A couple of our evenings in the lagoon have been spent sitting on the shore around a fire with fellow cruisers. There is a plentiful supply of wood and coconut husks for fuel in the trees. It makes for a fun evening.

Yesterday the wind dropped, and it was a great day all told. In the morning we had a trash burn on the beach. Burning trash is something that we have debated for a while, but the conclusion amongst cruisers is that it is the lesser of the trash-disposal evils. There is no recycling here. However, the locals will reuse many items including empty wine bottles, which they use for coconut oil. During the trash burn Kate did some haircuts on the beach - including Humberto the wandering Dutchman who we have befriended in the lagoon. Then before heading back to the boat we collected a pail-full of the small green clams from the seashore for our supper.

Then at lunchtime the local village had organised a feast for the visiting cruisers. It was a big pot luck lunch; each boat supplied a dish, as did many of the village ladies, who had cooked pumpkin and crabs and all sorts of other goodies. As the centrepiece, the villagers killed a pig and cooked it in a ‘lovo'. The menfolk dug a pit, lit a fire in it and placed stones on top of that. Once the fire had burned down the entire pig - tail to snout - was placed on the hot stones and covered in a thick layer of palm, taro and breadfruit leaves to keep in the moisture. This was followed by a layer of sack cloth, and then a thick insulating layer of sand and earth, and the pig was left to cook in the heat in the stones. About two hours later they opened up the lovo - brushing off the sand very carefully - and removed the cooked pig. A second lovo held baked sweet potatoes and a kind of damper bread, cooked in breadfruit leaves. The food was all laid on a table covered with woven palm leaves and the spread looked amazing. We ate it on plates made from woven palm leaves. It truly was a feast and we were honoured to have attended.

In the afternoon the musical instruments came out for some singing and dancing, and a lot of chat under the trees. It was one of the best afternoons we have enjoyed for a while. Altogether, a really lovely day.

Today we are preparing to leave for the neighbouring island to the east, Ogea (pronounced Ongea). We would be sad not to come back to this lovely place one day.