Just a little update.

Second night here in Oneata. Yesterday was a different experience. Picture two sandy beaches separated by a rock outcropping. The one to the ENE had an Itilian boat anchored there from the night before. The one to the WSW is where Charisma and Orcinius layed the anchors. Mid day the Itilians climbed aboard a Fijian fiber for a ride into one of the two villages. We saw them go by with one of the Fijians driving the fiber while the other two were on the Itilian boat. Around noon the fiber returned with the three Itilians and eventually came by our boat with three Fijians. The said they could do the Sevusevu so we obliged and gave them our kava. We asked if we could get a ride into the village to view some tapas and they said they would make the round trip for a gallon of premix gasoline. We said we would provide the gas and wanted to go to the village around 2pm.

Lisa went down to take a nap while the fiber went to check on their fishing net. After they checked the net they came back over to the boat and tied up to the stern. Shortly after they tied up to ORCINIUS a second fiber came by to pick up one of the men who happened to be the store keeper and there were people waiting for him to open the store. I provided a glass of water for each of them and before long the two remaining were on the boat talking to me about many different things. One then asked if it was ok to smoke on the boat and I said that it wasn't so if he wanted to smoke he needed to go smoke on his fiber. After about another 30 minutes of bsing it was time to head to the village. We jumped into their fiber and headed over to pick up Bob and Ann. It was a fairly quick run into the village where we made our rounds and then looked at some tapas. After a little negotiation we bought the four tapas they had in a finished state. $50 Fijian for total of four tapas . We also contracted to have one of the ladies make a special tapa with ORCINIUS in the middle which we had to pick up today.

We made the trek into the village at mid afternoon. Met up with Solatey who was just finishing up on the lettering. It is great. It is about 18 inches wide and 5 feet long. Banner style. She did a great job and can't wait to get it back home.

Tomorrow we move North while Charisma heads West to Niaride. We are heading to Vanuavalavu in the northern lau group. Will spend some time up there until the weekend or early next week before heading back to Savusavu for fuel and replenishing of fresh goods. We still have a bunch of meat in the freezer so are concentrating on using up as much as possible over the next month.

OK all for now.

John