Advertisement
Published: July 11th 2006
Intro Sorry I haven’t written in awhile. Paul and I have been off touring Fijian villages. Pretty basic. A few have electricity via a generator. All villages have some kind of radio phone for the village. But, I only saw internet at one resort, maybe to. Just not lots of communication options. But that happens. The boat isn’t lost from all communication though. We have SSB radio, a Satellite phone and EPIRB. Luckily we’ve only used the first 2. Ok, but this is what has happened, mostly:
Stories According to the computer today is Wednesday, June 28. I think that is right. I don’t really know. Some interesting or not so interesting things about time on the boat and Fiji time. I’m real good at knowing if the current day is an even or odd date, but I have no idea really what the day or date is. I know even and odd because I have to turn my eggs every day and they are marked even/odd, so I can verify on the computer if I ever get really confused. I seem to have really lost all concept of a calendar. I was talking to a guy at a resort
the other day and he said he had to return to the states on July 6th, said he didn’t have much time left. I looked at him and said, “Honestly, I’m sorry, I have no idea how far away July 6th is.” I can conceptualize one month, two weeks, etc. But an exact date I can’t figure out, without real work.
Being on the boat is a lot like camping without The Duff. Sleeping in consists of 8AM for me and 7AM for Paul. Bedtime, well its late now, 9:45PM. I’m actually on my way to bed to read a bit and then sleep. It takes lots of work and a good reason (kava bowl) to stay up past 11PM these days.
Since leaving Suva we’ve done a lot and done nothing. We haven’t been diving yet. Which is funny because one of the original reasons for coming to Kadavu (Kandavu) was to dive on the Great Astrolabe Reef. Plan is to go out there tomorrow, but that has been the plan for two weeks now. We’ll get out there yet. We have done some good snorkeling, some of the best color I’ve ever seen. A day later
and no diving…. It rained today so we did our boat chores that we had been saving for a rainy day.
So it is now July 5th, and still no diving. We left Vacalea to move a few bays down to a dive resort, Matava. Our plan was to pay for a dive, so we could get outside the reef. We have snorkeled inside the reef but really wanted to get outside where it gets deep and couldn’t figure out how to do it. Yesterday it was too rough to go outside the reef so we spent the day snorkeling. The afternoon and evening was spent playing volleyball on the beach and having beers with the resort guests. We looked for some fireworks to let off, but only found signal flares. Discretion got the better of us, so no flares for 4th of July. Today the resort took their guests for a dive outside the reef. We didn’t go because the owner said his dive boats were “full.” Don’t know.
We lifted our anchor with intentions on sailing to another village closer to the western end of the island. Our time in Fiji is crawling short and we
still need to get to Lautoka. But about an hour after getting outside the reef, we found ourselves heaved to in a squall. We ended up getting chased back to into Korolevu Bay by the bad weather. Hopefully tomorrow the wind will shift and we’ll try again. Oh yeah, Korolevu Bay is the bay we’ve been in for the last 10 days at Vacalea and Matava but we are at a different anchorage now. Oh yeah, the wind has stopped blowing. That just seems to be Fiji weather for you.
For the rest of what we have been up to, I have a few short stories… well maybe long stories I don’t know.
Suva and sail to Ono Sunday, June 11th was Paul’s 60th birthday. Paul woke to a cabin filled with balloons and a pin the tail on the donkey game on the cabin wall. It was the best I could do. We invited Jill, Nily, and Mike from Yonita over to the boat for drinks and brownies. Jill even was nice enough to weave Paul a crown out of palm leaves.
Two nights later I was up until 4AM. I decided it would be a
good idea to drink Mojitos and stare at the stars with Brittany, Lisa, Sarah, and JP from Alve. They had fresh mint so the Mojitos seemed like a good idea. 4AM wasn’t such a good idea, especially since we were leaving the next morning for Ono. I think at one point I was asked about not getting any sleep. To which I replied that it didn’t matter. It was just a day sail to Ono, I could sleep in the afternoon, I just had to be awake to get out of Suva harbor and into the bay in Ono, no big deal. Just remember never to 2nd guess Mother Nature. I’m just glad Paul was smart enough to get a good nights sleep.
Its funny but in both cases, with Yonita and Alve, we talked about probably seeing each other again in Vanuatu. It just seems sort of strange to casually chat about running into each other again in another country. I thought that was really cool. Thanks to meeting Yonita and Alve I was happy we had come to Suva instead of following the rest our friends from New Zealand into Lautoka. We will get there soon enough.
We got a later than expected start out of Suva harbor. Just as we get into the channel Paul comes up and says, “We can’t go to Ono today. It is 9AM, it’s a 10 hour sail, and we don’t want to navigate the reef in the dark.” All things made sense to me. I was given the option of going back to Suva or going to a picnic spot mentioned in the guidebook. I elected the picnic spot… Suva was just going to be trouble for me, and I was jonesin for a swim or something away from the city.
A short hour of following the marked channel through the reef, brings us to Nukulau, the site of our picnic spot. Now the Nukulau Prison, home to George Speight the leader of the 2000 Coup. So much for that stop. We elected to go ahead out of the reef. At this point I’m thinking that we are going back to Suva, and secretly hoping so. I was tired and didn’t really want to spend a night on watch. But we didn’t, we sailed on towards Ono, hoping that maybe we could make an outer island early in
the afternoon, or who knows what we were hoping.
Mother Nature had other plans though. About 2PM that day, the weather turned on us. Not really bad, but raining and very poor visibility. Oh yeah and the wind right on the nose, preventing us from going directly where we wanted to go. Yup, we were going to spend the night at sea. Mostly heaved to because we were now pretty close to Ono when the sun set. We just couldn’t see it.
The next day at 7AM we sailed into a small bay off Kadavu Island, we were probably only 7 miles from Nabouwalu Bay at this point. We didn’t drop our anchor in Nabouwalu until after 1PM. Thanks to a bad wind direction that forced us to tack multiple times, and several squalls that would occasionally block our view of the island. In the end our little “day” sail took us about 28 hours. Looking back the adventure was actually quite fun.
It also reminded us that you don’t take things for granted in this game. I kept thinking its similar to when I say those fateful words “its no big, deal, is just the Ocoee.” That
usually means the smack down is coming, with nature reminding you that its really in charge.
Fiji Hospitality and Village Life Most of our time in Fiji has been spent in villages. We spent over a week in Nabouwalu Bay and a week in Vacalea. Fiji village hospitality is amazing. Currently on the boat we have lots of bananas. The entire fruit off of one tree. We have much more than one bunch of bananas, maybe >100 bananas all told. This fruit was given to us a going away present from Tevita and his family. This kind of generosity isn’t unusual. It seems that every time I would walk into the village I was walking back out with a bunch of bananas, some coconuts, maybe a fish, or a popo (papaya), or some other treat.
Hospitality in Fiji is important. The villagers really go out of their way to help you. Always inviting you in to “tea” (which usually means tea and some food). They are just as gracious to each other. Anytime you meet someone away from his or her village; they want to know if you had a good time in their village. They want to
show you everything around their village, and as I mentioned share what they have with you. I feel so bad at times because everyone knows my name and I can’t always remember his or her name. But everyone is always willing to give you what they have; it is really amazing.
The hospitality actually starts upon arrival in an anchorage. We are encouraged/expected to give a gift, a sevusevu to the chief of the village. This gift is always kava, and usually about 1/2kg is the appropriate amount. By accepting the gift the chief acknowledges you as a guest of the village. From this point on all the rules of hospitality fall to the local village. The presentation of the sevusevu is also used to procure the right to fish, snorkel, dive, and explore the lands and waters controlled by the village. The presentation of kava to the chief by visitors is a long-standing tradition in Fiji. It is a tradition that Fijians as well as foreigners follow. It seems to be very appreciated as well. Tevita was telling me that the chiefs in his village were very happy that we presented a sevusevu. He said the yachts don’t
always do that.
Most of the villagers are farmers or fishermen, or both. They tend to have fields of kasava (like a potato, but bland), tarot (sweet potato), yams, and kava. Along with farming these vegetables, they grow/harvest bananas, coconuts, papaya, mangos, lemons and more fruits that I’m sure I don’t know about. Many a night is spent fishing, often all night. We actually had some of the ladies from Nabouwalu on our boat for a few hours fishing one night. We didn’t catch much, and I lost my bet to them about who would catch more fish, all I did was catch the bottom.
Paul became very popular in Nabouwalu. Neither of us speaks Fijian very well, but that doesn’t stop us from trying. Most of the villagers wanted to know if I was Paul’s son. It turns out that the Fijian word for “uncle” is “momo” (long ‘o’ sound). I could remember “momo.” I told everyone that Paul was my “momo.” So the whole village started calling Paul, “momo” or “momo Paul.” He is quite popular in Nabouwalu.
One night the village held a “fund raiser” and invited all of the yachts in the bay
to it. The fundraiser was for the local rugby team, and consisted of a dinner, with kava and traditional dancing. I don’t have to mention that the food was exceptional and it was a great time.
Our afternoons in Nabouwalu were usually spent playing volleyball with the villagers. I decided that joining in the volleyball was a better option for me than joining in the rugby. During the day, we would snorkel if the weather was nice. We also tried to give back to the village by fixing what we could. They had an outboard motor that had been submerged in saltwater. I looked at it for a day, then the guys from Apopo and Tucumcare looked at it for a day and found a bad switch. It was quite the accomplishment. Tomorrow we are going in to look at the alternator on the village generator in Vacalea.
On the way to Vacalea, we had some guests on the boat. We had agreed to take one of our new friends, Tevita (David), from Nabouwalu back to his home in Vacalea. But more exciting than just a human passenger was our cargo. Someone in Nabouwalu gave Tevita a pig.
Yes, how cool. We transported a pig between Fijian villages. The pig wasn’t as thrilled. He was hog-tied laying on a tarp on the deck. Happily he didn’t soil the deck, just the dinghy on the way to the boat. (This short paragraph, really doesn’t do justice to how cool I found it to be transporting a pig between villages)
In Vacalea we really felt like we were made at home. There were several nights that the village wanted us to stay in the village. However we only spent one night in Tevita’s family house. More than that we would really have felt like we were imposing. But Joanna, Te’s mom, was always cooking for us and bringing food to the boat. She said that one night when the wind starting blowing, she kept looking out her window to make sure the boat was still there and ok, she was worried about us. We had their whole family (Joanna, Apisi, Tevita, Junior and lil 4 year old Frances) on Dreamweaver one night for dinner. Tevita said it’s the first time his parents had ever eaten a dinner at a foreigners, we felt honored.
One of the last things
we did in Vacalea was to go snorkeling and fishing with the men of the village. What seemed like a simple snorkeling/spear fishing expedition turned into a full on party. Paul had gone into the shore to play with a new anchor for the dinghy while we waited for Tevita and the other to be ready to go. Well, the next thing you know there is a boat full of 7 men, 1 boy, and 5 women ready to go. They all came out to Dreamweaver. All the men, the boy and one of the women got on board. The other 4 women stayed in their boat. We towed them behind us. They stayed in the boat because they were going fishing in the next bay over. When we got close to where they wanted to fish they just untied from us and drifted off.
On the ride to the reef, the fore deck was filled with everyone just lounging around, telling jokes and stories, I think. Anchoring inside/around the reef was a truly amazing feet. We were not sheltered from the wind by any means. But the seas were calm because we were surrounded by coral reefs. Paul
did an excellent job getting Dreamweaver inside the little pool. Once anchored, it was off to snorkel the reef. I just took my camera, while the other men all took spears. The woman, boy, and 2 of the men stayed on Dreamweaver and fished from the boat. The spear fishing totals were Paul 0 and locals a string of fish. From the boat a few fish were caught. The real prize of the day was a giant clam. Once on board the clam was diced up and served in lemon juice with hot peppers, ceviche style. Ummm good, even though I’m not a huge raw clam fan. It was a truly great day.
The two villages are very different, yet the same. Some of the big differences are just in wealth by western standards. Vacalea has a small shop, a generator for power at night, and many of the men farm kava as a cash crop. Nabouwalu has no shop, no power, and not much use for money other than for gas for the outboard motors on their boats. Both villages have running water from mountain springs, cold showers, and flush toilets. I’m not sure but I think the
villagers actually get to take more showers than I do on the boat.
Religion also appears to be a big part of every day Fiji life. On Sunday they go to church and have family dinner. No working, just resting. Church is Methodist and lasts about an hour, unless the Bishop is in town, and then its 2 hours. Funny but I’ve now been to church the last 3 weeks, when in Rome.
In the villages, the kids all go to boarding schools. They leave on Sunday afternoon and are picked up again on Friday afternoon. This is for 2 reasons. 1) Not all villages have a school and it might be a 2 hour walk or boat ride to the school. 2) So the parents can work the fields or fish, it is almost like permanent day care.
I also found it very strange that there are very few (almost no) single women in the villages. Girls, and old ladies yes, but not young single women. No before you make some smart arse comment. This is strange because there are lots of single guys in the 18-30 year range. Most couples in the villages seemed to
have met in Suva. I think it is very common for people to move to Suva for several years, and work before coming back, often married to raise their kids. The one single girl I talked to (only one I saw) said she came back to take care of her uncle who had a stroke. Family is very big.
I can’t say enough about how nice everyone is in Fiji. We really had a great time in the villages we were in. At the kava ceremonies we were often given the first cup and always served with the elders. That is a sign of respect. The Fijians really go out of their way to welcome you and take you into their village. I feel I have friends in both villages that they and I would genuinely be happy to see again.
Moce (Motha (long a sound)) Travel Monkey Moce is the Fijian word for goodbye. And here in Vacalea I say Moce to my travel monkey. He has a new home with a 4 year old little girl, Frances. Tevita and her were on the boat, taking us over to Junior’s farm. I forget what happened but she
was crying so I showed her the monkey to cheer her up. It worked and she became attached to it. It is special to watch her carry it around her house. I was at their house this morning for breakfast and saw the monkey set up in a prominent place in the house, next to the family pictures. I always knew that the monkey wouldn’t be coming back to the states. I didn’t know when he would find another home, I just knew it would happen.
Kava I’ve mentioned kava several times, so it must be important. I mean it’s what we give to the chief so we can visit his village, it must be something special. Kava is a plant. I don’t know if it grows wild, but I do know it’s farmed.
The whole plant isn’t important, really just the roots. It is from these roots that the kava drink is made. The roots are dried, and then pounded into a powder. This powder is then placed in a cloth and mixed with water making a sort of tea. The spent powder is thrown out; the “tea” is drunk. The drink itself is a light brown
color and tastes somewhat woody. It has a slight intoxication affect. Not like alcohol, but it makes the lip and tongue somewhat numb. It also doesn’t seem to have the same hangover affect that alcohol does.
That is a very oversimplification of kava. One doesn’t just go into a bar and order kava. There are rules for drinking the kava. First off, the kava is mixed in a very special bowl. These bowls are made from a single piece of wood. The people from the Lau group are given credit for making the best kava bowls, while Kadavu kava is the best kava. There is one person in charge of mixing and another who serves the kava. They dish the kava out using a coconut cup, and it is passed around the room in another coconut cup. Everyone shares the same cup, except for some elders who have their own cup. I’m not 100% sure but I think it’s an honor to receive the first drink of kava in a round. I’ve noticed that usually the chief or honored guests are served first. Then it is served to other elders or important people in the village. After that, it
seems random among those left. When it is your turn to drink you clap your hands once before taking the kava. This is a sign of respect for the kava. You then immediately drain the cup. You can make requests for how much kava you want in your cup. It is usually full or half full (high tide or low tide). It is ok, it is not like doing shots, and usually there is a good 10-20 minutes between rounds. Once a bowl of kava is made, it has to be finished. You can’t throw it out. One isn’t obligated to stay up all night, with the late crowd, but somebody has to stay and finish the bowl. For Fijians the nightly drinking of the kava is social occasion.
Kava can be bought in markets all around Fiji. I don’t know where all it is grown, but I’m told that the kava grown on Kadavu is the best kava. I was told that in Suva and here on Kadavu. Tevita’s brother, Junior, has a pretty big kava farm here in Vacalea. The kava plants take anywhere from 1 to 10 years before they are ready for harvest. It is
sort of like scotch. The kava that is harvested after 1 year, is your run of the mill everyday kava. If you want really good kava get a 6-10 year kava, but it’s more expensive. You can tell how old the kava is by the length of the root. Junior gave Paul some 6-year kava roots as a souvenir, not to drink or sell. These roots are probably 7 feet long or so.
The longer kava sits in the ground, the stronger the kava drink will be. I’ve seen this. The kava we’ve drunk in Vacalea is stronger than the kava in Nabouwalu. Junior said that we were drinking his 5-year kava in Vacalea. I can’t say I’ve ever noticed much of a buzz or even getting numb from it, maybe a little bit. I do get bloated and full after awhile. I also get real tired and usually sleep pretty soundly after drinking kava. The other night I woke up in the middle of the night and had to use the bathroom. I sleep in the fore cabin on the boat. Sometimes I sleep with my head all the way in the bow and sometimes with my head
by the cabin door. Not sure what makes the difference mostly random. This night I woke and thought my head was in the bow. It was pitch black and I couldn’t find the door. I just kept kicking the sides of the boat trying to figure out why I couldn’t get out of bed. Eventually, I rolled over or something and saw the lights of the boat by my head, not my feet. Everyone in Vacalea got a kick out of that story.
Great Astrolabe Reef As I’ve mentioned we came to Kandavu to dive the Great Astrolabe Reef. It is the 2nd longest barrier reef in the world. While we never got to dive it, what I have seen has been very impressive. Anchored off of Vacalea, inside the reef, I could sea and hear the waves breaking on the reef. These breakers were almost 2 nautical miles away from the boat. As we would go out toward the reef, to move around, the reef gets no less impressive. For as far as you can see there is a huge rolling breaker, just out in the middle of the ocean. The waves were probably 3-5 meters, at least.
Even from the mast of Dreamweaver they looked big, something we wouldn’t want to be in. Once the break it’s just flat and smooth over the shallow reef. Suddenly there is a gap in the breakers. That is the pass in and out of the reef. This area of “calm” water is probably 200 meters wide. As you go out through the pass you can see the reef breakers on either side. Its quite a site, and almost impossible to describe.
Moving around inside the reef is an impressive task as well. There are other reefs and rocks creating very shallow areas that have to be avoided. We managed to get from Nabouwalu Bay to Vacalea staying inside the reef. It helped having Tevita on board, since he knew the way. At one point the channel was probably only 50 feet (maybe 100 feet wide), and “S” shaped. You could see the reef coming to the surface on either side of the boat. In the pass the boat was in >100 feet of water. Really cool. To move on from Korolevu Bay we have to go outside the reef and potentially back in. There isn’t a passage deep into
the next bay from here.
Fiji Weather We have had some interesting weather so far in Fiji. I would have to say it hasn’t been great, and certainly not tropical. The highs/lows seem to range from about 25C to <20C at night. Some nights have been pretty chilly. It is wintertime in Fiji and the locals are all cold. I can say that we haven’t had too many blue bird days. But that is Ok. I think temperature wise this might be typical for this time of year. Rain wise, I think its wetter than normal. Winter is the dry season in Fiji.
On the nights that it has been clear, we have been working to learn new constellations. We are both really good at finding the Southern Cross, and Scorpius. Finding Libra is off and on and really needs a good night for us. With the chart and clear skies we can also pick out Centaurus. From this latitude we can just see the stars in the handle of the Big Dipper, and the Sickle tail of Leo. Orion is currently below the horizon, well it rises around 4AM at the end of this month.
Fish Tale
For the record we haven’t caught any fish yet since leaving NZ. On the passage to Fiji we hooked a couple, but didn’t land any. I’m sure they were huge, probably world records, which is why we didn’t land them. Today we caught our lure. Generally, whenever the boat is going anywhere the fishing line is in the water. Until today we were using a surface lure. Today, Paul decided to add a deep diving rig, to the line. So we are cruising along and the boat seems to get up to 5 or 6 knots and suddenly the pole is bent over. This was just shortly after we watched a sailfish dancing behind the boat. He probably jumped at least 10 times. Anyway, the pole is almost doubled over. I can’t easily get the pole out of the rigging so we slow the boat down and start reeling it in. For some reason, there was nothing on line. So we put it back out and start going again. This time at about 4-5 knots we notice that the pole is doubled over. The deep diving rig is creating so much drag at this speed that it acts like a fish. We decide to bring the line in, it just isn’t working right, besides if we catch any fish, we won’t be able to land it. But since its not a fish, just the lure we don’t slow the boat down as much. I must have fought that lure for 15-20 minutes just to get it back on the boat. It was like landing a big fish. Too bad that is all we’ve caught.
7/7/06 Today we caught 2 fish trolling. We hooked a yellow fin tuna in the gill. Kept him and had sushi for dinner. We also hooked a barracuda in the eye, he went back. Not sure what the deal is, can’t seem to hook them in the mouth, but we finally got fresh fish on our own.
The Dive Here it was, we were finally going to dive. The tanks, BCDs, and regulators were all out. I was a bit intrepid. I don’t have much diving experience, and this was looking like a drift dive in decent current. But I wasn’t worried to much, I could handle it.
We were anchored behind Denham Island on the west end of Kadavu. It wasn’t the Great Astrolabe anymore, but the reef looked good. Good clarity, good depth, and easily accessable. Yes, finally a dive.
So I attached the BCD to the tank, and hooked up the regulator. Initial checks good. Next step, check tank pressure and all the regulator functions. Tank on, hmmm, how to work this dive computer. Well, lets start by pushing the button. It comes on. But reads all ‘0’s across the board, no pressure. I probably don’t know how to work it. Try regulator… nope nothing. Our tanks are empty. So for a month we’ve been thinking of diving and we were carrying around empty tanks. Paul’s tank is empty as well.
I can’t help but laugh at this latest turn. It just is so funny. The answer… we went snorkeling. When all was said and done, we didn’t miss much by not having tanks. The best fish and color were in snorkeling depth. It was a pretty steep wall though, and that was really interesting. There were also lots of little grottos through the coral that would have been easier to explore with tanks. Overall, snorkeling was better though. The best snorkeling was still Alacrity rocks back in Nabouwalu Bay.
At least now we could leave tonight for Lautoka.
Lautoka on the Hard (10/7/06) We are finally in Lautoka, probably 2-3 weeks later than expected, but no complaints. Well maybe one. Yup, correct, we are on the hard again. That is the nautical term for being out of water. Now why would you ask is Dreamweaver out of the water again already. Isn’t she a boat and made to sail and be in the water. The answer is yes. But we had a little mishap in Gaola Harbor on our way to Denham Island.
We were making a passage out of the harbor, early morning, and a different route than we came in. I was on the bow, looking for rocks and reefs, Paul was at the helm. I had just noticed that I was starting to be able to see the bottom and I didn’t like that, but no danger yet. I motioned Paul to turn to port. Then suddenly, almost directly below my feet (maybe 5 feet in front of the boat), a single, solitary, looming large, coral head. What to do, what to do. Bluntly, I sort of paniced and did nothing. I had some coherent thoughts. A) No way to turn and stop in time (some kayaking mentality said don’t try, better to hit the trouble head on than broadside… works in a kayak, not sailboat) B) Hope my eyesight is not good, maybe we have 6’ of depth.
Not 10-20 seconds later the answer was, nope, its shallow. We stopped and slid right back off of it.
Luckily, we didn’t get stuck and it didn’t puncture the hull. It did do some fiberglass damage, down to fibercloth. Also, looks like it wicked up some moisture. Not sure how much but its drying now.
So as soon as we get that fixed, hopefully we’ll be traveling again. Off to Musket Cove and then shortly after that Vanuatu.
PS I’m sure that some of my stories and rants make no sense. I would like to apologize for that. I do almost no editing on my blogs. Most of what you are reading is a rough draft of something. I figure its best to put everything down, and then later I’ll figure out what is really important and what isn’t. So sorry if it doesn’t always make sense or is boring.
This life isn’t so bad, even when nothing exciting happens.
Wahoo to over 6 months of travel!!! (July 6th, 2006)
Pics link
Advertisement
Tot: 0.421s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 16; qc: 75; dbt: 0.1927s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Vince......
non-member comment
B@*st%rd
i am reading your blogs... I am at work... I dont like you any more.... BUT..... PAYBACK IS A BIATCH... SO I WILL GET EVEN ONE DAY..:)