Day-to-day life aboard our yacht.

 

 

Vanua Levu, Fiji, 2011

 

Date: 23 February 2011
Location: Nasosobu, Vanua Levu, Fiji

Today was a day for good-byes. First we went to the village of Dakuniba and found Chief George gone out. Someone told us he'd gone into the bush and someone else told us he'd borrowed Margaret's kayak and gone fishing on the reef. We walked through the village and found it quiet but did see Sia and Mac and meet Maria and were able to say goodbye and thank you. Mac followed us to the landing as he'd yet to see our nesting dinghy up close and was curious. We dinghied off and could see the bright red kayak with the chief aboard paddling towards the reef but realized he was moving so fast we would never catch him. Around the point we stopped in at the settlement in Nasasobu and sat awhile with Bertha talking of the tragedies of the day - the earthquake in Christchurch, NZ and the death of the American yachties at the ruthless hands of the Somali pirates - and also expressed our thanks for their warmth and kindness and hospitality. Charlie, Enid's son but Ella's adopted son who lives with George and Bertha, the handsome young man who met us when we first landed here 10 days ago, offered to pilot us inside the reef down to Viani Bay. Thrilled by this offer, we quickly accepted and made an appointment for 10 am tomorrow, Thursday. From George and Bertha's we wandered up the hill to see Enid and got the chance to meet gracious Ella who is recovering from a stroke but is almost as lively as she appears in the photos she shared from her cruiser-visitor book going back fifteen years. We signed the book and took a tour of her lovely immaculate home built of rock solid "vesi" wood and looked at photos of amazing wooden working sailing vessels built by her late husband Arthur to deliver passengers and copra in an era of prosperity for copra plantations. Still, the estate has 400 cattle ranging free in the mountains, and although the homes appear modest and we are SURE the men work very hard, life seems comfortable. Too, they have a gorgeous view of the bay, the reef and the surrounded mountains, as breezes tickle the curtains.

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Date: 22 February 2011
Location: Nasasobu, Vanua Levu, Fiji

We woke this morning to find a large 10 liter bucket in our dinghy filled overflowing with lemons and passion fruit. We later found out this was a gift from David, Margaret's husband, but probably in thanks from the settlement for the antibiotics and disinfecting scrub we donated yesterday to try to help Enid cure a persistent infection. What a nice surprise...Philip is already preparing tonic bottles full of full strength juice, which we dilute and then add a bit of fructose to make a lovely lemonade. Some of the lemons are a soft reddish orange inside and this makes our lemonade a beautiful color. From our vantage point, today looked like a sunny day, so after returning the bucket to our lemon patrons, we dinghied around the point looking for a snorkeling spot. We didn't find a good one, yet, and when we noticed it was looking rather stormy to our north and west we went ashore on a small beach to explore a pearl farming staging area. Back in the dinghy we were suddenly engulfed in a blinding tropical rain with strong winds and made for a protected shore nearby to drip and let the squall recede. Back on Carina and warm and dry, we watched a half dozen more squalls go by as we listened to the gurgling of water flowing down into our water tanks. By 4 pm the skies had cleared and things began to dry out, though the lack of sun and only intermittent wind has left us a bit shy on power, though our water tanks are bulging. Such are the compromises of the cruising life.


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Date:21 February 2011
Location: Nasasobu, Vanua Levu, Fiji

Yesterday's deluge filled the dinghy with water and this morning we took advantage and washed sheets and towels and hung them out on lines strung in the rigging. This chore took about an hour. This done, we headed for the village intent on hiking the "highway" which we understood traveled high into the hills and offered views. It was Monday but the village was bustling and everyone was dressed in their best as the monthly visit from the priest was today and mass was said mid-morning. Directed to the road by Sia and her husband Mika, we crossed the stream and started up the terminus of the "Hibiscus Highway". Here, it's merely a grassy double track that looks as if vehicle traffic is rare. A mountain bike seems like the better vehicle on this road. We know there is no "school bus" as the children walk 5 km to school in Viani Bay, leaving on Mondays and returning Fridays. The climb was gradual, though significant, and the views were fabulous of both Nasasobu and Dakuniba bays and the barrier reef beyond, plus the village nestled into the valley. Upon returning after hiking maybe three miles round trip, Paulini's husband bid us across the village communal lawn to "come here" and we diverged with the path and up to their door and were presented by a beaming Paulini with a basket woven of palm fronds containing two plump pawpaws. We shared five of the last of our lollies with the children and went back to the waterfront to find Bacio, our dinghy, about 100 yards from water. After dragging her through gooey muck chasing the receding tide we visited shore at Nasasobu for haircuts. Here we met Bertha and George (Enid's other son) and donated a tube of antibiotic cream and antibiotic scrub to Enid to treat an infected barbed wire cut on her ankle. It was a long day and we're pleasantly tired and got a bit too much sun. Such is our relaxed but busy life as we wait for cyclone ATU to finally pass safely south and west. When it does, in a day or two, we will move on...

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Date: 20 Feb 2011
Location: Nasasobu, Vanua Levu, Fiji

Yesterday, late in the afternoon, we were visited by David, Margaret's husband, who stopped to give gifts of coconuts and bananas (of which he probably had 200 lbs. in total!). Sans outboard, he propelled his "tinny" by perching on the extreme end of the bow and paddled with a home made oar. David, with a clipped accent possible indicating an Indo-Fijian heritage, is a lean, muscular and extremely fit man attired in shorts which were splitting at the seams, a tattered tee-shirt, and, on his head, a wrapped kerchief with an Afrikaner camo hat perched on top.

We woke today to news by email that the tropical depression to our west had become cyclone Atu. The bright side of this news is that Atu is projected to travel (by all agency's predictions) SSE and to not threaten us here in eastern Fiji. Atu's steady track south and away from the tropics will also pull much of the energy out of the south Pacific and give us another bout of settled weather to continue our cruise away from Savusavu. This being Sunday, we worked on a few chores including staying ahead of our mildew, engine maintenance, outboard motor maintenance, bread baking and later staying dry during the cool tropical deluge. We also printed some photos we'd taken in the village yesterday which we will bring over tomorrow. Taking digital photos is appreciated, especially if prints are shared; just another simple thing that brings such pleasure to these wonderful people.

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Date: 19 February 2011
Location: Nasasobu, Vanua Levu, Fiji

We decided to visit the village of Dakuniba this afternoon to take some photos for the website. Ashore Margaret was still working on her pandanus fronds while being visited by Mac, an affable smiling curious man of about 55 years. After a short chat, we left them to take photos and were soon accosted by a young Ella, an intelligent girl of about 11 years who seemed protective of her shy younger siblings, a girl and a tiny boy. After a gift of lollies and a couple of photos, they were on their way, but shadowed us as we took pictures in the village. Returning to the beach, we met Paulina who was now visiting Margaret. She was the grandmother and guardian of the children we'd just befriended. We soon learned that Paulina made tapa and was offering it for sale. When she left to get the tapa, Margaret mentioned to us that Paulina supported her ailing husband and her grandchildren on making and selling tapa from mangrove bark. After Paulina returned with a long sweet smelling tapa in a deep shade of reddish brown and while Philip was examining it, Margaret explained that mangrove tapa was rare (we knew this) and was considered the tapa for chiefs and other dignitaries. Soon they shyly asked for $20 FJD and we knew couldn't refuse (nor did we want to) and returned to the boat for cash. Philip returned to the village alone to find Paulina and her eldest grandchild fishing for tiny fish with a net along the muddy shore. When he handed her the cash and then a bag of rice, tinned corned beef, tea and tinned peaches, her face lit up. She took Philip's hand in hers and smiling brightly said repeatedly "vinaka vakalevu, vinaka vakalevu" (thank you very much). It feels so good to do so little and get such grand rewards.

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Date: 18 February 2011 (19 Feb local time)
Location: Nasasobu, Vanua Levu, Fiji

Yesterday was a leisurely day of chores, reading and relaxing as we watched it rain, never getting off Carina. A tropical depression near Vanuatu has many troughs extending from it and yesterday two of these troughs were nearby, producing a rare day of continuous rain. This morning we'll move the boat into shallower water a bit further up the bay and put out more scope. Our second anchor is at the ready on the bow. Tropical depression 11F is expected to be a cyclone by this time tomorrow but to pass about 400 miles to our SW. On this projected track we should get lots of rain (and lots of lovely soft water in our water tanks) and strong northerly winds. Our bay is situated perfectly for this type of weather so we'll hunker down and watch our weather sources carefully. So, as the Kiwis all say: "no worries, mate".

One feature of Nasasobu bay is the flying fox colony on the point to our west. We will try to get a picture of the roosting site; each tree seems to have hundreds of bats hanging during the day...lined up like clothes hanging out to dry. These bats are relatively small but with large wings and an finger-like protuberances projecting from the middle of each wing. At dusk they fill the sky in the bay and even swoop down and seem to take sips of water. We've never had them come so close to us at anchor and we just sit quietly and enjoy the show.

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Date: 17 February 2011
Location: Nasasobu

Another adventure today. We met Margaret onshore at her home on the hill overlooking the bay and she showed us a pandanus mat she is weaving. A lovely mat she had already completed will likely sell for $60 FJD to others in Fiji who do not know the skill. The weaving alone had taken her a week, though she admits she works between her other chores. Margaret then brought out her lovely old treadle Pfaff sewing machine and asked if we could take a look at it as it was giving her troubles. We oiled it and gave her some pointers but also noticed the cap that controls the tension by compressing the tension plates is missing. This is likely to be one of her problems. Margaret then gave us permission to burn our trash on the beach and to do laundry using their abundant running spring water. The former produced some fireworks - literally - as Philip was a BAD BOY. If you remember yesterday we were dealing with a ditch bag with contents destroyed by a leaking water bottle. In that bag were flares which were water soaked and therefore of dubious value as signalling devices and set aside for later disposal. Philip inadvertently put the bag of flares into the consolidated garbage. Luckily Leslie noticed a flare just as she was tossing this bag onto the conflagration. She ran and reached a safe distance (all the while muttering expletives that should never be uttered by a lady) about the time the first flare exploded. You may or may not know that Fiji is still under military governance since the last coup and firearms owned by the citizens were confiscated; not the brightest place on earth to be exploding 25 mm flares that sound amazingly like gunshots. The good news is that no one got hurt and both of us still have ten fingers. [A disclaimer: it wasn't all that bad and was actually kinda excitin'! - PJD]

Just another relaxing day in paradise...

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Date: 16 February 2011
Location: Nasasobu, Vanua Levu, Fiji

Correction: The woman named Ella of Nasasobu is Ella Smith.

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Date: 16 February 2011
Location: Nasasobu, Vanua Levu, Fiji

Typical day cruising; chores...dishes, cleaning, answering mail, then an unforeseen challenge...today we discovered water bottles in one of our "ditch" bags had leaked all over flares, electronics, papers, etc. Yuck; we'd recently gone through this bag but apparently missed this problem. Seems the bottles have developed cracked corners from old age but were new when we left, so that's probably a testament to our long cruise. Everything is now drying out and we're trying to salvage what we can.

At low tide we surveyed the bay with a hand held depth sounder but were without our hand held GPS that lost its LCD screen. We had to go back to bearings to peaks and other land marks, so it was good practice.

After a rain shower or two, we climbed the steep hill behind the three houses at Nasasobu for a view back toward the bay just in time for a squall that looked like it might produce a thunderbolt or two, causing us to retreat. On the way down we met Enid Pickering who is caring for her elderly sister, Ella White, and puttering around the neat garden. Seems Ella and Arthur (now deceased) own the estate surrounding the bay, and adopted Charlie, David and George from Fawn Harbor, adults now who all also live here. Charlie and George are brothers and David (husband of Margaret who we met in Dakinuba) is the nephew of Ella and Enid.

Enid encouraged us to explore the creeks to the north of the bay, which were difficult to visualize from afar as their entrances were mere divots in the mangrove boundary. The tide was high so we had enough water to cross the muddy entrances and once inside both creeks we found they were lovely winding calm waterways about 15' wide that wound this way and that and intermingled with the surrounding mangrove forests. Unknown avian inhabitants called out our presence but we saw few amongst the orchid dotted (and spider webbed) bathing trees. A pollen (red and unidentified) floated slowly with us as we pushed inside with the last of the rising tide. We half expected a howler monkey to begin his roar or a crocodile to slither off the bank...but then remembered this was Fiji.

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Date: 15 February 2011
Location: Dakuniba, Vanua Levu, Fiji

This morning dawned bright though dark swatches of clouds dotted the horizon over the island to the north and about 1000 the sky darkened and the sound of tropical rain in the forest crept in with the rise in wind.

After our washing down, we dinghied over to Dakinuba and met on the beach Farasiko, who walked us through the immaculately clean village of tiny homes set around a large central grassy field where a large dark blue, and humble, wooden, Catholic church dominated the scene. A "lali" (we need to check this) or a hollowed out log drum sits beside the church and is the "bell" which calls the parishioners to prayer. We crossed a stream and began to climb through plantings of cassava and bananas and soon heard the stream cascading through the thick wet vegetation. Almost immediately we came to a waterfall or a series of waterfalls as the stream wandered around house sized boulders and crashed down into hollows carved out of the rock over millennia. Hand to hand we climbed and crossed the stream and followed our guide on a faint path to the site of "vatuvola" or written stones. No one knows how old they are, or what they mean, but Leslie has a theory...more on this later.

Back in the village, we were invited to sit and rest under the ancient banyan trees at the landing and were soon joined by other villagers including Peter, the "turago ni koro" (or talking chief). In typical village style we sat for a couple of hours, we helped to strip pandanus leaves of thorns in preparation for weaving, took lots of photos and answered dozens of questions. The highlight of our visit (or so it seemed) was when we brought out lollies...the kids eyes got huge and their tongues told of their want for the sweets and even the adults were scrambling. Such a simple thing to us but a thrill to these isolated islanders.

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Date: 14 February 2011
Location: Nasasobu Bay, Vanua Levu, Fiji

We had an exciting day; just outside of Fawn Harbor Philip hooked a huge wahoo on his new (fancy) Rapala diving lure. (I kid you not) it was a hair under 5' and we struggled to get it over the lifelines.

It was just too huge to deal with so the fish rode on the sidedeck the last eight miles until we were anchored. We launched the dink and put our guest aboard and he was longer than the aft half of the dinghy! We brought our catch to shore and were greeted by Charlie who helped us clean and steak it. What we didn't give to him for Nasasobu (not an official village but part of an "estate") or save for ourselves for supper tonight and tomorrow, we brought along to sevusevu for the Chief. The chief, George, did the usual prayer over the kava but during our interview he kept lifting up the bags of fish and smiling. It was probably a total of 35 lbs. and that wasn't all of it.

We're anchored in a reported hurricane hole (we'll sound the bay a bit further in while we're here) and there are petroglyphs nearby and lots of hiking to overlooks, so we'll be staying a few days, maybe a week.

Tomorrow we have a "boy" meeting us to guide us to the carvings and then we're planning on meeting Margaret and David Pickering (related to the Fawn Harbor Pickerings it seems) in Nasasobu to get oriented. Charlie promises lemons delivered in the morning. Margaret even suggested someone may be able to accompany us on the "inside" route over the Viani Bay when the time comes...seems we bought some goodwill with our wahoo (yahoo!). When Philip asked Margaret how the boy would get back to the village if he were to guide Carina, she just looked a little surprised, smiled and said he would, of course, walk back and maybe do some wild boar hunting on the way.

We are supposed to be the only boat that's stopped this year...seems hard to believe for such a great spot.
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12 Feb 2011 1805 UTC - Underway Again!

Weather gurus predict this'll be a relatively cyclone free period in the South Pacific, so we jumped at the opportunity to go out and explore. We left Savusavu town on Friday - yes, every sailor knows you're not supposed to set sail on Friday but we figured we weren't actually leaving Savusavu Bay - bound for Cousteau anchorage at Lesiaceva Point - and King Neptune would cut us some slack. The advantage of going just these three miles was to enjoy some serene silence and the chance to get our departure list checked off with fewer distractions from our friends. The resort is nearly empty at this time of year and we were the only boat in the anchorage.

On Sunday morning (today) at 0705 am local we poked our head out around the lighthouse and headed east into noserly winds (5-7 knots) heading towards Fawn Harbor. Carina seemed like a filly out for an early spring run, she bounced along smartly under auxiliary power as the sun rose steadily upward, warming the air and generating puffy rain clouds over Taveuni, our ultimate destination (about 40 miles distant) and Vanua Levu (to our north).

Just as we turned to head at the gap in the reef for Fawn Harbor, the storm clouds over Vanua Levu darkened and moved south and drenched us in rain. It's hard to imagine how warm tropical rain and a few knots of breeze can feel so COLD. We actually celebrated our arrival (without bumping into anything) grateful for the warmth of a cup of tea.

From the village, Bagasau (bang-a-sow), we can hear the drums calling the faithful to church.