Navire's blog

i Makogai Oct 3 Position 17 26.445s 178 57.123e (Posted from Marshall Islands, May 2016) David From Rukuruku, on Ovalau, we sailed to Makogai Island and enjoyed a special five-day stay. Obsession, friends since Tonga (2010), and Zest, newly met at Nananu I Ra, were there. We were joined by a very amusing Scottish boat, Endorphin. I got to tell them the pee bottle story and sing them the song. Went down very well. Lester on Obsession plays harp so there were many evenings of music-making along with an appreciative audience. Our stay was topped off with a formal welcome and sevusevu, complete with a lei each. Followed by a meke, a dance performance, put on by the children of the village. All put on for two couples from a dive boat but into which the crews of five yachts were absorbed, as only the Fijians can do.
Special. Zest had left but two solo boats, Trumpeter and High C's, arrived that day. Trumpeter we'd met near Lautoka, and Jack off High C's we'd heard on the radio and had had his musical skills lauded to us on several occasions. I'd have liked to have stayed and swapped songs but the following day, yesterday, was good for the passage to Savusavu. Another time perhaps.
Janet The dinner with Obsession and Zest was riotous. I've really enjoying meeting Fijians on our travels but it was so good to be with Kiwis again. We laughed and laughed. The talk flowed easily. Everyone understood each other, nuance and all.
I love the ease with which you quickly become friends with other yachties. I know from the Tonga trip that many of these friendships endure, Obsession a case in point. Debbie and Chris off Zest are nearly neighbours, living in Kerikeri, an hour from Rawene, and near where we may keep Navire moored when we get back, so there could a future in that relationship too.
*** Makogai was a familiar place to us. Back in 2012 we came on Migration and explored in with Bruce and Alene. It is a unique place, being a former leper colony for most of the south Pacific. Here's a piece I summarized from a blog from Ladybug.
Before the British arrived in Fiji lepers were often clubbed to death. The British banned this practice and various colonies were set up to house them, the final one at Makogai. It was difficult to get medical staff to work there so the government employed nuns to look after the lepers.
Separate villages were built for the Fijians, Indians and other Pacific Islanders, and the staff. There was plenty of level land available for planting and raising cattle. There were two churches, a Catholic and Wesleyan, a mosque, and probably a Hindu temple as well. The patients lived in dormitories, with women segregated from men. Indentured Indian workers were brought to the island to do much of the farming.
The physically able were encouraged to work in the fields, assist in building, cooking, sewing and other daily chores. Physical activities and recreation were promoted including inter-village sports and arts and crafts. Children attended school and there were girl guides and boy scouts. There was even an open-air movie theater. However there was a jail too.
The varied activities were introduced to help overcome the sense of hopelessness that can occur when people are exiled from their homes and families. All in all it was a very positive community. The sisters attended to the physical as well as the spiritual needs of their patients.
Makogai became a very successful leprosarium and soon patients were arriving from all over the Pacific - countries such as the Solomons, Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Cook Islands, Samoa, and Tonga. By 1947, there were 675 lepers on Makogai. After the discovery of a cure, the leprosarium was closed in 1969.
Back in the present the island houses a turtle and giant clam farm, run by a marine biologist and a few helpers. One of the workers took us on a tour of the farm and the remains of the leper's villages, and we gratefully accepted offers of fresh drinking coconuts, papaya and bananas. The next few days we relaxed and socialized.
*** Journal entries: Oct 5 I snorkeled on a bombie near the boat. It looked so ordinary from the surface, but was a wonderland under water, large turtles gliding around me, myriad's of brightly hued tropical fish and a superb garden of coral.
Back on board the boat I said to David, "Looks like we may be here for a week." A 1041 high pressure system was predicted to come near Makogai on the Friday, a squash zone at the top of it bringing strong winds to our area.
"I can't see why that's a problem," said David, "We have plenty of water, fuel, alcohol, and fresh stuff several more days." So we settled in for further rounds of drinks. On the 50' Scottish boat that evening. They had a whisky collection, like the decent stuff, bliss. For appetisers I made duck lolo (shredded in coconut cream), and fried kabana with olive marmalade. It was so good to have a larger appreciative audience to cook for.
*** Oct 6 It was our turn for drinks so we had a quiet day cleaning the boat. I'm a little bit house-proud. That night I served pate, red onion jam, crackers, and stuffed olives, just your average fare at home but a treat out here. We made more music.
*** October 7 It was blowing its tits off outside the anchorage, whitecaps abounding. We needed two lighter wind days to get to SavuSavu, so decided to stay put where our anchor had been down for several days and we trusted it. This, rather than risk anchoring in adverse conditions at an unknown bay at Koro Island, our stopping point half way between here and SavuSavu. However we did opt for a night in and gave our livers a rest.
And so it went.
October 8 - David Obsession and Endorphin headed south early morning and reported fair conditions. We vacillated. Would the winds be as fair going north? We decided to approach the pass and have a look. It was overcast and grey. No chance of seeing the reassuring turquoise outline of the reef. The island profile was high right up to the pass preventing us feeling the force of wind beyond the reef. We approached slowly, still undecided and a couple of boat lengths from the pass. I glanced over the side and my heart stopped.

Toba Basiga, VitiLevu to Rukuruku, Ovalau, Fiji Sept 29 (Posted from Majuro in May, 2016) Janet Another morning praying for sun. The forecast was gloomy but we thought we'd poke our nose out into the coral channel, then come back if visibility wasn't any good. As soon as we were out of the deep bay where we had spent the night, the gods smiled on us as the sun came out.
This area was a Google satellite chart free zone so back up the mast for David, naked. I got a shot of him up there but that one is for the personal photo album.
*** It was 27 degrees. We'd been at sea all day. Because we had to motor much of it the freezer was charging the whole time and the beer was satisfyingly cold. I poured a glass of it down my throat. I felt it chill my oesophegus all the way down.
We were anchored at Rukuruku, on the north-west side of Ovalau. We'd been aiming for this place ever since we got to Fiji back in May. Our plan was to visit the family I described in our last post.
*** Sept 29 We dinghied in to shore and found the chief's house to do sevusevu, the kava ceremony that visitors do on arrival at a village. Chief Mateo didn't know where our friends Joe and Mere were. We chatted for a while about the rugby, the World Cup still in progress, asked about fresh produce, then left to continue our search.
We walked along the road out of the village trying to remember where Mere's house was.
"Bula, bula," said a man with a sack of kava over his shoulder.
We stopped to get directions. The man was Sammy, and he remembered us from Akula's birthday party three years ago! He told us Joe and Mere had split up, Joe going to Suva, Mere to Levuka, the main town of the island. He gave us Mere's phone number.
Back at the chief's house we got piles of fresh veges, our first since Lautoka. As I was collecting them the chief, Ta, the local headmaster, and two other men whom we'd got to know over the course of the day, had gathered outside to drink kava. Possibly the kava we'd given the chief that morning.
"Come and join us," said Ta.
As always we accepted kava invitation. Aside from relaxing effect of the kava these sessions were good way to find out about the local community and get to know people.
*** Feeling slightly light-headed we motored back out to the boat in the late afternoon sun. I repaired to the galley. Dinner was fresh. Dinner was local. We had mashed breadfruit in coconut cream (grated by David), bele (a bit like spinach) with chili, ginger, garlic, and grated half ripe pawpaw in coconut cream, and tinned fish. Very much an island meal.
*** Excerpt from Janet's journal Sept 30 We are in the Royal Hotel in Levuka, the Capital of Fiji, from the 1890's when the British first colonised the country. Later it was moved to Suva. We are sitting on white cane furniture in a slightly tatty Somerset Maughan style louvered room.
The cool breeze is coming straight off the sea which is crashing on the seawall across the road. This is the life, drinking bottles of cold Fiji Bitter at 2.30 in the afternoon.
Last night we called Mere.
"Is that Mere?" David asked "Yes." "This is David." Silence "We met three years ago on the truck going to Ovalau, you invited us to Akuila's 5th birthday party." Silence, then "Who? What?" "Do you remember David and Janet we came on a yacht with Bruce and Alene and you invited us to..." There was a shriek of surprised delight from Mere's end of the line.
"David, really?" she cried, as it sunk in who we were David too was dancing up and down delighted, ecstatic we had made contact.
He briefly explained that we were in her home village and that we were going to come to Ovalau on the truck the following day. We arranged to meet at the supermarket where she worked.
This morning we piled into a truck in Rukuruku village, which in the next few minutes filled to capacity with people going to town. It had a long wooden seat down each side and the floor was filled with bundles of kava and bags of coconuts. The road was rugged and steep. Each time the truck went up a hill we all slid towards the back, and when we went down the other side we slid forward again. We soon got to know the people either side of us.
The countryside was lush. It made me realise how much the aridness of western Fiji in its drought state had affected me. I could feel the refreshing greenness of the thick vegetation growing densely along the roadside, seep into my blood. As we rounded the island the spray from the ocean crashing on the shore came under the cover of the truck, lightly showering me.
"I'm glad we aren't anchored on this side," I said to David. This side of the island was the main port but fully exposed to the trade winds.
Arriving in Levuka our first stop was to visit the supermarket where Mere was working.
*** David Mere was tickled pink that we should want to see her again, the grin across her petit face never faded. The children too remembered us well, which was a warm surprise. Biatrisi, now a very responsible eleven, reminded us that she had platted Janet's hair back in 2012. Mere took us up to the local primary school to see Akuila. He was more interested in the lunch food his mother brought than us, but he had not forgotten the chocolate cake we had made him.
We are so pleased to have made the effort to come back.
*** Janet I'd brought my laptop along and showed Mere the pictures we'd taken at Akuila's party. We went down the street and printed them out for her. They treasure photographs and usually put their few prints up on the wall of their main room.
We took Mere out for lunch. We have become Facebook friends with Mere and will contact her ahead of when we come back to Fiji next year. (Now planned for 2017) After lunch we climbed 99 ancient steps to Mission Hill then repaired here to slake our thirst.
*** David The last couple of days have been dominated by the news my mother collapsed and was taken to hospital - suspected heart attack. She's 90 and from a long line of nonagenarians. First serious concern for her life. But she rallied. They think it was not a heart attack and that beyond being 90 there's little seriously wrong.
Then we got other sad news. Real life in Kavala (the first island we visited in Fiji, back in June) has penetrated our idyllic existence. Wame, a delightful, handsome village teenager who visited us aboard Navire several times, took his life when a cellphone given by an uncle was held back by his parents. An immense tragedy. I fear for his friends. I'm very curious about how the village has taken this loss and what sense they make of it.
We will set sail again tomorrow for Makogai, just twenty miles to our north-east.
It's really the beginning of our journey out of this hemisphere and the approaching season for hurricanes.

Nananu I Ra to Toba Basinga, North Eastern Viti Levu 17 32.573s 178 22.695e (Posted from Majuro in April 2016) Janet We sipped on celebratory cups of tea. The sun was out in spite of a gloomy forecast. Navire was underway again and her crew on full alert as we threaded through the coral minefields. We'd now rounded the top of Viti Levu and were headed south-east on the next leg of our journey.
We had ummed and aahhed about leaving Nanaui I Ra in overcast conditions. But we feared that if we stayed there too long we'd be trapped there for many more days by the strong headwinds predicted in a few days time. Ultimately we wanted to leave Fiji by the end of October to get north and out of the hurricane zone and had to move on.
*** "I've got room in the freezer for a fish," I announced to David, feeling a little cocky now that we had caught four fish in the last month.
He put the line out.
We were headed for Toba Basiga for an overnight stay, then on to Ovalau, our next destination.
I felt well satisfied with our visit to Nananu I Ra. We'd met some really nice Fijian/Tuvaluans, watched the rugby, and partied with several other boats.
Yesterday we headed around to Papu's for "church". Arriving on the dot of 11am, we climbed the steep path up to the house and found a group of people sitting cross-legged on a mat on the verandah, one of them quietly playing the guitar. A table had been set up with a white tablecloth, a bible and flowers.
The preacher arrived in a longboat and proceeded to deliver a service in English, for our benefit. As usual we were the only white bodies in the congregation, and obviously not church going folk, as we were the only people in the room without a bible in hand.
After the service I helped the women prepare the boiled titan shells for lunch. I peeled the shell off one and put it in my mouth. It was tough and tasted bland.
However once it was chopped up with onion and dunked in coconut cream (lolo) it was quite nice, sweeter and softer. The children were tucking into a sort of sea snail. I tried some. Instead of toothpicks to get the flesh out we were supplied with thorns off a nearby lemon tree. I scooped a few out and onto my tongue.
Juicy and slightly chewy, but okay.
As a thank you for the rugby hospitality, we'd made a chocolate cake, and iced and piped it with VINAKA, thank you in Fijian. In the heat of the day the icing threatened to slide off onto the plate, but the cake went down a treat anyway.
Saying our goodbyes, we gave the two-year old grandson a silver fern flag to wave at the next New Zealand rugby game, and dinghied back to Navire to get her ready to sail the next day.
*** Sailing away from Nananui I Ra I reflected on our time in Fiji. I missed a few things about New Zealand, mostly long term friends, and family, but what an adventure this is. You never know what will happen from one day to the next.
Yes we set courses, study the charts, identify anchorages, make long term plans, but the wind changes, it gets cloudy, or the sun comes out, we stay or go, and we have no idea what the next village or anchorage will bring.
*** As we sailed down the north-eastern coast of Viti Levu the scenery changed from the arid drought ridden hills of the west, to lush green slopes, heavily populated by coconut palms. Cirrus clouds were stacked up on the horizon. A long way ahead we saw the peaks of the island of Ovalau, where we would arrive the next day.
There were villages dotted along the shore but I couldn't see any evidence of roads or power poles. Back to remote village life again. As we covered the miles the sea changed from gloomy grey to deep royal blue. At last we were free of the coral for a few miles. I turned the engine off and the sails silently pulled us along.
It was hot. We abandoned our clothes. David was looking trim, this active sailing life suited him. Life was good.
In Ovalau our plan was to look up a family we'd met on an earlier trip. Mere and Joe and their four kids. In 2012 we came up here for a two-week holiday, sailing on a trimaran with American friends Bruce and Alene. We'd sailed into Rukuruku village on the north-west side of Ovalau, and decided to go to the island's main town, Levuka, on the local transport. We met Mere on the truck and she invited us to a birthday party for her five year old son Akuila, in the way that Fijians do with people they've only known five minutes.
Back at the boat that evening David and Bruce had made and decorated a cake, piping on 'Happy Birthday Akuila' in Fijian. At the party it was a hit, the feast was delicious, and we played music and drank Kava into the night. We fell in in love with the kids and they particularly took to David as most small children do.
Three years on we wanted to see these lovely people again.
Check out this link to my food blog for the full story. https://cookingclubwellington1.wordpress.com/2012/07/ *** "Can you see a mark ahead?" David asked, disturbing my reverie. He peered at a chart on the tablet mounted under the dodger. "It should be ahead at one o'clock." To make directions clear we see the boat as a clock, the bow being 12 o'clock, and the stern 6. So if something is ahead of us slightly to the right we say it is at 1 or 2 o'clock.
I gazed ahead, seeing nothing for while, then there it was. It's always a treat when a mark indicated on the chart is actually there in reality. This area had an unusually large amount of marks, so often absent in these waters.
We turned into Toba Basiga Bay and dropped the pick. Half-way to Ovalau.

Nananu I Ra September 22 Janet 17 18.219s 178 13.019e It was just a little trip around the corner to see a man about a fish. David had narrowed identifying yesterday's catch down to somewhere in the bream, warehou or trevally families. We needed to know as many fish here carry a disease called Cegutera. If you eat this fish you get very ill with very severe flu- like symptoms, which can last for months and have no cure. After a phone- consult with Lester on Obsession he recommended Papu.
It was a bit choppy out but we piled into the dinghy with our precious catch in a large black rubbish bag, along with a walu head from the freezer. As we rounded the corner of the island the waves were a tad bigger than was comfortable but we plowed on. We gingerly crossed the coral shelf to shore and I leapt out. My job was to quickly turn the bow of the dinghy into the surf so it wouldn't get swamped but I was too slow and one of the waves leapt in and doused David and the outboard. After tying up to a coconut palm we searched the shore for the house Lester had described. Climbing the hill behind a very flash holiday home we called "Bula bula" at the entrance of a more humble house and were welcomed inside. Papu and some of his family were watching a replay of Japan beating South Africa in the Rugby World Cup. "Sit down, sit down," Papu said, indicating the couch but we sat on the floor with everyone else in proper Fijian style. In Tonga five years ago David struggled to sit cross-legged at all but now at 65 he sits more easily on the floor but standing back up again is difficult.
We met Pae, Papu's wife, and his uncle Kailopa, several of Papu's nine kids, and a grandchild, Pagalu. Little did we know what would later develop with Kailopa.
Papu confirmed our fish a giant trevally and we promptly gave it to him. We still had plenty of walu in the freezer. This was a good start. Out came the kava. A few bowls of this and I was pretty relaxed, the coral navigation stress build up melting away. We talked of how Papu's people migrated to Fiji from Tuvalu sixty years ago and bought an island, Kioa, off the east coast of Vanua Levu. Papu explained he was the caretaker of the big holiday home out front, owned by a wealthy British couple. More kava was offered, and accepted.
We were invited to watch the rugby the next evening, a Fiji vs Australian game. Back down to the dinghy. The wind hadn't abated a single knot. We rowed out over the coral and started the engine which promptly cut out. It probably got salt water in it when I swamped the boat. Sigh, ....I rowed into the wind as David topped up the fuel tank just in case it was a bit low, not so easy as we were bucking up and down in the chop. But no luck, it still kept cutting out. David took over the rowing while I bailed. We rounded the corner and finally ran downwind. Back on board, dinghy safely shipped, I stripped off my soaking clothes and poured a therapeutic whisky.
After David spent the next day as a mechanic working on the outboard, we rowed to shore and walked over to Papu's to watch Australia beat Fiji, with a few beers and more kava. We took popcorn to munch on. Papu's two-year old grandson had never seen it before and kept staring at it but wouldn't take any. Eventually he put some in his mouth and decided it was okay and dafter that it disappeared quickly.
We took a brief trip to the boat to sleep then rowed back in to Papu's to watch New Zealand beat Namibia, being fed tea and pancakes for breakfast. We're getting to know and like Kailopa. He told us his village was having an anniversary celebration of the settlement of the island. This was planned for the end of October complete with feasts and entertainment. Not to be missed. We put it in our calendar. We've worked out the mileage and it's doable.
Back on board Navire David worked on the outboard in the head/workshop and I cleaned the engine area. The day ended with a swim to wash the grease off.
*** We continued waiting for a good weather window to sail southeastward through the next fifty miles of coral. We needed winds from the northerly sector, and clear skies so we could coral-spot. But the north sector winds usually come with a front or a low-pressure system which is accompanied by cloud and that was what was forecast.
We had heaps of boat maintenance to do so were quite happy (and blog post catching up) to linger - and watch more rugby with Papu.
Sept 26 What an excellent day yesterday was. First David succeeded in fixing the outboard engine. This is huge. Its not like you can pop the engine in the boot of the car and drive it to the local outboard mechanic shop. Our outboard and dinghy are our car. We rely heavily on them for getting to shore for anything other than short rowable distances, and these only in light conditions.
To fix the engine we wrestled it into the cockpit and attempted to secure it with ropes so David could dismantle it. But it wouldn't oblige so we then we got it down into the head/workshop and where David stripped down the carburetor, not an easy decision because we had no spares. David had never taken apart a carburetor before and didn't know what he'd find or what he might break, i.e. gaskets, then we'd be stuck without it for several weeks till we got to Savusavu. Being practical people we had two outboard engines however the other one was seized and David had come to the end of his meager mechanical skills (his words).
But it worked. David took the carbie apart, cleaned the jet but could see no obvious blockage and reassembled it. We got the engine back on the dinghy and David went off for a test run, taking the oars just in case. He came back elated, and with an invite for drinks.
"I'm going to be insufferable to live with,'" he said, beaming like a Cheshire cat. What a sense of achievement that must be to bring a mysteriously dead mechanical device back to life.
After a pretty quiet time socially, three new boats turned up in the anchorage, two we'd seen before, two kiwi boats. Clarke Gable from Auckland who we'd met at Kadavu, and Gracias who were moored near us at Vuda Point, but there I'd been too busy to do anything other than say hello as I walked past them. They both dropped by in their dinghies and drinks aboard Clarke Gable were arranged.
Yet another dinghy came by, an English family, and asked us for drinks at their boat. We explained we were otherwise engaged, but they then gathered up the entire anchorage to come to their boat, the biggest in the fleet.
I thought I'd break out a jar of pate as treat for cruisers who were probably down to chippies and peanuts. I paired this with my lovely red onion jam. I even had a shower for the occasion and put on a dress. It felt good to be 'going out'.
We climbed in to the cockpit of a fifty-foot gleaming Farr. I proudly put my tray of pate and accompaniments on the table and the hosts put out.... pate. Turned out they were now from Kerikeri in fact (English imports). They'll be neighbours when we settle in Rawene. They had brought the boat up recently, well stocked with New Zealand goodies. Then Clark Gable arrived with camembert, can't remember when I last had that. They just had a visit to check their business in New Zealand and thought they'd treat us to something from home. Our hosts then produced....brie. It was all very delicious. I really enjoyed hanging out with a bunch of kiwis. Our hosts, Debbie and Chris on Zest, had gorgeous 11 year-old twin boys, Jacob and Thomas who waited on us. We ended up staying for dinner, walu Thai curry. Got home and fell into bed.
*** Still we waited. Our most coral strewn passage to date lay ahead of us, from Nanaui I Ra to Ovalau on the east side of Viti Levu. David spent the morning making satellite charts to put into Open CPN so we could see our course on satellite images. Sadly we found the pictures mostly focused on the coast and there were significant blank areas over the coral we would be navigating. We think the satellite cameras are programmed to only photograph land.
We checked the weather forecast, again.