What a difference it makes getting out of town. Ive been stuck in several towns around the world for various reasons. Waiting for mail, weather, people, boatwork, ect. From now on I will endeavour to spent as little time in town as possible. Amy and I spent several weeks in Savu Savu waiting for a weather window to get East to the Lau Group. It was great and we had lots of fun hanging out with friends and seeing the town. However most of those friends were cruisers and only a few were Fijians. Here in Naiviivi Bay on the Island of Qamea I am with the Fijians. It was hard sailing to get here but worth it. The bay is more or less a hurricane hole, and the island and reef are beautiful. I am here with my friend Bill on Solstice, and have made some cool new friends too. Cirus, Brooke and Lauren are professional crew on a big swan. They are super cool and high energy. They already knew 10,000, a.k.a Farkle which is a favorite dice game of mine. They surf, and dive, and are super keen on interacting with the locals. All of which is great for me because it is way more fun and easier to do those things in a posse rather than by myself. The other thing that they do is educational outreach. It is highly respectable. They travel around and go to the schools in different countrys. Brooke talks to the teachers and the kids have a day where they get filmed teaching something that they have learned or something from their culture. Then they take that media and teach other kids with it. It empowers the kids, and some kids in places like America get quite a suprise and an experience being taught by kids in remote third world schools. You can check them out at www.traveloutreach.org, though Brooke says she has been slacking on the website. I know how that goes. I was inspired to give something back too and will be teaching people how to make the Kauri shell art that I learned how to make in Kiribati. They have the same shells here and I think it would make a difference to add a handicraft to the villages repertoire. Thats it for now. We will be filming at the school on friday so Ill give a report on that.
Cheers
Eric