With
an upcoming weather window to sail back to Savusavu, we only had a day to spare
for Taveuni, the Garden Island. Rather
than having to manually anchor (our windlass broke), we chose to take the ferry
over to Taveuni and ride in style on the way back by chartering a dive boat. As you can see from the pictures, we just
love the ambiance of the ferry trip over to Taveuni. On the way back, the dive operator was a
young man named Josh from San Diego/Tucson.
Josh played football for University of Arizona, got straight A’s and has
been accepted to Colorado State Vet Medical School. In the interim, he decided to work as a diver
while waiting for school to start. What
fun it was for Dennis and Josh to talk “Chargers” and “Padres” language!
Friday, June 29, 2012
Albert Cove, Rabi (June 21 to June 24)
We met Panea, a seventy year old man originally from Tuvalu
who had moved with his family to Kioa Island, Fiji as a young boy. Panea’s mother delivered him in a ‘drua’ (double hulled outrigger canoe) –
guess after having ten children it’s nothing to deliver a baby in a canoe. Panea claimed that he is one with the sea and
is truly passionate about all the fruits that the sea has to offer.
Panea told us that Kioa is inhabitated by Polynesians
originally from Tuvalu. Because of weak
soil and overcrowding on their home island, the Tuvalun’s decided to buy Kioa,
a rich fertile island off of Vanua Levu.
These Polynesians earned some money in WWII working for the American
military and was able to buy Kioa for the grand sum of $15,000. It was with some trepidation, however, as
they feared the climate and whether they would be eaten by Fijian
cannibals. In 2005, the residents of
Kioa were finally granted Fijian citizenship.
These people, like Panea, are very warm and traditional people. The women make woven handicrafts as evidenced
in Panea’s thatched roof hut with woven floor mats. Traditional ‘drua’s are used for fishing
(we were approached by a lobster fisherman in his ‘drua’ when sailing off of Kioa Island).
Panea relocated to Albert Cove, Rabi Island, Fiji, after he
had suffered a stroke nearly ten years ago.
Albert Cove is possibly one of Fiji’s best kept secrets – beautiful soft
golden beaches, crystal clear water with coral heads loaded with tropical fish
and no road access to the nearby village, Nuka – about 3 to 4 miles by sea. Panea decided that living in this paradise
cove would help him recover from his stroke by changing to a subsistence
lifestyle rich in swimming, collecting rain water, fishing, spear diving,
gardening and raising chickens and pigs.
His garden is rich with bananas, coconuts, papayas, breadfruit, taro and
flowers. He now lives alone in his
thatched roof hut as his wife has passed away.
His daughter lives in Suva but his grandchildren who live in Nuka visit
him on weekends. We even got to meet his
14 year old grandson who hiked along the rocky coastline at low tide – about 3
to 4 miles from Nuka – to visit and fish with his grandfather.
We felt that Panea really enjoyed the presence of occasional
cruisers who anchor in Albert Cove. We
brought gifts of tea, rice, sugar, water, parachute chord, knife sharpeners, a fishing
net and swim fins and in return he was very generous with sharing papayas,
kasavas, bananas, coconuts, fresh eggs, smoked fish and freshly caught fish. We had a knock on our boat one evening around
8:30 p.m.; it was Panea in his little rowboat dropping off some fish that he
had caught on a hand-line.
The one thing that Loren had on his bucket list for his
cruise with us was to catch a lobster and he had just the right man, Panea, to
help him find one. They made two trips
on pretty windy days, even spotted a few lobsters, but those darn critters
evaded them. Well, guess Loren will have
to hook up with us next year for that lobster.
Panea shares his home with a few ‘Banaba’ families who we
saw infrequently. When we saw them, they
were either fishing with handlines in their outrigger canoes or walking along
the beach. Rabi, like Kioa, also has an
interesting history. Micronesians
originally from Banaba in Kiribati (Gilbert Islands) settled here. After WWII, the British bought Rabi for the
Banabans who had suffered several injustices by greedy phosphate mining
companies and an attack by the Japanese in WWII. Contempory Banabans are now citizens of Fiji
living on the island of Rabi, close to the islands of Kioa and Vanua Levu. The citizens of Rabi live according to a
different set of rules than the rest of Fiji; in fact about all they have in
common are their monetary, postal, educational systems, kava drinking and
Methodism. The local language is
Gilbertese, and the social order is that of the Gilbert Islands. In Nuka, the capital village of Rabi, there
are even two police – one Banaban and one Fijian.
Nggamea (June 20, 2012)
We
sailed from Vanua Balavu to Nggamea in one very long day – left at 6:15 a.m.
and arrived about 5:00 p.m. The bay has
a hurricane mooring which we got to hook up to – Dennis and Loren were grateful
for that as our anchor windlass was broken.
We only spent one night here, and really wished we could have spent more
time as the villagers were super friendly!
We were greeted all evening long by villagers rowing by to greet us with
cheery smiles and bula greetings. We
were sorry to have to leave so quickly but at least we had Rabi awaiting us and
what a treat that island turned out to be.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Return to Vanua Balavu with Loren (June 15 to June 19, 2012)
Definitely
worth two trips for more kayaking, snorkeling and sundowners with cruisers in
this beautiful island and for another photo shoot of Dennis.
A unique day in the travels of Lardo – a special lunch invite from an Indo-Fijian Family (June 12, 2012)
We took a three hour bus trip to Labasa to pick up our
friend Loren Harrison at the Labasa airport. While traveling on the bus, we had
a very interesting encounter with an Indo-Fijian man named Rakesh who spoke
very little English. Rakesh was very
curious about us, the only white Americans on the bus. He was quite friendly and before long, he was
on our cell phone calling his wife. He
asked her to cook a big meal for his new American friends. We were quite thrilled to be invited to this
Hindi speaking man’s 13 acre sugar cane and rice plantation.
A long outstanding tradition in the South Pacific is to take
care of ‘kaivalagi’s’ (foreigners). Rakesh
definitely took special responsibility for us by escorting us through town to
help Dennis find special parts for the boat.
During a tropical downpour, we must have walked two miles throughout
town stopping at many hardware stores to search for parts. We actually found most of what Dennis needed
before Loren’s flight arrived.
Once we had completed our errands and picked up Loren, Rakesh
made sure that we hooked up with his uncle “Bobby”, a taxi driver, who took us on
a thirty minute drive out to Rakesh’s plantation for a special lunch cooked by
his wife. Rakesh family spoke mostly
Hindi, except for Uncle Bobby who spoke pretty good English. We learned a great deal of local history from
Uncle Bobby who had indicated that Rakesh and Bobby’s family settled in Labasa
‘four father’s ago’ when the family came over as indenture servants; they were finally
freed of their indenture obligation in the 1979 military coup. The family now maintains a thirty year lease which
is passed down to each generation; thus it is very critical to have children to
pass down the lease rights to future family members. All around Rakesh’ plantation, were other
family members – siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins – taking care of their leased
land too. The farmer’s children attend a nearby elementary school funded by the
government with classes conducted in Hindi.
Rakesh’s wife cooked us a very lovely vegetarian Indian meal
in her very modest two room home with a wood burning stove/oven. Although sparsely furnished, the walls were
decorated with festive colorful Indian paintings. Her meal consisted of homemade roti (similar
to a Mexican tortilla), rice harvested from their field, tamarind chutney using
tamarind from their tree, taro/kassavo curry dish along with several other Indian
dishes. For dessert we had fresh watermelon
served with tea made from tea leaves grown on their property and spiced with milk
from their cow, sugar and ginger.
When we sat down to eat this meal we discovered that Rakesh’
family did not use utensils. We were all
a little sheepish at first to eat with our fingers but once we saw Rakesh and
Uncle Bobby dig in with their fingers, we joined them and easily scarfed this
very tasty Indian meal. This was the
best part of the meal, eating it with our fingers! While feasting, Rakesh’s mother dressed in
traditional sari clothing, stood in the background and his wife who labored so
hard cooking and cleaning on such short notice did not join us for the meal.
Our bus trip back to Savusavu was also
unique. When we boarded the bus we found
it to be packed with passengers and school children. We couldn’t believe that the driver allowed
so many people on the bus. The school
kids crammed into the aisle as there were no empty seats. We took pity on the little ones – it was
about 5:00 p.m. when the young first graders boarded the bus after a long day
at school. Their poor little faces looked pretty wearied. So Dennis asked Thomas, a first grader, if he
would like to sit on his lap…without any hesitation, Thomas jumped up on Dennis
lap and promptly fell asleep. It finally
dawned on us that little Thomas might miss his stop so we asked the older
teenage girls around us if any of them were watching after Thomas – they said ‘senga
na lenga’( Fiji for ‘no worries’)that they would make sure that Thomas got off
at his stop. And like magic, one of the
kids poked Thomas and nodded to us that Thomas’ stop was coming up. He had to shake the sleep off, but he did get
off at the right stop! About another
hour later, Lardo’s wearied travelers finally arrived in Savusavu.
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