Aradonna's blog

We had a fine sunny day yesterday, so went for a long walk. First for about an hour to the Suva Yacht club to check out their facilities. They have no berths available and the fuel & water dock only has 2m depth and that is only at high tide. Fantastic. Then we walked another hour or so into town. Along the way we were constantly hooted at by taxi's, hoping for a fare. But being Dutch and Scottish and also enjoying the walk, we waved them all away! Suva has a bustling city feel to it. Dirty streets, lots of people, buses, trucks, buses, cars, and did I mention buses? Big, noisly, fume-producing buses, everywhere. There are about a zillion supermarkets, but many of them are short on variety. At one supermarket we wandered around the aisles and could not find one thing we wanted from our list! Eventually after a few different stops to supermarkets and the produce market, we had completed our mission. Loaded down with groceries, we succumbed to the lure of transport and decided to catch the local bus. At the bus terminal, a confusing array of various bus colours assaults the eye. More people than we have seen in the last 5 months are queuing up to catch one of the scores of buses that stand puffing out fumes. It looks like most of the 170,000 Suva citizens are taking the bus at the same time. In the confusion, and trying to find a bus with our destination on it, Karl just about got run over by a bus! Eventually we found the right one and were grateful to sit for a while. It was only 70 cents each for our ride back to Lami. Yippee. Today we motored over to Suva yacht club, and braved the narrow passage to the fuel dock about an hour before high tide. The shallow depth alarms were blaring at us as we entered, which was a little disconcerting. We managed to fill up with fuel - 520 litres in total - wow! By the time we had finished with the very slow and frothy fuel delivery and started on filling up the water, it was almost an hour after high tide and time to go. Fo rget the water - we had to get out before the tide dropped any further. Suva harbour is muddy brown, there is an oil slick on it and rubbish floating everywhere. Plastic bags and bottles, all sorts of nasty things that can get sucked into the water filter. Yuck. In addition to reefs and many moorings for large commercial vessels, there are many other obstacles to avoid. The whole harbour area is littered with ship wrecks. Rusting hulks list lazily on their side, bits of submerged yachts loom up from the murk, partly sunk debris pokes up everywhere you look. A navigation nightmare. We are now back in Lami, in front of the Novotel again. As luck would have it, it is raining - so we are catching rain water for the tanks now. The weather does not look great for a departure to NZ for the next week or so and we don't want to hang around here. So now that we have done our chores, tomorrow we will head to Beqa lagoon (pronounced Mbengga) where we can have a swim in clear water again.

After a week or so of patchy weather, we have been enjoying the sunshine in the last couple of days. We have explored more of the Great Astrolabe Reef and snorkeled some of the islands. Nurolevu Island is home to the Manta Rays but we didn't see any on our visit. We spent Saturday night behind Dravuni Island, near the top of the Astrolabe Reef area. When we headed out of our bay at 8am we were surprised to see a large P&O cruise ship parked in front of the village. The cruise liner dwarfed the island and looked a bit surreal against the landscape of tiny islands. Yesterday we hoped to sail back to Suva and we started motor sailing, waiting for some wind to pick up - but the wind died. With only 5 knots of wind from the south, we were going faster than the wind, so we took the sails away and motored for 6 hours, resigned to using up the last of our diesel. In fact, we did use up the last of our diesel - we ran out in the middle of Levu Passage - the main passage into Suva Harbour at 2 .30pm! Luckily the 5 knots southerly and the southerly swell and the incoming tide helped to gently push us through the channel and into the harbour. Heather steered into the harbour as we limped along at 1.4 knots, while Karl emptied the emergency fuel containers into the tanks and bled the air out of the system. Bleeding the air out took quite a bit of time, so Heather dropped anchor when we got to shallow water and we both concentrated on getting the motor up and running again. Just before 4pm we got her going again - with a high five a hug and a cheer! We cleaned up, motored around the corner to Nubulekaleka Bay and had a gin and tonic in hand by 5pm to celebrate. It tasted great! We are anchored in front of the Novotel Lami and have very fond memories of this place from last year. Last year we arrived in Fiji as crew on the yacht "Champagne". By the time we had waited in Opua for the right weather window and sailed from NZ to Suva, we had spent 17 days living on board the 42 ft "Champagne" with the skipper and another crew member. While we all got along well together, there was a lack of space and no privacy (especially for Heather traveling with 3 men). Our first night off the boat was spent at the Novotel in Lima - and it felt like heaven! Last night, in memory of our last visit to the Novotel, we shouted ourselves to dinner at the hotel restaurant. A lovely evening! The balcony restaurant looks out over the water and we had a great view of Aradonna sitting in the bay. Last year when we were at this restaurant we had no idea we would be here this year gazing at our own floating home. A very special memory for us. So today we will start preparing for the return journey to NZ. A few maintenance jobs, some provisions in Suva town and some serious studies of the upcoming weather.

Apart from a bit of snorkeling and turtle gazing, we have mainly enjoyed land based activities in the last few days. On Thursday the 30 or so children at the school in Naqara (pronounced Nangara) village put on a special day for the village. We were invited along with everyone from surrounding villages. The festivities were to celebrate Fiji Day, the signing of independent rule from British authorities. The kids performed a reenactment of the signing of the declaration, they gave speeches, sang songs and performed traditional dances. The village people watching all laughed and applauded enthusiastically and a good time was had by all, including another kava party and our own sevusevu with the chief. The wind was from the NE and coming stright into the bay, so after lunch we motored over to Buliya Island for more protection. When we did sevusevu with the chief of Buliya he invited us to come back at 4pm to help celebrate his uncle's birthday. As we walked through the village and down the beach, several village children adopted us, hanging on to our hands and chattering away - they were too young to have learned English at school so were chatting in Fijian which we could not understand, but they still chatted and laughed and played with us. A huge crowd was assembled for the birthday party - about 40 adults and 40 children. The man was turning 70 that day, but had suffered a stroke some years earlier so had to be carried in to the party and looked rather frail. We were ordered to sit at the "top table" with the chief, head man, minister and VIP guests. Actually the "top table" was on the floor, but the nearest space on the floor to the birthday man who was propped up in a big chair. Everyone sang "Happy Birthday to you" and then, to the same tune, "Happy long life to you", followed by "We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year". It seemed like they were covering all the bases in one sitting! The birthday dinner was Walu (the local fish), chicken and taro cooked in the lovo oven and of course, birthday cake. Yesterday we motored back to Naqara village on Ono Island, to watch the annual "Fiji Day" rugby match between the various villages in the area. Five teams of men (ten a-side) were assembled in the sunshine, all in smart uniforms, with crowds of supporters on a sidelines. This was serious stuff! They had a professional referee, originally from Buliya Island this man and his brother are both professional referees and he was adorned with official IRB clothing for the event. He was a very good referee too - took no nonsense, was decisive, fair, and alert. Some of our other international referees could learn from this man. The games were 10 minutes each way in duration, with 10 round robin games, 3 semi finals and then the final. Kick off for the first game was at 9am and we watched all day until the final concluded at 4pm. During the day, several local children adopted us once more, coming to sit with us and chat away - the older on es speak excellent English as all classes are in English. The team from Buliya Island won - two of their players have played in the Fiji Sevens team in the past. There was much cheering and dancing about in the Buliya camp! For most people watching it didn't really matter who won, they all had cousins playing in every team! The standard of rugby was excellent, a very enjoyable day. Two of the teams were made up of men who are building the new Kokomo resort on Yaukuvelevu Island. This little Island is jointly owned by Buliya Island and Dravuni Island people but nobody lives there. Lang Walker, the Australian Billionaire, has leased the island from the locals and is building a 5 star (some say 7 star) resort, with 30 large villas and a huge and very flash complex for wealthy guests. Lang Walker, apart from being a property developer with massive projects going on in Australia and Malaysia, also owns 4 super yachts. One of these, Kokomo III, was the largest sailing yacht ever built in NZ (58 meters) when it was built in 2010. The Kokomo resort project is employing around 60 people from nearby villages in all aspects of construction - building, painting,drainlaying, plumbing, electrical and landscaping, plus another 20 people sent in from Suva and Australia for specialist roles in the project. The two rugby teams sponsored by Kokomo got a nice surprise when their flash new rugby uniforms arrived by helicopter the day before, to be in time for the game! Just after we arrived back at the boat, the rain came down and we managed to catch about 30 litres of water for the tanks. Good timing as it had stayed dry all day for the rugby! Life is good.

On Monday we met the people of Naboulawalu village on Ono Island and did sevusevu with the chief. Like other places we have visited in the Kadavu area, visiting yachts are quite rare - it is quite a novelty for "valagi" to come into the village here (compared to the Yasawas where tourists are common). "Valagi" is pronounced "Parlangi" the same as it is in Tonga, and means the same thing,"foreigner". Heather finds this quite amusing as her maiden name was Parlane and when she was a child, the pacific island children at her school used to tease her about her name and call her "Parlangi" but at the time she never knew what it meant! Now as we walk through villages the little children all rush out calling "Valagi, Valagi!" to announce the arrival of visitors to the village. Everyone has been so welcoming and friendly here, there is a real warmhearted feel to the place. As we walked through the village, many folk came out of their houses to meet us with a smile and "Bula". They were all k een to find out about us, where we came from and how long we were going to stay. One of the locals, Malina, gave us some papaya and the chief, Miti and his wife Raijieli, invited us for dinner. Yesterday we went for a 4km hike over to the other side of Ono, to visit the school at Naqara (pronounced Nagara). There are 6 villages on Ono Island and all the children travel to the primary school on a Sunday evening and return to their village on Friday afternoon. The trail across the island is sometimes steep and rocky, it crosses several streams and is very pretty. Scores of skinks skittered away from our advancing feet, while numerous colourful butterflies flitted around our shoulders. Part of the trail is in rain forest and part is in pine forest which has been planted to provide timber for their houses. It is a little arduous in places, and the 4km walk took us almost 1 1/2 hours! On the way we met a few local men, one with dogs to hunt for wild pigs and a few with machetes for plant ing or harvesting crops they grow in the mountains, such as Taro and Yam. We got to the school at lunch time and heard the cries of "Valagi, Valagi" go up from the playground. Suddenly we were swamped with children all wanting to hold our hands and talk to us. After a bit of a rest we started the trek back - and quickly realised that we are not as fit as we thought we were! Simultaneously feeling good about getting some exercise and scolding ourselves for being unfit for rugged terrain, we arrived back about 3pm. Malina was waiting for us with some hot buns she had baked in a pot over the fire. They were delicious! Dinner with the chief was an interesting experience. We were asked to arrive at 5.30pm and dinner was already set out on the "table cloth" on the floor. Places were set for us to sit on the floor and eat. Boiled taro, yams and breadfruit took up much of the floor space, along with taro leaves baked in coconut milk and 2 very small but whole barracuda poached in coconut mi lk. We were also treated to a load of small local shrimps in noodles. There would have been enough food for 10 people, far too much for the four of us. We were ordered to eat with the chief, but his wife waited until we were finished before she ate anything. The chief kept right on eating! The floor was covered in hundreds, perhaps thousands of teeny tiny ants and these marched right over the food, crawling amongst everything. We were carefully trying to pick out pieces of food that were in the clear, but our hosts just grabbed large portions of food and ate it, not seeming to even notice all the ants! We were then served tea, which is boiled water poured over a couple of leaves from the lemon tree. We are not tea drinkers at all, but it would not have been polite to refuse. Karl did decline sugar in his tea however, because the ants had got to the sugar bowl first! When we got back to the boat, under cover of darkness and before climbing on board, we stripped off all of our clothes and shook them out, fearing the ants might be trapped in our clothing and infest the boat. It would be terrible to live with ants sharing all our meals. Today so far has been a baking day. More "William" cake has just emerged from the oven. This simple to make fruit cake is superb at any time, and especially great to nibble on when on passage. Two loaves of "Corcaigh" bread have just gone in to the oven, to give us fresh bread for lunch. The weather forecast is still "crappy" as David would say (must be a meteorological term), for the next couple of days. So we won't be venturing far, but we will enjoy more village experiences and continue our passage preparation.