From
Fiji
Hmmm, seems I'm behind again. So much has happened in our slow paced lifestyle it's hard to remember! I haven't forgotten the many days of blustery winds & rain that we had to sit through at Ono Island. Fiji gets it's share of overcast skies and it seems everyone is complaining that this year is unusually gray. I guess it's better for our skin though!
When it finally cleared up some, we moved a few miles away to Kandavu Island for a change of scenery. This island is where much of Fiji's kava is grown. It's a very lush, mountainous island with beautiful anchorages that remind me a little of New Zealand. There are lots of large fruit bats that fly around in the evening along with barking doves that sound exactly like a barking dog. The island is full of parrots too.
The first spot we anchored in was Kavala Bay since we needed dinghy fuel and were hopelessly looking for a speck of produce. Never in our entire lives have we ever had absolutely no produce but it had come to that. As we expected, we got the gas and 3 liters of boxed milk but no produce. I mean, we can always get free papayas, but that doesn't take the place of a fresh vegetable. And there's never much of anything available in the small island stores other than junk food since Fijians grow practically everything that they eat on a daily basis and their meat is mainly fish. There isn't a lot of cash flow, and it isn't customary to sell anything that they grow. After the "groceries" we headed into the village to do sevusevu with the chief. It was simple & short and since the family are Seventh Day Adventists, we didn't need to drink kava. Hooray! We ended up taking a nice walk with two local kids and they showed us around their village and outskirts. Their school is one of the top in all of Fiji with high test scores so the government spends more money on their school as a result. They have cement walkways and nice landscaping. Along the walls were little sayings like "cleanliness is next to godliness" and "those with good attitudes get more out of life". I got to chat with the home ec teacher and she told me that the girls take home ec and the boys shoppe class- very traditional roles. We met a teenager from Utah, a Mormon on mission. He just started his second year of a 2 year assignment. It doesn't seem like there would be room for another whole religion here but he's trying. He said that the Methodist's are firmly planted in Fiji.
From
Fiji
We spent a day hiking across the island through pretty pastureland & rainforest & then moved around to the eastern side of the island to be beside the reef. We joined up with another boat- Mediterraneo and scheduled a two tank dive for the following day of the Naigoro pass with a local divemaster named Bruce. This isn't a dive shoppe dive but the price is right as long as you know what you're doing. Naigoro Pass is touted to be really nice in the literature with lots of big fish and bright corals. We had yet another overcast day but at least it was calm. The 4 of us met up with Bruce at his house and then loaded up his longboat with our gear. He had a driver & a helper as well. We went out to the pass, got geared up and descended but Bruce quickly discovered that the current was headed the wrong way (we've found this pass to be very difficult to predict since the wind & moon tides can drastically affect the flow & tide switch) so he aborted the dive and we all came back to the surface. Only problem was, the dive boat had moved to the end of the pass to be ready for us when we came up. We ended up drifting in the deep lagoon for about 30 minutes trying to get their attention but they were too far away to see our safety sausages or hear our whistles. Finally, they saw us and came to pluck us out of the water. It wasn't a big deal because we were all comfortable in the water & were experienced divers, but it could've been different had it been rough or if we had been being pulled out of the pass. For the rest of the day, the driver & helper were instructed to follow our bubbles so that they'd be right there whenever & wherever we surfaced. We got warmed up and then repositioned to try again. From that point on, everything went smoothly and we enjoyed ourselves. In between dives, we went back to Bruce's house to have lunch & tea. We saw turtles, sharks, large groupers grouping up to spawn, a purple wall of Fiji's well known soft corals and the other usual suspects on the reef. It wasn't the best diving we'd ever done but it was good & well worth the price. We're increasingly disgusted with our camera since it doesn't take good underwater pictures. This seems to be the year of camera woes since everyone we know has got issues. Very frustrating.
From
Fiji
The dogs here in Fiji really tug at your heartstrings. If you show them any attention whatsoever they'll cling to you for life. They are just dying for some affection and their expressions are so transparent it'll make you feel a bunch of emotions from wanting to take them home (after a thorough flea dip, de-worming & bath) to feeling like a real schmuck for leaving them behind. On Bruce's beach, 2 dogs started following us one day on a long walk and they were so excited to have our company. One was a great little crabber and he would charge along the beach with his nose scuffing the sand until he smelled something beneath the surface. He'd then stop, start digging, & then come up crunching away on a crab! He did this several times along the way. When we finally got back to our anchored dinghy, we waded out to it to head back to Evergreen and the dogs started wading out too. Then when we got in and started to pull away into deeper water, they started swimming. The faster we motored, the faster they swam. It was so sad! Dogs in Fiji don't seem to be mistreated from what we've seen but they aren't given much of any affection. But if you give them so much as a smile, they'll melt in front of you and be a friend for the duration.
And for the past few days, we've been in Suva- Fiji's capitol. We're on a free mooring in Lami Bay which is right outside the city and surprisingly pretty & quiet. After a great daysail over here from Kandavu, we were so happy to meet up with our friends on Victory & Blue Rodeo. We all went to the Royal Suva Yacht Club for a much needed dinner out! And finally, we have produce! We picked up the pump for the generator without hassle and all is working again, got caught up on laundry, reprovisioning, ice cream, fuel- all the things we were really missing being in the out islands. We re-learned how to play Mexican Train dominoes and the 6 of us had a great night on Victory playing it.
We've really enjoyed Suva. I'd worried that it would be too dirty, rough or noisy for our taste but it's fine. People have gone out of their way to greet us, help us and just chat. We saw the changing of the guard yesterday which happens once a month whereby the fresh guards are escorted through the city streets by the police band to the president's house. They look so spiffy in their uniforms with blindingly white sulus. We've checked out the handicraft market and plan to go back tomorrow to buy a Fijian carved wood bowl or two. We try to get at least one significant thing from each country we visit for "someday" when we may actually have a house. Fiji is known for it's carvings. We also went to Fiji's mall- it's quite a bit different than US style malls but the closest we've seen yet. The only thing is, the smell. I can't figure out what is different since you'd think that a building full of new stuff would smell kind of... new... but that is not what your nose tells you. I guess it's the same as the produce market. In NZ, the market was clean & everything looked top notch but here, there is a phenomenal amount of fruit & veg everywhere you look but it looks like it's had a hard life and you haven't even gotten it home yet. And it's so funny how the market has it's own social structure. There will always be kids around, sleeping adult bodies using either a pumpkin or an old soda bottle for a pillow and people eating take out food in between customers. There is no shortage of food anywhere. Lots of color, lots of vibe, lots of smells and I'm guessing, lots of bacteria! We came back to the boat loaded up with "fresh" stuff along with a fresh bottle of iodine to make our usual iodine bath to dip everything in.
We're pretty much ready to leave and head around to the west side of Fiji to the Yasawa islands before making up our minds for sure whether or not we're continuing on to Vanuatu this season. We probably will, it's just that we feel rushed. The Yasawas are supposed to be much drier with lots of beaches. That sounds pretty good right now since as I write this, we are once again getting the decks rinsed off.