Kuata Island

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Saturday 1st July
We were awoke by the breakfast 'drums' (they play wooden drums on all the islands to announce the start of some activity or meal). I had another nice breakfast and packed my bag - I was moving on today. I then realised my camera charger didn't work anymore. I think it was overloaded as I left it plugged in over night and there was probably a 'power spike' when the generator was started again in the morning. Not good as I would not be anywhere near somewhere that might sell a replacement for about 3 weeks!

I decided no more beer in Fiji - it was a waste of time - you just can't get drunk on it. Same for the rum n coke and whisky n coke - all come in poxy 330ml (coke can size) cans and are too weak.

As we were waiting to get our transfer boat a Swiss girl said I reminded her of a famous Swiss DJ - and called me DJ Bobo the rest of the trip.. Hmmmm... I'll let you decide: url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJ_Bobo]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJ_Bobo

We got the transfer to the Yasawa Flyer catamaran and went on to Kuata Island (in the Yasawa Island Group). On the way we went past two really fantastic looking islands: Wayasewa and Waya.

Kuato Island has some unusual rock formations - a huge bulbous formation with lots of 'mini caves' and a towering rock summit with what looks like a face carved to it's surface...

I walked the length of the north beach, under the bulbous formation and round as far as I could before the lunchtimes drums sounded. I saw lots of sand/rock skippers, lizards and fish on my walk before lunch.

I had heard lots of bad things about the food at Kuata. Lunch was vegtable curry, rice and popadom - no problem with that!

After lunch I went on a fishing trip with four others, costing $10 FJD. We went out in a small boat with three Fijian characters: 'Captain Sinbad' an older guy with a gappy-toothed smile who would find the best place for us to fish. Then there was the boat driver, a quiet , slightly dodgy-looking guy and the last was a huge guy (club bouncer size) with a tiny pink 'Barbie' rucksack to keep his fishing gear in LOL. I wish I had the courage to photograph him with his little pink sack!

We were given a reel of line, with a hook and lead weight on the end, plus a bit of crab for bait. The technique was to throw the tackle over the side of the boat, let out enough line to hit the bottom and then take up the slack so you could feel the bites - to then pull up sharply and reel it in... I caught the second fish - another small snapper fish. I thought it would be too small to keep, but they said to keep it for bait.

This was another example of very different cultures - they cut bits out of the still-live fish as new bait was needed - I'd never heard a fish scream till then :-( As the fishing went on we had a few snappers on board and someone needed some more bait. They went to grab a fresh snapper to cut into, but there was one only half cut-up (and finally dead) - so I said "Hey this one is already open" - like it was a packet of bait and there was no need to open a fresh one... Funny how quickly everyone adapted to the situation that originally seemed so cruel and wrong to us Westerners... They killed fish to catch bigger fish to eat... simple as that. They just didn't see a problem in not killing the bait fish before cutting into it...

We went on to catch plenty of salmon cod and rock cod that would be good to eat apparently. At one point Ian had his line break, professing it was a huge fish (most of us had hooked the coral at some point). Shortly afterwards the big rock cod was hauled in by someone else - with Ian's tackle (so to speak) still in it's mouth! The one that got away.. but not for long! And this was a greedy fish - as we bought it onboard a crab fell out of his mouth too!

On our way back they demonstrated another difference in cultures - they threw the carrier bag (used to hold the crab bait in) over the side! The really didn't seem to understand/care about what non-biodegradable litter will do to their paradise... More of that to come...

I took a walk over to the South beach and walked along the shore at low tide. See the Quick Time panoramic here (go full screen and you can zoom in, etc). I saw lots of sea cucumbers and strange starfish like creatures. They had long 'hairy' tentacles which they waved about at the surface collecting food. At low tide the whole surface of the shallow water moved with thousands of these things - very eerie!

As I walked up from the beach into the wooded area I found a huge open dump of litter, which was pretty disturbing in such a beautiful place. As I walked further I found Kuata's 'recycling plant' - a family of pigs up to their bellies in rubbish - which would be fine, except the rubbish wasn't just organic - it was glass, metal, and plastic too!! I realised the Fijian's don't understand that litter has changed - Western rubbish doesn't just break down like all the organic litter they were previously used to. And pigs don't eat it!

I then climbed up to Sunset Summit - the highest point on the island. It was a pretty steep climb and when I got to the top I had stunning views of the nearby islands. I was on my own, so only had a few hundred caterpillars (all on the rocks at the top) to share it with. I thought about staying up there to watch the sunset, but decided without a torch or anyone to go get help if it went wrong, the walk back in darkness would be a very silly one...

I went back for dinner and a few beers, in bed by 8.30pm. I was awoken at about 2am for calls to watch the football (England World Cup match) - Captain Sinbab had arranged a small boat to take people to an island to watch the match. I found out the next day it was actually to someone's home. When they got there it was in someone's lounge with a few Fijians trying to sleep on the beds in the same room. Sinbad asked if anyone wanted a beer, to which the obvious answer was 'yes'. He then woke up the wife - "Go out and get some beer!" LOL. I then got awoken again at 5am as those doing the Sunrise Summit (same summit, different time of day) got their shit together. >:-(

Sunday 2nd July
I lounged about in the hammock and on the beach, reading and writing up my journal. A little girl came up and wanted to play with my camera - it was in it's waterproof case which makes it look like a Fischer Price toy - 'My First Camera'. She managed to get her finger aross the lens first attempt, but finally got the hang of it in the end (see photos).

Then I went out kayaking to try and catch some surf. I managed a few good runs but then got booted out and on to coral - so I gave that up and continued round to the other beach, in an attempt to circumnavigate the island. I got knackered and turned back. Glad I did - found out later it takes over two and half hours paddling to go all the way round!

I went out snorkeling, the highlight being spotting a ray and a sea snake. The low point being cutting my fingers to shreds on coral trying to climb out of the water - coral will be the death of me! There were little bits of coral in the deep cuts and coral cuts takes ages to heal at the best of times, so on with lots of germaline....

I read some more, had diner and star gazed (lots of new constellations we don't see in UK). It is nice enough here in Fiji, but feeling bored already...

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Photos

Recyclying pigs
Special pigs bred to eat glass, plastic and metal...or so you would think!

Summit of Kuata
Looking down over Wayasewa Island

Comments

[Garry Henwood]

Kayaking
Jim,Glad to see you finally got some kayaking in,, But watch that Coral. Pretty but nasty!

[J2NZ]

Damn Coral!
Hey Garry! How you doing? Yeah Coral has given me many scars over the past few months! Not so common in NZ though ;-) J