Firewalkers
31 July 2015 | Beqa Island, Fiji
Colin
The sail north to Beqa was pleasant with about 15 kts on the beam. A highlight of the passage was catching our first mahi mahi, which was delicious! We got about 7 meals from that fish.
Inside the lagoon we motor-sailed around to Vaga Bay and anchored, which we had all to ourselves and proved to be well protected. During our sevusevu in the local village we were asked to look at their diesel generator which was broken. It was a nice new unit the government had installed, but the rubber drive linkage had broken and cost about $1000 USD to replace. Sadly, they had been nearly a year without electricity, though they seemed none the worse for it.
While in Vaga Bay we dinghied around to the nearby Beqa Lagoon Resort for drinks and to see the famous Beqa Island Firewalkers. The legend tells of a fisherman who caught and released a magic freshwater eel in exchange for the power of firewalking. In fact, they walk on large rocks heated in a fire, but still quite impressive.
After a couple of days it was time to move on towards Port Denarau where we had a mooring reserved in a week. Since the weather was still pretty squally, we decided to harbor hop west along the Coral Coast.