song and dance. This was the evening that we missed during our last stay.

What a special night! As we sipped our cocktails and nibbled on the canapés and roasted coconut that are the nightly hors-d'oeuvres, the staff assembled on the spread mats and began making kava in Nukubati's large wooden tanoa, the traditional four-legged kava vessel. Several men with guitars and ukeleles began strumming a tune, and as more staff gathered they launched into a series of songs in multi-part harmony. When the kava was ready we were all invited to come for a "bowl". Although we had 'training" in the kava ceremony in one of Curly's cruising seminars in Savusavu, this was our first actual opportunity to participate. You can ask for "high tide" or "low tide" to select the size of the serving wanted. Because of the diving, I was abstaining from alcohol, so I took only a low tide taste. We managed to remember most of our training…one clap before receiving the cup and three claps of appreciation after. Although obviously this is done partly for the entertainment of the guests, Jenny insists that it takes place more for the pleasure and unity of her staff.

For which reason we "broke" for dinner to be served, so that the kitchen staff would be free to join the festivities. Dinner was something! For starters we had clams in seasoned coconut cream, followed by banana sorbet. The main course was mudcrabs in spicy black bean sauce. This is a helluva dish to try to eat at a table set witha white tablecloth and a full place setting of cutlery and glassware! Jenny sat with us, and we were a little self-conscious about the mess we were making cracking the pieces of crab and licking sauce off our fingers.

Unfortunately, I wasn't half way through dessert when I started having some kind of allergic reaction! Presumably it was due to all the shellfish, although that hasn't happened before, or perhaps to the tiny sip of kava before dinner. Although nobody could come up with Benadryl, Jenny did have a huge box of Kleenex in the ladies room, and so armed I was able to hang in for the after dinner dance.

The after-dinner presentation was of a series of songs and chants done to the fevered drum beat produced by none-other than Salote, our boat woman, basically on a hollowed out log.. The staff was joined this evening by a group of "old ladies" from the village who'd come out to earn money for a church event by working in Jenny's gardens. Clearly everybody knew the songs, and the harmonies were taken up in full voice. Five costumed women performed a series of dances exhorted, as is traditional, by the men behind. Following the regular dances, three of the "old ladies" added a spontaneous comedy performance, apparently to a child's nursery rhyme to the hilarity of the Fijian staff. Like all the dances and songs, we outsiders are pretty lost as to the storyline, but it is fun none-the-less.

At the end of the performance, one of Jenny's staff made a pretty speech to the honeymooners, complete with humorous observations based on their stay. Imagine our surprise when she had some words for their sailor friends as well. It seems we've set a record among their repeating guests by returning to Nukubati in only two weeks!

Following the performance, the musicians returned to more popular songs, and staff members took turns getting the honeymooners out on the dance floor. No one asked either of us to dance, but we took a turn around the floor together on our own. Since the music has a bit of a reggae beat, we Caribbean sailors acquitted ourselves pretty well.

Checking Out

The next morning I tackled the second half of the bottom cleaning job while Don made the rounds with the Cetol brush putting on the next coat. We'd tidied up the boat for a possible visit by Jenny, but she had some family show up and couldn't make it out. Instead we went ashore to pay our bill, arriving just in time to be added to the lunch table. Jenny's guests included her transport driver plus her niece Sophie and husband Gary, both of whom work for Air Pacific in Nadi. It was illuminating to get to talk to some young professional Fijians, quite the contrast with the villagers and resort staff people we've mostly been meeting.

Departure was even harder this time, and I do think that Jenny has really come to think of us as friends. We certainly have come to feel that way about her, as well as many of the staff, and we will hold Nukubati in a special place in our hearts.

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Labels: Diving, Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

I say "we," but it is the royal "we." Varnishing is not one of my strong suits. Don's has done it all, from stripping to the final coat. He did borrow one of Joe's workers, an extremely shy man named Abeli, for a day of hand sanding help, but other than that it's been a one-man accomplishment. And an accomplishment it is. The cockpit looks gorgeous again.

Banished from getting anywhere near a wet surface, I spent the time below working on the computer writing emails, updating the Blog, and working on my column. The arrangement was productive all around.

Ironically, we also had a steady stream of visitors, mostly during the prep phase. Joe's foreman, Siti, turns out to be a sailor. He once had a trimaran he sailed all around Fiji, and his goal for retirement is to build his own monohull to take off in. So he was very keen to see Tackless, and very impressed once he had. His interest sparked curiosity in many of the other staff, from the guys who have been building the little dock in the mangroves to the gals working in the lodge. Don and I were particularly impressed at the approving take of one of the ladies. "You've gotta go and see everything in life that you can."

Plus Joe and Julie finally got out for a visit Sunday morning. We'd just done a massive clean-out of the forepeak, and had a pile of treasures (of the bilge), which they were happy to take from us.

In the evenings we've stayed home and watched videos. Joe has a huge collection, mostly from China at about fifty cents apiece. We've caught up on a lot of major flics we've missed these past years, but also found some unknown treasures in Aussie and Kiwi films.

Tomorrow, weather permitting (today we've had overcast, rain showers and wind), we plan to sail back down to Nukubati for a few days of diving. We'd been laboring under a misunderstanding that Joe had a dive operation lined up in the area they'd use for any guests who wanted to dive. It turns out that dive operation is Nukubati…the only dive operation on this side. We don't want to miss seeing a bit of the Great Sea Reef, so back we go.

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Palmlea Farms, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

We rode around the rest of the morning with Joe and Julie as they did errands. Also more shopping. The one surprise Labasa held for us Tuesday was the sight of a red-hulled sailboat dropping their hook in Labasa River! We are not alone anymore! Unfortunately, they were too far away to hail and we couldn't see any name.

Back at Palmlea, low tide is now midday. This time we were prepared, and after lunch we donned our walking clothes and set out to explore "our"property. This property is about 15 acres to the east of Palmlea, on the other side of a ridge looking eastward over Labasa Bay. We had first heard about it over lunch with Joe and Julie in Savusavu last September the day before we flew back to the US, and we had first seen it on our May trip over by car, a brief handshake of a glimpse from the road. It is not in any real way "our" property, but it has gotten kind of convenient to think about it that way, and believe me, we have done plenty of thinking about it.

Do all cruisers, in the back of their minds, harbor the desire to find the perfect place to plant the anchor? I don't know, but some sure do. We have a number of cruising acquaintances who have put down new roots in one of the destinations they've traveled to by boat, among them Bonaire, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico, Tonga, New Zealand and Australia. In Fiji alone, four separate boat crews we've known have become dirt owners! It doesn't always happen on the first go round. Sometimes they backtrack. Others buy as an investment or hedge for the future, and sail on. Back home, in the US, land has gotten so expensive, cruisers can't help but feel they have missed the boat! Additionally, the American urban and suburban landscapes are so congested and built up with the repeating patterns of chain businesses and housing developments, that returning cruisers, after years in the third world, just don't feel comfortable.

We feel all these things, and when we see a place like "our" property here in Fiji, our imaginations instantly flesh it out with a house – Fijian-style, of course like Nukubti or Palmlea – situated to the fabulous view, with a garden full of tropical fruits and veggies to the side, great rural walks out the back door, and inexpensive help. But even more we extend the fantasy to include long "summer vacation' visits by the kids, with Kai growing up – at least part-time – in a place he can run free, splash in the creek, built forts in the sugar cane (Fiji has no dangerous land critters!), and know early on that there other cultures and other perspectives in the world than those of white suburban America.

But these are OUR fantasies, inside our heads, and not a reality any of the players necessarily subscribe to. The REALITY of "our property" is that it is a long way away from our families, it is on the side of the Vanua Levu where there aren't many other "gringos" (I can never remember the Fijian word; I think it is ko'palangi) to socialize with (present company of Joe & Julie and their neighbors excepted), and quite frankly it is in a country with no infrastructure, little immediate hope of getting one going, and, indeed, is in the midst of a political coup! Such a deal, huh!

Still, with reason weighing heavily on our enthusiasm, we figured we are here now, and we might as well scope it out.

It's a pleasant walk from Joe and Julie's over the ridge (now owned by our former cruising compadres Greg & Sujata, Maaji Re) down across a stream (now dry) and up along the top of the next hill. I think I've already mentioned that the view east is to die for. Below the road, the cane field is nearing maturity. It stands about eight feet high and rustles in the wind. As we approached the house we were startled to see the slight figure of a youngish Indian man in a long blue coat with a machete in hand. This turned out to be Hussein, the owner (with his uncle) of the property. Hussein wants to sell, because he wants to follow the rest of his family to the big city of Suva.

Hussein led us on a tramp up the hill to show us where the southern (uphill) boundary was. This was good news because, were we to buy this land and build a house, we would want it as high as possible to maximize the view and the breeze. One might have to move the road down to run along the top of the cane field, but around here, a bulldozer would make light work of that. A house on the hill would put us a tad close to our neighbor, a retired policeman from Suva, but it definitely has the best view.

The boundary Hussein showed us ran from "the pine tree down the hill to the cow," perhaps not legalese, although I bet the official Fijian wording of the deed is not altogether so different. A survey is an important first step in this part of the world. One of Joe and Julie's neighbors on the other side had to move their house when the survey revealed the land they'd built on wasn't theirs after all! The cow, however, revealed that there was more land than we'd originally thought on the eastern edge. Hussein also confirmed that the stream we attempted to paddle up is the outflow of the big mangrove estuary at the bottom of the hill. He told us that there is a unique species of tasty fish in that estuary, found nowhere else in Fiji!

He also explained to us a bit about the cane crop, an attractive investment feature as the return on the cane (split between the land owner and the sharecropper) would amount to an annual return on the property value of about 7-10%. Most Fijian cane farmers no longer burn the fields as we saw in El Salvador for example, because they have been persuaded the quality of the crop is better without it. In El Salvador one of the main reasons to burn the field was to get rid of pests hazardous to the cane cutters like snakes and scorpions! Fiji doesn't have these, and since cane is another product considered a potential biofuel, cane is not a bad crop to have on your land.

After parting ways with Hussein we continued on down the road, past small houses and tethered cows, goats and dogs and a lot more cane. Eventually, the road loops back around to join the "main" road to Joe and Julie's about halfway back to the paved highway. Hussein had told us that the next village was about two kilometers further on. We didn't get that far.

At a corner of two fields, we heard the most alien of sounds – a police siren. Also a roaring engine. Next thing we knew a car came hurtling around the bend with four guys in it. They grinned as they sped past us, gravel the size of golf balls flying! Several perplexed heartbeats later, here came the cops, siren blaring, after them. My, my, excitement in the burbs! We wondered whether they would turn off on any of the small lanes we'd passed, or whether they would keep on, cross the rickety log bridge and speed past Palmlea. (We later head that's exactly what they did, causing no end of excitement!)

It seemed a propitious time to turn around. We walked back to Hussein's, but before climbing back over the ridge to Joe and Julies, we turned off and followed a track through the cane down to the mangroves. We found the border of coconut palms, but the mangroves were pretty muddy from the recent new-moon tides, so we were unable to explore far enough to see the stream. One would have to cut a road through as Joe and Julie did to make any kind of water access feaasible.

Have I mentioned Joe is a hell of a cook. He had been promising a Mexican dinner for days now, and tonight was the night. We helped ourselves to a shower in Bure #1, enjoyed a cocktail for sunset (I'm sticking to club soda!), and then indulged in as Mexican a meal as you could possibly imagine in this hemisphere: great salsa and chips, hearty beef enchiladas, and spicy refried beans. Don and I positively groaned as we schlepped our shopping down the hill in the dark to the dock. Portion control, Joe, Please! We're gonna burst!

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Palmlea Farms, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

Sunday was a rerun, except that about an hour after lunch we heard an ad on the radio for Father's Day! Ooops! We whip out the Iridium sat phone and call home to Morristown. It was, of course, Saturday in Indiana, but we hoped by our 'early' call we'd catch Don's brother visiting. We missed him by an hour. For some reason our connection wasn't the best, but the thought was registered!

Father's Day was apparently also overlooked up at Palmlea, where Joe put together another meal to tempt us off the boat – lamb chops on the grill, a different kind of Italian potato (Joe has a whole repertoire of neat potato recipes!), and a cabbage salad (not quite cole slaw!) I don't think any of their guests will ever starve. back aboard, we stayed up even later watching "The Devil Wears Prada," as far away from our setting as could be!

Fiji was a British colony from 1874 to 1970 (its flag still has the Union Jack in the corner), and there is still a nostalgia among some for the pre-independence days, so the Queen's birthday remains a holiday in these parts (in New Zealand and Australia, too!) After two days of hard work stripping the teak (mostly Don I confess), we decided to take a holiday too.

After a nice breakfast, we launched the inflatable kayaks and paddled eastward along the mangroves. I wasn't expecting much, except to admire the roots of a really mature mangrove forest, but we had some surprises. First we found the mouth of a stream that we could paddle up into. The stream wound like a tunnel through the trees, reminiscent of the river trip in Tenacatita, Mexico.

We went quite a ways before the current of the ebbing tide got too strong to paddle against. We imagine that this outflow comes from the estuary in front of the land we have been looking at to the west of Joe & Julie's.

Some way beyond the stream, we found a sand beach! Caramel colored, to be sure, but sand none-the less. A pretty spot, with tall trees and coconut palms behind it. Then, rounding the point that is giving Tackless her protection, the coast opens up to huge Labasa Bay. Off the point is a complex, triangular sand bar uncovered by the falling tide. We got out and walked around, sometimes sinking 6-8" into the soft sand, out to the tip where a small flock of shorebirds and actual terns (we haven't seen much in the way of sea birds here) chattered to each other about the pickings. We felt so incredibly special to be all alone on such a remote spot…and turned around to see a young Indian man picking up crabs and stuffing them into a gunny sack! Where he materialized from we can't guess, but it is the way of this place. Whenever you feel all alone, look twice. Someone will come walking by!

We were out paddling probably two hours, so we jumped in off the back for our first swim. The one flaw to this area is the water color. It is not especially inviting this close to the mangroves. It is not so much that the water is turbid, as the color of the bottom undermines any chance at blue. Still, it sure felt great.

Over lunch, just about the time I hung out a load of laundry on the line to dry, the clouds rolled in and the wind piped up and backed to the NE and North! Yikes, what's up? We have no protection on this side, so the boat started rocking and bobbing, to the point we picked up the dinghy and stowed stuff in case we had to make a run to hide behind one of the little offshore islets. Fortunately, by about five, the wind died down and went back E-ESE . The sky stayed threatening, even turning an ugly shade of purple, but that was as far as it went. The next morning, things went back to normal.

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Palmlea Farms, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

Labasa is a very different town from Savusavu. It is bigger, with an actual downtown several streets deep. And it is livelier with barkers announcing store specials and crowds of people hurrying along shopping. And it is much more strongly Indian. Since Indo-Fijians own the lion's share of all "businesses" in Fiji (while the ethnic Fijians own the lion's share of the land), that may seem like it would be obvious. But in Labasa, most of the shoppers are Indians, too, the ladies scurrying along wrapped in their saris.

First stop was Asco Motors for a new propeller. Out of stock, but will have by Tuesday, after the upcoming three-day weekend. Same story at Vodaphone, where we ordered an external antenna for our Fijian cellular broadband card. (Sitting at anchor off Palmlea we are picking up a signal from Labasa. The antenna will just make it stronger!) Our next stop was the post office where we worked hard to post a thank-you note to James & Pearlie. The address on their card was not really a mailing address, but the workers knew who were they were, so the letter ended up posted on a bulletin board to be passed on when they saw them! Then we nipped in a store to look at a proper sulu for Don, but left without as they didn't have his size in a good color.

Next stop was the open market, which was also quite a bit bigger than Savusavu's. Julie was looking for fish, while we were looking for eggs, tomatoes and lettuce. The market was followed by a stop at the Labasa Morris & Hedstrom supermarket (M&H), which may have between twice the size of the market in Savusavu, but offered substantially less in "gringo" products. Still, we could restock on the basics.

Upon our return midday, the tide was out again, so J&J were "forced" to feed us lunch. Their kitchen gals whipped us up a round of cheeseburgers, while Joe plied us with his notebooks full of DVDs to watch while here (in exchange, of course, for ours!) Mid-afternoon we went back the boat to stow our groceries, before coming back in for another fine dinner of Basque chicken. Without other guests, we were much more prompt about getting back to the dinghy, about two hours after the 6pm high tide.
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Labels: Fiji 2007, Palmlea Farms, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

The shoreline here, mangrove cloaked every bit of the way, extends another mile or so off the bow to a point around which is the wide expanse of Labasa Bay (pronounce Lambasa). Farther east, large mountains pile up in layers on the horizon, with a few islands extending the line into an arc to the NE. To the north are several low-lying islets, above which pokes the silhouette of tall Kia Island that stands like a lone soldier about twelve miles away in the great oxbow loop of the Great Sea Reef. No houses are visible, not even the teal roofs of our friends' resort. It is a pretty spot to sit, if more of an open roadstead, than the comfortable nook we usually think of as an anchorage. Fortunately, the prevailing winds come from the SE to E, and the little upturned tip of a point off the bow seems to be enough to keep our water nice and quiet.

In mid-afternoon, we looked to have enough water to get the dinghy to Joe and Julie's dock. So we headed in and walked the nice road they've built through the mangroves and up through the fields to Palmlea Lodge. I described Joe and Julies new resort previously in the update of our road trip over from Savusavu (May 15), but in the month since our visit, they have finished construction of the third bungalow, the trellised garden, added a generator and new water tanks, and the bougainvillea is well on its way to making the front hedge Julie desires.

We had finished our tour and were toasting (with that devil champagne!) our debut as the first yacht to visit Palmlea, when the phone in the office rang. It was Jim Bandy, the voice we have listened to for three seasons every morning on his SSB radio net called "The Rag of the Air" (8173 mHz @ 1900 UTC). Jim lives on an island near the NE tip of this coast, and we plan a stop there before we turn the corner. Of course at the rate we are going, that is still weeks away. Anyway, Jim was in Labasa bringing a friend to the airport and wondered if Palmlea's restaurant was open for dinner. Although the resort was not quite officially open yet, Joe had planned some local fish for the four of us. Fortunately, Joe has a habit of over-apportioning, so there was plenty to expand dinner for four to dinner for six.

For cruisers, meeting a radio voice is a little like meeting a celebrity, but Jim in person was nothing like we had imagined from his voice. We had pictured a crusty codger well into his social security years (often the case with radio net controllers), retired from cruising to his tropical island. Instead he was a trim, tanned man about Don's age, as was his friend Kurt from San Diego. From what we've put together from comments on the net, Jim has a boat building operation as well as one of the nascent virgin coconut oil processing setups, endeavors that he has undertaken almost as much from a missionary-like zeal to help the Fijian villagers as much as to support himself. We'll no doubt learn a lot more about it all when we visit, but he has been having a tough time lately with government red tape and a lack of dependability in his workers.

For an architect and builder, Joe is a mighty fine cook. He has studied the cuisines of all the countries he has lived and worked in, and he will be the supervising chef, if not the actual hands-on cook, for Palmlea's resort operation. Our meal was superb, an outstanding baked fish, what they call hereabouts a "coral trout", with sides of an eggplant medley and Tuscan roast potatoes. Over the meal we learned that Jim had once been a race car driver, which of course led to talk of the Indianapolis 500 ("Greatest Spectacle in Racing") and from there to motorcycles. Jim was not a Harley man, and Kurt rides a Big Dog. (I've seen the T-shirts, but never knew it was a bike!)

The evening lasted a lot longer than we'd planned, and when we got away to go home (after a debut walk down the hill in the dark!), we found the dinghy high and dry. @#$%#$@!!! Shades of Naviqiri! High and dry simply doesn't capture the reality of the muddy ooze and rock mix it was grounded on with about 40-50' to get to the water! The bugs were biting furiously, so no option now to sit tight and wait. We dragged the damn thing out one glopping foot at a time, bumping over rocks and losing our shoes every other step. I hate to think how we may have gouged the dinghy bottom. I've been afraid to look!

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Palmlea Farms, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

After a day on shore tramping through the woods, we were hot and sweaty and hurried back to the boat for a shower and change of clothes and arrived on the beach just in time for the sunset champagne (Yes, Uncle Bill, there was a great green flash!) and the gathering of beach chairs around a huge square fire Jenny's guys had built on the sand.

On top of the fire was a layer of black rocks, and, as the fire burned down and the rocks got hot, they threw on fish, clams, breadfruit, eggplants, cassava and who knows what else. While the tourists sipped fru-fru cocktails (by now we are pretty much one of the gang!), Jenny's girls laid out a long line of mats on the grass, and set the "table" for our meal.

The only thing informal about the feast we enjoyed that night was that the staff ate with us. When you consider that there were only six resort guests, we two interlopers, plus Jenny and her visiting daughter, the staff, ten or twelve in number, outnumbered us!

But what a meal! In addition to all the goodies cooked on the fire, there were several dishes all cooked in coconut milk, that came out from the kitchen: fresh water mussels, ferns, pumpkin and seaweed, all dishes from Jenny and the staff's roots and all really yummy. There was also a boiled taro to go with the roasted veggies and roots and a seafood soup in coconut bowls. Unlike the umus we went to in Samoa and Tonga, silverware and napkins had been provided, and although everybody sure used the heck out of the later, most were good sports and ate Fijian style with their fingers. This was far and away the best "traditional" meal we have enjoyed anywhere, and it was particularly special because we came as Jenny's guests.

Attempted Diving

About ten years ago, Jenny and Peter added diving to Nukubati's offerings. It's a natural for this, because the north side of Vanua Levu is framed by the sinuous Great Sea Reef, the third largest barrier reef in the world. The Great Sea Reef, in most places, is about ten miles from the main island, except where about halfway along it loops out in a horseshoe shape around the island of Kia. Nukubati is well positioned for its boats to scoot out to Ravi Ravi Pass for dives outside the Reef as well as inside.

Since the resort's signature is privacy and personal attention, their dive operation works pretty much the same way, so we did not assume we would be able to dive with them. And in fact, Jenny had left it up to the guests to decide. I'm glad to say we were voted in…but, as it turned out we never did dive with them. I woke up the morning after the barbecue with a pounding headache, which I attributed to the mix of the sunset champagne and an alcoholic concoction called a Nukubati Sunset. It was a helluva time to remember that after my bout of the bends, I am not supposed to drink before diving. How ironic that it was one of the few drinks I have had all season!

So we cancelled, which worked out okay because Jenny had forgotten to tell the dive staff to prep for us! Clearly it wasn't meant to be. I stayed low all day, and we decided to skip happy hour ashore, because we'd been told a kava party was scheduled, the last thing my head needed.. What we didn't realize was that the kava party came complete with an evening of traditional music by the staff. We could hear just enough of it wafting over the water to make me pout at missing it. If our dinghy hadn't already been up, I'm sure we would have scooted in and lurked!

Attempted Departure

Wednesday morning we decided that it was probably time to move on. It would be easy to grow roots here, and while I believe we were welcome to stay, there were things on our To Do List that we couldn't tackle here. For one we needed to get to Labasa and get a new prop for the dinghy. For another we still had to strip the cockpit teak, sand and re-Cetol it, not an activity we thought the resort would appreciate. Plus we had called our friends Joe and Julie to tell them we were on our way. So we probably should be on our way.

We went ashore to pay our bar bill, and to take our leave, which we did over tea and pineapple muffins, plus a chance to help sample a new appetizer-- of smoked wahoo, watercress and sprouted coconut heart in chili vinaigrette – destined for the night's dinner menu.. Before taking off, Jenny gave us the 25-cent tour of the parts of the resort we hadn't seen: her extensive gardens, fruit trees, dive shop, power plant, watermaker set up, tennis court (!), and one of the honeymoon bures being readied for a new arrival. The bure was handsome, with a large sitting area, king-sized bed, two person shower, and even an enclosed sunbathing area where "Europeans can sunbathe topless." Each bure also has a thatched outside sitting area and its' own two beach chairs.

All in all, Nukubati Island Resort is an awesome operation, one that takes constant attention by a huge staff, a fact we respect even more after seeing at James and Pealie's how the environment makes it so much work. In a way, Nukubati is a modern version of what James' great-grandfather's estate was in its heyday, self-sufficient and catering to many. But, as beautiful and well-conceived as the resort is, it was the graciousness with which we were received and included that made our stay in the anchorage so special – all the sweeter because they had no obligation to extend it to us.

Back on the boat, we hoisted the outboard and made ready to leave. Only then did we notice the increasing overcast and an odd wind springing up from an unusual direction. On this side of the island, our reception of the radio weather forecast is unreliable, and we hadn't stressed when we couldn't copy it that morning. Every day we'd been here had been sunny and cleaand. What was afoot? We decided to sit tight through lunch, and then, when there was still no improvement, hang in one more night. If there was something brewing, there is little better place on this whole coast to be than this bay, where we could, if necessary pick up the anchor and tuck way back in under James & Pearlie's place.

The next morning we were socked in! Not just overcast, but low clouds rolling down the mountains and wiping out the visibility with misty showers. Yet the morning radio forecast insisted on the usual "Fine" weather for the area?! So…we waited, and sure enough, after breakfast, the rain rolled back, the clouds parted, and the dive boats from Nukubati left. Business as usual. Fortified by the forecast, we picked up our anchor and motored out.

We weren't more than a few miles along, when the clouds and showers rolled back in, and the wind came around on our nose! Wouldn't you know? Fortunately, our route was entirely along the well beaconed channel, so between that and CMap, and the comforting reality that the depth on this stretch was such we could drop anchor anywhere if we had to, we were able to continue the thirteen miles to the waypoint we had off our friends Joe and Julie's resort outside of Labasa.

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

We really had no idea what to expect. The word "plantation" to Americans conjures images of the old south, of grand houses with white columns – the Tara of "Gone with the Wind." But rural Fiji is much more rustic than the South has been in a century. These plantations and farms are still in the mold of those pioneers who forged the American West or the Australian Outback. In Vanua Levu, outside of the two main towns, there is little modern infrastructure. The roads are dirt; electricity, when it exists, comes from private or shared generators; and the phones (maybe one per village) are radio telephones.

On top of that, the main house on James plantation has been closed up for years, and what caretaker there was seems to have drifted away. In Fiji "abandonment" means fair game, so not only has the house been scavenged for furniture and utensils, but somebody made fair headway dismantling structural beams! James and Pearlie had warned us they were "camping out."

The house at the top of the hill had that square shape common to farmhouses world around, but no second story as we'd see in American, and its exterior was clad in what James called "cement tiles", big squares of gray siding made out of concrete and chicken wire. It has once boasted a bathhouse with running water which had been completely dismantled and carted away, as had the outside kitchen. But inside was a surprise. It was much bigger than it seemed, with a far more complex architecture than we'd seen in village homes. When James had grown up here it had five large bedrooms, and had been the center of a completely self-sufficient estate, where everything consumed by its residents was grown or made on site. James and Pearlie had put together a nice galley plus a bed room for themselves (on air mattresses!), and despite the ravages of the scavengers, it still had a solid homey feel to it.

Pearlie served us a nice lunch of curry, rice and roti, over which James told us a lot about Fijian history and how it led to the situation Fiji finds itself in today, a country hugging to itself the traditions of its ethnic identity, where people like James and Jenny, of mixed ethnicities, not to mention Fiji's huge Indian population, will never be considered real Fijians. And, and you might expect, we talked a lot about coconuts, their past and their future.

After lunch James led us all on a hike through the woods to show us the plantation's second house. When another family member had the plantation house, James and Pearlie had some years back fixed this secondary house up for themselves. Now his current caretaker and his family live there while they cope with restoring the big house. The woods we tramped through held a mix of full-grown tree species, the more amazing in that they grew in what was once the plantation's rice field. The coconut groves are similarly overgrown, and James is trying to come up with ways to sell the trees for wood while recovering and replanting the coconut groves.

Obviously, it is very hard to capture here all the things we learned about Fiji from our afternoon with James (not to mention our stay with Jenny at Nukubati). It is a complex country, with tasks both physical, technological and social to master.

Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

Nuqumu is one of three villages on the shores of Nukubati Bay and is the home village for Salote and Rajeli. Set on level lawn in the midst of coconuts and breadfruit trees, the small houses were more squarely aligned around the church and a playing field than they had been in hilly Naviquiri.

Nuqumu's church, also Methodist, was much smaller than the one we'd attended the previous Sunday, and from the outside it appeared so decrepit as to give us pause over the addition of four large-sized foreigners! Inside, however, was charming if a bit shabby. To my surprise, I realized that despite being a closed-in building, its underlying shape was the eight-sided lozenge of Samoan fales. Equally surprising were the tall windows all around, which had actual glass in sashes that stood open like French doors to the breeze and rustle of the trees. The walls were a soothing blue, with the altar and pulpit dressed out in lavender satin and lace, and these were topped by three flower arrangements (that may well have been plastic!) The pews were old and handmade, if not actually hand-hewn, with tall backs and narrow benches. The five rowssqueezed in on the left, as last week, were packed with kids, but this time the pews on the right were given over to the choir. This left two banks of five pews each in the main nave for the balance of the congregation…of which there were about ten people until our party of six arrived!

We were late, about twenty minutes after the "bell" (drum beat) for the ten o'clock service, and had to wait for a prayer to finish to slip into our seats -- front row, of course, for the honored guests! Despite our tardiness, shortly after our arrival, a handsome young man in the choir (Rajeli's brother, we later learned) stood up and made us a formal speech of welcome in English. And that, except for the collection, was about it for anything we visitors could understand. Fortunately, this service was shorter than the Naviqiri one (shortened further by our late arrival), and, while the choir did its best, its smaller number made for a less vigorous performance. The highlight of the service for us came at the end, when the children, being dismissed, came each and every one to shake our hands!

Back at the resort we met the friends that had waylaid Jenny. Like Jenny, James and his wife Pearlie, divide their time between Australia and this part of Fiji, and, again like Jenny, James, grew up in this area. The difference is that James is almost the last trustee of his Scottish great-grandfather's estate which contains over a thousand acres of copra plantations in this part of Vanua Levu. Copra is the dried meat of the coconut, which in the past was in high demand for many oils and products, and the copra industry was once the economic mainstay of many tropical nations. Copra fell out of favor when substitutes were found with less cholesterol and saturated fat, and thereby the financial underpinnings of many island peoples went down the drain. We've seen the impact over and over in our travels, for example the Kuna Indians of Panama's San Blas Islands or the Marquesans in French Polynesia, where many landowners we met were cutting down their coconut trees and putting in Nonni. (Nonni is a tree which produces a fruit that appears to have some great health benefits when fermented. Here in Fiji, Nonni is called Kura, and we are taking a dose of it every morning. It tastes horrid!)

A new wind is blowing through the coconut plantations, however. Research has revealed that the historic way of extracting coconut oil – where the oil from pressed coconut is allowed to naturally separate – as opposed to the technological system of heating it that overtook the old way – actually produces a better product. Now known as "virgin coconut oil", it may in fact be the most healthful oil of all! New interest is also burgeoning in coconut as a crop for biofuels as well as for virgin coconut oil, and entrepreneurs are setting up plants here to produce it. The problem is that many old plantations, like the ones in James' family, have been neglected in recent generations, and the task of overhauling things and restoring them to productive status is monumental.

So James and Pearlie are here trying to get a grip on things, and they invited us to come visit.

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

It is a striking setting. The resort occupies one of the two Nukubati (pronounced Nook-oom-Ba-Tee) islets that are joined together like Siamese twins by a mangrove bank. On the mainland behind the resort rise the crests of a multi-peaked mountain ridge, densely clothed in rainforest and old coconut plantations, while in front is an apron of white sand (from which the island gets its name, as "nuku" means sand), a rarity in these parts. An assortment of dive boats and runabouts are moored in the shallows, handsome squares of red umbrella shade private beach chairs, and roofs of thatch peek out from under coconut palms.

Nobody came out to run us off, so we tentatively made our way ashore around happy hour, to introduce ourselves and see if we'd be allowed to buy a drink. The main pavilion, of similar concept to Joe and Julie's new place up the coast, is a large open-fronted building with high ceilings, thatched roof, and the same style of plaited wall covering, in this case bamboo.

But while Joe and Julie's place is raw and new, the décor of this space had the mellowed maturity of years of careful nurturing. In the back of the room to the right is a bamboo bar while to the left is a cozy reading nook and 3,000 book library. Comfortable chairs and sofas cluster in conversational groupings in the middle, and across the front are seven red-clothed dining tables. Plants and flowers augment the view, and I immediately recognized the maqimaqi (mangheemanghee), a traditional Fijian rope art that Julie had described to me, adorning the junction of every post and joist.

Two lovely young ladies in flowered dresses met us, tittered when we asked the price of a cocktail, and went to find the owner – Jenny Leewai Bourke.

Jenny is a handsome woman of Fijian and Chinese extraction who, with an elegant graciousness, made us welcome to have a drink or dinner should we choose. Let me say up front, that thanks to our background in the charter business, we were sensitive to the private nature of the resort and understood that anything we might do here would be a privilege not a right. Our discretion in this more than anything paved the way for a very enjoyable stay that ended up lasting a week.

A small plate of canapés came with the drinks, followed shortly by dishes of peanuts, roasted coconut, and an Indian version of wasabi peas. Jenny sat with us and told of the history of the resort, an effort she and her Australian husband Peter started sixteen years ago, and sighed over the impact of the December coup on the country's tourism industry. Indeed, that first evening, at a time of year when she might expect to be full, there was only one honeymoon couple at the resort, who kept to themselves, playing Scrabble by the beach until they couldn't see any more! Seduced by the ambience, we made reservations for dinner the next night.

Saturday dawned crisp and clear. Feeling motivated, we pumped up our two inflatable kayaks and set out for a paddle, which eventually carried us all the way around the Siamese-twin islands. The second island is not part of the resort and has several nice homes. Kids called, "Bula!" as Don paddled near, while I hung back to enjoy the aesthetic of the mountain peak thrusting up from behind. Thick mangroves clothed the south, east and north faces of the pair, and they are girdled by a shoal of sand, weed and coral all the way around. Had we made our paddle circumnavigation at low tide, we would have had to cover twice the distance at least, but as it was it felt like a pretty good workout. We topped it off with a refreshing swim off the back of the boat.

In the afternoon, we watched new arrivals zoom past Tackless from the resort's dock on the mainland. For new arrivals, the staff assembles on the beach and meets them with music and flowers leis, and when we came ashore for dinner, we found there were now six guests, two American couples and one from Australia. Sunset is a big deal at Nukubati, and rightly so. The view west to the horizon is uninterrupted making it perfect for green flashes. Jenny celebrates sunset every evening with complimentary champagne. Since we didn't know, this left us with cocktails in one-hand and champagne in the other! Probably not the best mix.

Nukubati makes a big deal about the guests' right to privacy and rightly so. The honeymooners we'd seen the first night certainly liked to exercise that right. However, since we two captains have all the privacy we need onboard, when we come ashore we hope for a little socialization. Fortunately, this evening four of the guests joined us and Jenny around the hors d'oeuvres. We introduced ourselves as the couple with the bure in the bay!

Dinner was served at individual tables as the mood took. Every evening Nukubati's kitchen offers two choices and Don and I split the menu down the middle. For appetizer, he had their version of poisson cru (raw fish salad in coconut cream) while I had a plate of eggplant caponata; for the entree, Don selected the lobster mornay while I had filet of local beef in rocket sauce (rocket is the name of arugula in this part of the word!) Dessert was Nukubati Pie, a coconut custard cream, with a scoop of ice cream. Afterwards, as the other guests had escaped to their bures, Jenny invited us to linger for a glass of port.

Ah, the good life. It seemed a long, long way from village life in Navigiri, and yet, in its own way, equally Fijian. Maybe even more so, preserving and celebrating as it does the finer traditions of architecture, style, and art, of which there is little sign left in the villages.

By the time we left, the tide was low and the sky lit only by stars. Our nightly view of the resort – the shrouding palm trees just slightly spot-lit against the night sky, (as we paddled our way out to water deep enough for the outboard)– is one Nukubati's guests never see. Views from the water are always the sweetest.

Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

The morning after our low-tide struggle, we moved T2 about two-thirds of the way across the bay to be nearer to the village. Originally we had been anchored at least a mile and half away behind the protection of a sand bar. The thought was to save the strain on the dinghy (our prop is still slipping) of making the two round trips to bring Sera and Freddie out for their visit to Tackless. Tuned in now to how these things are done, I had coffee or tea ready along with biscuits and jam and the ever popular banana bread muffinettes. Sera and Freddy got the tour of the boat, and then we all watched Don's video from the previous day.

Sera and Freddie were leaving that afternoon to go to another village to pick oranges. Since they would be gone until the next afternoon, this seemed to provide the most painless time to move on. Even in such a short time, even despite less than perfect communication, these friendships become intense. Sera keeps in touch with her several foreign friends, so we exchanged mailing addresses (to which, of course, I have a lot of photos to send once I can can prints!)

Afterwards, we spent the afternoon where we were and took the opportunity to do several loads of sweaty laundry! Mother Nature smiled on us by reserving her usual afternoon showers.

The next morning we were underway as soon as the sun was high enough to see the reefs. We had no real firm destination in mind, just the waypoints of several possibilities. There wasn't a lick of breeze, so it was definitely a motorboat ride, but at least this gave us the chance to really top up the new batteries.

Landward the striking rock outcrops of the Monkey Face peninsula gave way to an even ridgeline behind a fairly smooth foreground. Here and there we saw a roofline or a column of smoke to suggest a village that might or might not be indicated on the chart, but most the noticeable difference was that these hillsides were thickly forested.

We motored most of the day generally northeastward through clumps of islands and reefs, impressed with both the accuracy of CMap and the Fijian nav aids, although in most cases the topmarks had been replaced by birds!

Near the outflow of the Dreketi river we crossed paths with two men in a fishing boat. The boat was piled high with net, and a reasonable pile of fish lay in the shade in the bottom of the boat. In the heat of the windless day, the men wore several layers of clothing, including shirts wrapped around their heads. When they pulled up to chat, we gave them some cold water to drink.

We had been thinking we might explore the Dreketi River by dinghy, a trip that probably would have been really interesting. But given the feeble condition of our outboard, it didn't seem the wisest idea. Alternatively, we considered dropping the hook in the lee of one of the little offshore islands, but the bottom stayed stubbornly at 65'. So in the end we continued on up to Ravi Ravi Point. Once again the mountains, both inland and along the coast, turned lumpy and craggy. making a more interesting landscape. Two possible anchorages were noted in the fourteen-year-old cruising guide. The first turned out to now be a pearl farm, so we gave that a miss, but the bay on the east side appeared open and uninhabited. As much as we enjoyed our village stay at Navigiri, we were ready for a stop with no sevusevu and no dress code. Vunisinu Bay fit the bill.

However, as placid and inviting as it appeared, we came near to disaster on our approach. Being out of the way, there were no handy beacons marking the reef, and of course now the sun suddenly slipped behind a cloud. Don passed the wheel to me and jumped up to the ratlines to keep a lookout. He didn't make the first rung before he shouted, "Left, Left. LEFT!!!!" I swung the wheel to the left and looked right. Bright green corals that looked like they must only be just below the surface slid past the beam and then dropped away with the turn. It took several minutes for our hearts to start beating again. Needless to say Don stayed up in the rigging until we'd found our anchorage in the center of the reefs.

It really is amazing the thin line between good luck and bad. What in fact was a very lucky thing continues to sober us with its nearness to what could have been a major mishap! Of course, they don't call these old CSYs "reef-wreckers" for nothing. The hull would have come out it alright, but we can't be so sure of the rudder and prop not to mention the living reef, that, at a quick glance, seemed pretty healthy!

But this is what being explorers is all about. We are hardly the first cruisers to explore this part of Fiji, but it is off the beaten path. We do have surprisingly good charts to depend on, yet when we "pull off the highway", we are on our own. On the other hand, the rewards of these out-of-the-way places are what it's all about. The sunset and the stars in a sky untainted by civilization is incredible.

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

At ten o'clock the next morning Sera led us through the village and out the back side where we found a real road. Well, a real dirt road, down which a carrier truck travels at least once a week. (There are no cars in Naviqiri, but there are a number of horses!) This road led out of town through a stretch of garden allotments (for the people on this side of the village), up a hill, through some piney woods and down the hill to the school shared with the nearby village of Nasau (Na-sow).

The school, which serves all the elementary grades, was sited in a huge open area, its buildings wrapping around three sides of playing field (rugby is the lead sport.) In front are the houses the teachers live in. Behind them is the cookhouse, then the "cafeteria," next boys and girls dormitories, and then, across the back, the classrooms. Although most of the children walk the mile or so from home to the school, others who live a bit farther out, board during the week.

The school currently has 98 students, and they were all assembled in one classroom, cross-legged on the floor, boys on the right and girls on the left, for us to do our thing! I don't know what exactly we were thinking…well, yes I do! We thought we'd just stand in the back and watch a lesson. But NO! We were the first white visitors to the school (that the teachers knew about…actually, we're fairly sure our friends on Billabong visited a couple of years ago!), so next thing we know we are front and center. What a sea of eyes and smiles!

At the teacher's suggestion, I told them a little about our travels, improvising a map of the Americas on the blackboard. Then we took questions which ran the gamut from President Bush (Help!!!!!) to climates in the United States to how we deal with storms on the boat. Don stood in the corner videotaping the whole thing and adding his comments here and there.

Now understand, while all these kids study English in school, they were all pretty shy about actually speaking it out loud. There was a lot of mediation by the teachers. But when the questions ran out, it was the kids turn to perform for us. With no conductor required, the kids launched into their school song, a rousing multi-verse song in multi-part harmony. Like the adults in church, the kids' singing voices were strong and confident. Song is obviously a big part of their culture.

Up to our departure, the kids were awesomely well behaved, but as we exchanged thankyous with the teaching staff outside the classroom and the assembly broke up to return to their own rooms, the kids launched themselves into another series of songs while crowding about the windows and doorways trying to get into the background of the inevitable round of photographs Sera had me snapping! It was quite comforting that kids are kids the world around.

Tea with Mr & Mrs Sunaki

On our way back through Naviqiri to the dinghy, we diverted to the outermost house in the village. Perched on a hilltop, #45 is one of the few houses to command a view of the bay and is the home of Mr. & Mrs. Sunaki. Mr. Sunaki had approached Don after church the previous day, and invited us to stop by.

Mr. Sunaki is a retired policeman from Suva, which definitely gives him and his home a more cosmopolitan air than most of the other houses in the village. In addition to the mats in the main room, they had two beds, as well as two more beds and a table and chairs in the kitchen area. Around the "rim" of the room were hung framed photographs from his career in uniform, as well as shots of his children and grandchildren in their careers (also uniformed!—police and military.)

Mrs. Sunaki put on a nice tea for us, with cups on a silver tray and biscuits with butter and jam. We talked about retirement, the building of his house here, and like all parents, about what our kids are doing. Mr. Sunaki told us many people thought he should start a business in Labasa upon his retirement, but he didn't see why. He is perfectly happy puttering in his garden, growing the things they need to eat. Still, Navigiri must be a big change from the capital city.

Tides

The tides have not been with us during our time in Naviqiri. With the high tide coming in the morning, all our arrivals had been a piece of cake. Departures, however, have invariably happened at low tide. After the first day, when Sera and Villie had had to help us lug the dinghy to the water, Don had dug out our "Happy Wheels", in storage since Mexico, and mounted them back on the transom. It still wasn't fun, but at least they made low tide departures doable.

On that Monday afternoon, when we straggled hot and tired to the beach, the tide presented us with one of the bleakest prospects we have ever faced. It must have been dead DEAD low, the water 150-200' from the beached dinghy. I'm sure Sera thought we were nuts, but by this time, as usual, all we could think about was getting back to the coolness of T2 at anchor.

Sera was right. We were nuts. The 200 feet across which we had to drag the dinghy, was not nice hard-packed sand, but glutinous, sucking mud, pocked with rocks. Don pulled and I pushed. Believe me, the "Happy wheels" were not remotely happy…and neither were our Crocs! And then, once we were finally afloat, we still had to paddle another 200 feet before we could get the outboard down.

But, oh when you need a swim, you need a swim! How do people live on land?

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

The dominant building in Navigiri is the big yellow Methodist church. Its members come not just from Navigiri but from several other nearby villages, by foot or by boat, just as residents of this village who attend a different denomination church travel to it. Everybody was dressed to the nines. The women and girls mostly wore the traditional Fijian outfit of a cap-sleeved dress over a color-coordinated sulu beneath. The men and boys wore western-style dress shirts and ties over their formal sulus, and almost every elder man wore a sport coat! This in heat that had me utterly wilting because I had to wear a linen top over my calf-length dress because it was sleeveless! (In Fiji a woman's shoulders should be covered.)

Sara led us to the pews on the right, where we were joined by most of the old ladies of the congregation. Across from us on the left, sat all but the littlest kids. In the main nave of the church, the choir sat on the right, the women in front, the men behind them. The balance of the congregation also split themselves by sex, with the women filling the left hand pews, and the men behind the choir on the right. The only exception to this was the chief and his wife, who sat together in the front pew on the left.

The service was two long hours, of which we understood not a word….except "Jisu" and "Amen." There was not even a single sentence in English to give us the gist of things, as we'd gotten at the Catholic church in Tonga. Still there were several aspects of the service that made it well worth our while. First, the singing of Pacific peoples is invariably impressive, with powerful voices and beautiful harmonies (although the tunes here seemed more westernized than they had in Tonga or Easter Island). Sara thrust a hymnal in my hands, and to please her I made an effort to sing along, despite not understanding the words. According to Don, this caught the attentions of a lot of the choir and apparently bought me a lot of brownie points, which came back to me all afternoon… "You sing in Fijian!)

The other aspect that delighted us was the people watching. It seems there is a universal human-ness about people in church, the little kids in their Sunday outfits being distracted by their mothers, the older kids fidgeting and punching each other in the far pews as the service wore on, but best of all the sisterhood of the ladies as they goosed and batted one another with their fans. (And have I said a special prayer for the old woman who pressed up me her feather edged fan for the duration?)

Sara kept whispering to me, as the service inched along to its end, that soon we would leave and go home and lie down, and sure enough, after we waded through all the post-service handshaking, we went back to Sara and Freddy's and, provided with pillows stretched out on the floor with Freddy and the kids.

Meanwhile Sara laid the tablecloth in the center of the floor, …with silverware AND cloth napkins provided for the ka'palangi (foreigners)… and set up upon it the big Sunday meal that she had cooked earlier.

The meal was superb: tender chunks of octopus in coconut milk, palusami (taro leaf in coconut milk), and huge chunks of boiled cassava and yam, along with my loaf of banana bread which was a huge hit. Like Tongans and Samoans, Fijians eat mostly with their fingers with a fingerbowl of water at each end of the table for cleaning up. To our relief, unlike in Tonga, we all – men, women, kids and guests – ate together at the same time.

In all the houses around us, all the other families were doing the same, and afterward, everyone retired to cool shady spots outside to rest and visit.

During none of these events (church included) was the digital camera allowed to sit idle. Like a movie director, Sara told me what pictures to take of whom, and amazingly everybody seemed thrilled to pose, pose again, and yet again.

I was sent running up hill and down to catch this group or that, these adorable children or that grandmother, the old folks sitting around the kava bowl, or the men watching the rugby finals on TV through the chief's window. Everybody was happy to pose, singly and in groups, and this with absolutely no indication they thought they would ever see the prints. Just a glance at the little screen on the back was enough. I wish we'd had a second camera to take pictures of the picture-taking.

Finally as the tide began to come back in, we took our leave, and once back on the boat peeled off our dress clothes sodden with sweat and dove into the water to cool down..........Aaaahhhhhh ...... It's a good thing we anchored on the far side of the bay.

Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

Yadua is an island about fifteen miles from Bua Bay that many cruisers use as a jump off point from Vanua Levu for the west side of Viti Levu or, as Seeker planned, across a stretch of sea known as Bligh Water to the Yasawa Island Group, Fiji's westernmost strand of islands. Yadua is said to have some very nice snorkeling, which was sorely tempting, but it is also known as a place where yachts get pinned down by the winds accelerating through the 35-mile gap between Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. To get to Yadua would have been another nice brisk sail. To get back to continue our clockwise circumnavigation of Vanua Levu could be another thing altogether.

We had both courses laid in the chartplotter, but at the last minutes, prudence prevailed and we bore away on our own up the channel through the reefs around Vanua Levu's northwest corner. This brought more easy sailing with plenty of wind over absolutely flat seas. The landscape was gorgeous around a huge nob of land fisted around a mountain called Seseleka, which then opened into the rather dramatic Rukuruku Bay. Suddenly the wind shifted forward and accelerated down the valleys, giving Don quite the handful as we heeled over and close-reached through a stretch named appropriately "Wilson Patch." (I don't know who Wilson was, but wthere are several "Patches" named for him around these parts!) (Addendum: I later learned that "Wilson" is James Wilson, an early missionary explorer to Fiji...surely a relative!)

The winds dropped right off and skies cleared as we entered the channel called Monkey Face Passage. The channel gets its name from a rock formation on the top of Uluinasiva mountain. If Seseleka looks like a fist on the chart, than Uluinasiva is the cocked thumb. The rock formations on top were eye-catching from every angle, but neither of us saw a monkey's face. Perhaps it's better coming the other way?

This channel delivered us officially onto Vanua Levu's north side. Even as the sky turned blue and the clouds thinned, the landscape altered to the same grassy slopes, broken by clump of trees and magnificent rocky outcrops, that's we'd seen in our road trip to Joe & Julie's. On the port side, a very striking island named Yaqaga (I would guess pronounced Yanganga) rose up, setting the stage for a horizon filled with small islands and craggy mountain peaks.

Don steered Tackless along the line of seven beacons (nautical name for a pole with a mark on top), that kept us clear of the reef line, even as we furled the sails and engaged the engine to motor us into the teeth of a rising wind, as we pushed hard the last few miles to our planned anchorage in Naurore Bay. We rounded into it and nosed into a spot behind a small islet off Wairagia Point, getting the anchor down moments before the rain squall blew through, whiting out everything around us.

We could see the village of Navigiri (pronounced Na-ving-giri) on a saddle between the peak of Monkey Face and another humungous vertical rock bluff. We had chosen this as our first village to visit because several people had described it as an especially nice village. Although proper protocol is to go ashore promptly and introduce yourselves to the village chief, the unsettled weather and the fact we had the dinghy on deck persuaded us to wait til morning. As dusk, however, a panga with four men approached without a light. Only one spoke English and we understood they were coming from a day cutting firewood on Yaqaga Island. We apologized for not coming ashore right away, and asked them to inform the chief that we would come in to make our sevusevu (pronounced: servuservu) first thing. He reminded us of the tide issue, and suggested earlier would be better than later, an observation we would appreciate the next day. I, of course, fretted all night that we had started off on the wrong foot.

The next morning we launched the dinghy and headed for shore. Before leaving the boat we had dressed ourselves properly (no knees, no shoulders, no sunglasses, no hats!), practiced our basic spiel ("Bula! My name is Gwen. My name is Don. Could you please take us to the toranga ni koro so we can make our sevusevu."), and extracted the first bundle of yagona (kava) from the stash we purchased at the Savusavu market. Fiji fiercely protects the traditions of its people, and while visitors are welcome, proper behavior is expected. I don't think either of us has been so self-conscious in decades!

We were met on the muddy beach by the usual passel of children, only these youngsters were wielding child-sized machetes! (Eek, were we in trouble already?!) An older boy was brave enough to try his school English, and we ventured our prepared spiel in Fijian, and in no time we were led to a couple named Sara and Freddy.

Sara and Freddy, both of whom spoke confident English, were neither of them the official toranga ni koro, but they seemed to be the designated ambassadors to visiting yachties of which there have been several over the past couple of years. In fact, the first thing they did was sit us down on a mat in their house and share with us photos of their favorite yachties, who turned out to be cruisers we knew – Chris and Katie of Billabong (from our first year in the Pacific) and the Repass family of Convergence.

Sara and Freddie led us to the chief's house at the top of the hill. Along the way we introduced ourselves and shook hands with every adult we passed (including the toranga ni koro!). The chief's house looked little different from the others on the outside (except for a padlock on the outside of the door!), but inside he had a bookshelf with a TV, DVD player and a telephone! We slipped off our shoes and sat where directed on the woven pandanus mat, while Freddy made our introduction, a formalized speech in soft-spoken Fijian, of which I only understood the word "America." He placed our bundle of yagona on the floor between them, and when the chief picked it up and the men clapped, we were in. We'd been advised that often the chief never speaks with you, but this one did exchange a few words with us about life in the United States, before we were ushered on our way. Sara was walked us around the extent of the village and we shook more hands and snapped more pix.

How one ever went cruising in the days before digital cameras, I cannot imagine. Everybody we met wanted their picture taken, and then to see it on the little screen. This was a wonderful development for me, because I am often too shy to ask to take pictures of people, and therefore never have them. Not so in Navigiri. I have dozens, and because the people are not self-conscious, every photo is beautiful.

We met men building a house, people preparing pandanus for mat weaving, ladies doing the laundry under the shared spigot, and a couple peeling and cutting cassava for the big Sunday meal.

There were toddlers playing naked in a tub, and grandmothers sweeping the church. It was a busy place, but everybody took time for us! And, so, as you might expect, we will go back tomorrow for church. We said yes to the invitation once Don saw that the church had pews. He's not much for extended floor sitting.

When it was time to head back to the boat, we found that the outgoing tide had left the dinghy high and dry on the beach. We have a very heavy dinghy, I'm sorry to say, and the nifty wheels we were accustomed to using in Mexico, were back in a locker on the boat. Sara and a young boy each took a corner and helped us carry it in four stages out to the water. Even then, we had to walk it a fair distance, and paddle even farther before we could get the motor down halfway. Sadly, even that was too soon, and the prop caught an unseen rock, to become Don's afternoon project. I'm making banana bread to bring to the Sunday meal.

Katie and Chris of Billabong stayed here in Navigiri a month and the Convergence crew a week. I'm not sure we have that luxury, thanks to our slow start and our ambitious schedule. But tomorrow is church, and Monday we will visit the school and learn a bit about weaving mats, so for now, home is Navigiri.

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

We dropped Curly's mooring out at Lesiaceva Point at about 0645 this morning and set sail westward. Out first leg was about twenty miles to the Nasonisoni Passage. Outside the Point, the winds were brisk and the seas a bit lively, but, thanks to running down wind, we had a pretty good ride of it. We even caught a small tuna (just as I was wondering if we'd really want to deal with hooking up a fish!)

We were a tad anxious about whether the seas might be piling up a bit at the entrance to the Nasonisoni Passage -- a cut through the reef we need to take into the protected lagoon waters west of it, but up ahead of us by about a half hour was Peter of sv Seeker, who kindly radioed back to us the conditions as he arrived. For his scouting contributions, Don dubbed him "Daniel Boone," and he took to calling us on the radio that way.

As is often the case, the reality of the pass was much less stressful than the anticipation from the charts. Although the Fijian buoyage is a little worse for wear sometimes, the marks are there, and even though the sky was stubbornly overcast, the reefs were plainly visible. We slid through the pass like a knife through butter, and then bore off on the other side on a lovely broad reach in 20 knots of wind with almost no sea, thanks to the protection of the outer reef. this is what sailing is supposed to be like!

Both boats ended up pushing all the way around to Bua Bay, on the northwest corner of Vanua Levu. Bua is a huge, protected bay with good holding in idyllic anchoring depths of 30-50'. We are not only the only two boats here, we appear to be pretty much the only signs of life around. I'm sure there's a village up in the hills somewhere, but there's no sign of it. Up ahead is a long low shoreline of mangrove, and it's an anchorage to make us nostalgic for a working wind generator. After watching showers miss us all day, we got a good rinse down within minutes of setting the anchor. All in all the day's program that would be hard to beat.

We could have stopped in a couple of other places along the way, but psychologically, since we were beginning to think we might never break free of Savusavu (not to mention run out of time to circumnavigate!), getting this far on the first day is a big boost to our optimism. Next destination is most like Yadua Island, about eight miles off shore, a nice little side trip before we start up the north side.

And did I mention we have fresh tuna for dinner?

the 2Cs

Labels: Fiji 2007, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation

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Labels: Fiji 2007, Savu Savu area, Vanua Levu Circumnavigation