We’re getting ready to leave Savusavu for more island hopping and wanted to see more of the land side of the north island before we go.  We had met a taxi driver a month ago who offered to take us on an “island tour”.  He seemed nice and we kept his phone number, so we gave him a call.  Was he still interested?  You betcha.  It was Sunday, but that’s just how our schedule worked (one tip-everything’s closed on Sunday so if you want to do more than just see the island, do the tour on another day).  Sunday meant none of the island towns would be open, but we wanted to just see what the island looked like so it worked out well.

Heading out of town.

Fiji north island is a beautiful island. Most of it is jungle, palms and reef with occasional villages and a couple towns.

On the tour we stopped by this very interesting resort owned by a Italian/Aussie and his Fijian wife.

Turns out Luigi was in construction in Aussie and came here to retire. He couldn't help himself and just kept building. The upshot is this nice little resort sitting along the island's reef.

Luigi, Margaret and Bella the dog

Lots of jungle.

There's only one paved road, the rest are dirt.

Along the way, we visited "Heaven". It's a nice place.

The view from "Heaven"

It turned out to be a great day.  We left Savusavu in the morning and spent the entire day driving around.  We went north up the “Hibiscus Highway”.  Mahendra, our driver knew a lot of hidden drives into some of the private backroads, so we saw some areas that normally would not have been available-certainly not if we had driven ourselves.  I’ll let some of the pictures tell the story of the day.

A nice ending to the day occurred around 4PM when we drove down a sketchy looking and very steep dirt road to “the waterfall”.  As many readers know, there are “waterfalls” everywhere that are locally famous, but it turned out this one was delightful!  Mahendra drove down the very steep dirt road until we saw a young woman in traditional garb standing by the side of the road.  He pulled over and introduced us.  She was to be our guide up to the waterfall.  So, off we went.  A bonus of the 20 minute hike to the falls was that we got to see what Kava looks like in its natural state.  The village she belonged to grew kava and it was fun to now be able to identifiy it.

The short hike in to the waterfall.

Almost there.

After a while we summited a small hill and started going down into the grotto where the waterfall formed a pond.  It was gorgeous!  And well timed.  We were hot and tired.  A jump in the pond below the waterfall and a swim over to the falls were exactly what we needed.  Wonderful!

A lovely little spot.

And the pay off!

So-to our cruiser friends who might be coming this way, here’s a great tip.  If you want to tour the island-anywhere-call Mahendra.  He’s a great guy and we highly recommend him.  He even took us back to his house where we met his wife and almost met their granddaughter (she was asleep).  His phone number in Savusavu is:  926-1632.  Call him-you will have fun.

…three Aussies in a tub…

A dinghy actually. Three Aussies together are usually pretty funny.  Great sense of humor and timing.  But add the fact that these three just got in from Samoa, were tired, had been up all day clearing customs and hadn’t slept yet, and then went out for dinner with seemingly a few beers and you have real comedy.

Our new friends the next day.

Ann and I were walking back from an evening at the fair (more on that below) and we heard from out of the dark; “‘ello then? Remember us?”. Um, maybe? “We’re Doug, Ken and Bennie!”. Oh yeah, on the mooring just in front of us, they came in this morning. So we chatted a bit as we all headed down the rickety old wharf to our dinghies to go back to our boats. The three of them kept up a running commentary the whole way about how Bennie’s leg was just like their outboard-neither was working. Bennie had a bum knee and the outboard, well it was being an outboard, which meant it choose not to work whenever it wanted to. Like tonight! Just getting into their dinghy was a challenge. “Bennie, you sit over there-Ken you sit here, no there. I’ll just slide over, omp, here, oops, sorry mate…watch them oars!”

They then proceeded to try the engine a few more times before declaring it dead and deciding to row back to their boat. The slapstick continued off into the dark until we heard a thunk and a “That’s got it then, up ya go Bennie, watch the knee”.

We felt better knowing they had made it back safely and got in our dinghy for the short ride back to Charisma. These were really great guys. Wish we had more time to spend with them, but they are headed west and we’re headed “northish”.

The Fair. We had heard there was going to be music and a dance troup at the Fair tonight. There were neither. Maybe tomorrow night. But in the mean time we learned more about “The Fijian Way”. It’s a saying we hear from time to time when people here want to keep things simple. Two examples:

Dinner. There were some really delicious looking foods available for dinner from a number of booths. Most were BBQ type things and we eventually settled on a $5 Fijian dinner plate with noodles, BBQ beef, sausage, onions and taro root.
Mouth watering. As they packed it, seeing no implements, I asked for some chopsticks or forks, or maybe just some napkins? The people in the booth all looked nervously around. Clearly they had no such thing as implements to eat with. Finally one of the bolder men smiled and said: “You eat with your fingers! It’s the Fijian way!”

So we did. And it was delicious even if we did have to wipe our hands in the grass where we were sitting.

Fijian fair.

The food vendors.

Some of the ladies in one of the booths.

Our dinner being prepared.

Fijian Way part two-I needed to use the “facilities”, but assumed there wouldn’t be any and was getting ready to go down the street to a restaurant or something, when I spied a sign that said; “Men”. Ooh, I know what that means and it’s just what I’m looking for. So I walk over and as I get closer I noticed this “structure” looked decidedly temporary. It’s basically corrugated tin held with some sticks pounded into the ground. You walk over behind it and lo and behold, there is basically a rain gutter type thing made out of…tin! Well I know what to do with that. But the gutter suspiciously disappeared behind the wall on the downhill side of the structure (too flimsy to call it an outhouse). Now they had my full attention and I decided to investigate. I followed the open tin rain type gutter a dozen feet or so past the wall within which I had so recently found relief and to my (not so complete) surprise, it terminated at the bank of the creek! No swimming tomorrow!

I imagine if I had asked, someone would have answered; “It’s the Fijian Way”.

To be fair (no pun intended) this is a truly lovely country and I’m just poking some fun, but it is decidedly third world-and that’s really where a lot of the delight in being here comes from. The simplicity of life here is refreshing. We’re really enjoying the places, experiences and people.

We received a most amazing email today as we got back into Savusavu and Internet access. It was from a man who was relaying the discovery of a bottle we threw over side as we crossed the equator last year (April, 2012). It was a whimsical conclusion to our equator crossing ceremony. As we finished our bottle of champagne to celebrate we decided to put our boat card with personal info about us, contact info and a little note. Little did we really think it would ever be found, much less that it would show up a year later, over 5000 miles from where we dropped it and within 150 miles of where we are right at this minute. Amazing and a little bit fantastic.

I’ll let the content of the email speak for itself:

“Hi Ann and Bob. My name is Vani and I live in San Rafael; California. I called home to my family in Fiji and they told me that they found your letter that you sent in a bottle when you crossed the equator last year on April 12th. Well they found your letter on our island in the the Fiji grp. on 9th July(a few days ago). Inside the letter were your names and other infos…my brother read the contents of your letter to me and asked me to inform you guys on their behalf as they dont have access to the internet on our outer lying island in the Fiji Group. The name of our island is Nairai Is…one of the smaller islands in the Lomaiviti Group.

(He then was able to quote the contents of the note which came from something my sister had sent us that we like.)

‘The difference between adventure and ordeal is attitude’… I love that and do admire your courage and sense of adventure.”

All we could do when we received this email was say WOW! You dream about launching a bottle and having it show up in some faraway exotic spot, but to have it actually happen is amazing. And to have it arrive at almost the same place at which we have now-a year later-arrived is breathtaking. Needless to say we’re following up and may possibly be able to visit this family. Turns out they are about 150 miles south of Savusavu which is our present location. It is also on the way toward Suva where we intend to go in the next month. So, stay tuned on this one. We hope to have some follow up on the folks who discovered our message in a bottle and hopefully actually meet them in their village-over 5000 miles from where we fancifully dropped it in the water.

What do you do when you catch a Marlin?

...Take out the hook VERY carefully and keep the bill pointed AWAY from your body.

First a Blue Marlin and then the Green Flash. Not a bad day.

It started pretty grey. Ann did he sunrise watch and said the sunrise was absolutely an unremarkable non-event. Overcast and a bit chilly, but as the day progressed it warmed and the sun peaked out to light the water up with its deep blue/purple glow. Then about 1200, the unmistakable sound of a clothespin hitting the deck -thwak! Fish on! When we use a handline, we pin it to a lifeline with a clothespin so we can hear if something hits it. It yanks the line, pulls the pin off and thwack.

Actually it was a bit less dramatic than that as Ann was asleep, so I had to go down below and gently wake her. “Fish on!”, I whispered. Then waiting for her to come on deck, I tested the line. This was a pretty big one, so taking no chances, I pulled in the hydro-gen which trails on the other side of the boat, put the rudder for the wind vane up so the fish wouldn’t tangle that on the way in and then after testing the line, decided I had to furl the jib and heave to as well to slow down as I couldn’t pull the line in while we were moving.

By this time, Ann was up and had put shoes on and came on deck. We were ready and started to pull in the line. It didn’t want to come in. After a bit of pulling we got it close, but it dove under the boat. I was afraid it would tangle on the rudder, but after some coercing, got it to come up from under the boat and to my surprise, a marlin half jumped as it came up from under the boat. He was pretty tired, so didn’t put up too much of a fight other than being pretty heavy. Not a huge one (they grow to over 10 feet); I estimate this one was in the 5-foot range.

The minute I realized we had a billfish, I knew we were going to release it so tried to be gentle pulling it to the boat. The only way I like marlin is smoked and we don’t have a smoker, so lucky fish! Now how in the heck to I get the hook out if we’re not going to gaff and land the guy? I was being extra careful as I have seen pictures and heard of people getting gored by billfish as they were trying to take out the hook. You lean over the side and the fish gives a great tail lunge and faster than you can say, “Zorro!” you have a two foot spear through your side. So, with great care for both me and the fish I maneuvered it to where I could grab the bill with my gloved hand. He wasn’t complaining so I pulled him up high enough to work the hook which came out fairly readily. A quick goodbye and I dropped the bill and he swam away-a bit woozy for the fight but in one piece. As was I.

If catching a marlin wasn’t enough to make a great day, Ann and I were having our Charisma watching the sunset and to our great surprise, as the sun went down we saw the longest green flash we have seen in our cruising. If the conditions are just right, there is a flash of a fluorescent green just as the sun sets. Tonight’s flash lasted about ten seconds.

As I write this the moon is full and following us on one side of Charisma and the Southern Cross on the other. All the clouds have cleared and we have a perfect night with about ten knots of wind on our beam taking us the last 25 miles into Savusavu. I expect we’ll get in about midnight. Not sure yet if we’re going to wait outside or try for a mooring. We’ll see what the conditions look like as we get up to the river.

Yes, a very colorful day.

Entering the pass to leave through the reef.

Here's the reason you have to pay attention leaving through the reef. This is what greets you on both sides. No mistakes please!

Goodbye Fulanga. What a lovely time we had. We hope to see you again!

We’re about 35 miles West, Nor’west of Fulanga and already missing all our friends there. There’s not a place like it in the world that we’ve ever visited before. I hope we get to return sometime.

So for now, we’re looking forward at new adventures and new friends. It’s 1900 and we’ve had a very basic dinner-some bread, cheese and for me a beer since I’m going off watch once this note is sent. Of course we had a Charisma as the sun set around 1700 and now a bright, round, almost-full moon is lighting the way. We have 15-20 knot winds out of the SW and 2 meter swell. All in all a nice night although it’s a bit rolly, or maybe after sitting in a nice quiet lagoon for three weeks we’re just out of practice. Let’s call it a bit of both and look forward to a lovely night of sailing shall we?

Savusavu is about 150 miles to the NNW from our position. We’ll be hard pressed to make it tomorrow while it’s still light. If the weather’s benign, we’ll try and slip in a grab a mooring in the river, but otherwise we’ll have to heave to for some hours in the night and wait for daylight. We also have a possible option to anchor about four miles short of town near the Coustea resort. Depends how many other boats are there. It’s a very small anchorage and I don’t want to try and find the sandy shelf whilst disturbing a bunch of other folks, but if there are only a couple boats there that may be an option.

I almost forgot to mention the excitement of the day. Coming out the pass at Fulanga. We’ve been dreading this for several days now as it’s full moon tides. The high is very high, the low very low and the upshort is roaring tides. All that water in the four mile wide lagoon has to come out this pass (and over the adjacent reef), so it can be a bit hairy. You typically want to go out on “low slack water”. Ideally the water sits still for 20 minutes or so between roaring out on the low and roaring back in on the high. It was realllly high last night too. The beach we were anchored off of disappeared, swallowed by the tide which went all the way up into the vegetation. Gulp!

So, we estimated that sometime around 1230 would do the trick. You never know for sure as there’s no tide station on the island. You’re getting your tide info from somewhere a couple hundred miles away like Suva, then estimating how many hours difference the tides may be at distant Fulanga.

By the way. Why all the drama you ask? If you miss the tide, there can be six foot standing waves and a 7 knot current. Sounds dramatic, but we’ve spoken with folks who have experienced them and never, ever want to do that again.

Anyway, we tentatively nosed out toward the pass. We could see some standing waves but they didn’t look too bad and the current a couple hundred yards inside was doing about 2.5 knots outbound, so we sucked it up and went. Turned out to be not too bad. We were able to go to the side of the pass right next to the reef to miss the standing waves. The current was running about 5 knots out. I had Charisma on idle forward and we were doing about 7.5 knots outbound. Yippeee! A sled ride short of Mr. Toad’s wild ride. The “river” spit us out into the ocean and I breathed a sigh of relief as we roared past the outside of the reef into deep water.

We are going to miss this place.

A final note. About two hours ago just at sunset we got a big hit on the handline. Fish on! I went to check it and alas, fish off. I pulled it in expecting that maybe the lure had broken off. Nope, turns out that some dummy (that would be me) forgot to take the protector off the pointy end of the hook. Fish on, then off. Well, we have a can of pumpkin raviolis for tomorrow night’s dinner. Let’s hope we catch a fish.

Calm before the storm.

Oh joy.

It was an “anchor watch night”. Our cruising friends will have cringed by now knowing what that means. For everyone else, here’s the scoop.

I believe I left off last night’s post with distant thunder and the statement something like: “we’ll take a chance on where we’re anchored”. Or something like that.

Well, our chances became 100% lightning, thunder and a lee shore. The wind swung to the NW which is has not done in the three weeks we’ve been here. Our “bomb proof” anchorage became a trap. The only thing between us the shore was a 45 lb CQR anchor. Fortunately it did a yeoman’s job. BUT…I had no way of knowing how we would do so at 1230 I woke up to the “wrong feeling”. Knowing that feeling means, “Get your butt up and look around”, I listened to my muse (oh, and Ann was tapping me on the shoulder too having been awakened by a wind change) and before I was even out of bed the lightning nearly blinded me. Once on deck I immediately saw that the wind had swung around to the “impossible” position and was now pinning us down against the beach. I don’t think we were more than 30 meters off of the shore, if that.

So, anchor watch. A night cat napping in the cockpit was in order. I sat up here with my cup of tea and some biscuits and made the best out of not sleeping. Which meant I had a first hand seat watching nature’s incredible light show right in my back yard. To be honest, I would rather the light show had been in someone else’s backyard, but it WAS incredible. Bolts of electricity were zinging across the sky from one cloud to another. Thunder would add an exclamation point to my singed eyeballs. And I sat here in Charisma’s cockpit listening to the waves slap the big rock about 30 meters away hoping the anchor was holding. Why do we do the anchor watch? As we cruiser’s say: “Don’t wreak your house.” This was a case of the house being at risk. Sleep is a luxury at such times.

Fast forward to around 0500 when the torrential rain started. Now I had an excuse to go into the cabin. At this point the wind had swung almost 360 degrees from the day before so we were essentially back to where I put the anchor in the first place. Time to consult the gps. Amazingly, we were dead on with where the anchor was when we first got here over three weeks ago. Way to go CQR! And by the way, Ann’s rain catcher in it’s beta test state delivered 5 gallons of fresh water into one of our buckets. If we had rigged it into the water tank deck fitting, I think we would have filled our 100 gallon tank! Ann was thrilled! (Joan, you can stop the rain dance!)

As morning came, the wind eased and it turned into a gorgeous day. The kind of day that makes us want to stay here another three weeks, but we have to go as our supplies are running low.

With no wind and flat water we were able to take a quick run into the village with our dinghy to say a final good-by to all our new friends. Ann made a lovely wall hanging for “Ma” that she brought in and of course we couldn’t get away without Ma and George gifting us with a huge papaya, some homemade bread and a giant pumpkin (note: their pumpkins are shaped more like giant squashes but still have the flavor and texture of pumpkin-you peel it and then bake it to use). You also can never just drop by and leave. You must stay for tea or lunch. We managed to beg off on lunch and just have tea. The one disconcerting thing about staying for a meal of any sort is the Fijian way is to feed you, but not to eat themselves until you have finished. We’ve learned to adapt, but it still feels awkward to our Western mindset to eat while our hosts watch. Once we’re done then they will take some food or drink. It’s different.

We also stopped at Salotte’s to pick up a bowl that her companion Mini was carving for us. It is oblong, about twelve inches with two turtles at either end and carving all around the edge. It is beautiful and we will treasure it. And per Ann, the best part of being in the village one more time was seeing Waes (Wise) (Great grandson to the chief and Mattei’s son). When we were in on Friday Ann was sure she would see him one more time. Nada. But today he was our village greeter and helped us find George and Ma’s house. But his smile made Ann’s day. One of the best parts of Fulanga!

And we finished off the day snorkeling and then having cocktails on the beach, watching the sunset with our new friends from “Lady Nada”, Bill and Sue from Aussie. They have a catamaran, but we’re not holding that against them. The snorkeling was fun. Cocktails on the beach with a big bonfire and a fantastic sunset were a great way to end our stay in a truly magical place.

Magical. Incredible. Falunga.

P.S. By the way, I can’t end this without mentioning the view that we have as I write this. We’re stern to the beach-about 50 meters off. From left to right all we can see are coconut palm siloettes backed by the white of trade wind clouds, puffy white across the horizon behind them. All of this is lit by the almost full moon directly overhead. Such beauty really cannot adequately be described.

If you look closely you can see the full moon rising.

The quilted wall hanging Ann made for Ma and George. (It's embroidered with "Vinaka Vaka Levu" which means Thank you very much.)

OK, Ann keeps saying; “They’re NOT magic beans, they are Surprise Beans”.

In any case, they are dried beans that you boil to reconstitute. (Thank you Unilever, for making beans that are marked as good until sometime in 2014). I guess the surprise is that they are better than canned. Not as good as fresh. BUT…mix them with lobster, and pasta in a parmesan garlic cream sauce and who the hell cares what they are. The results were heavenly.

So, today we pretty much chilled. Another windy day. Our sum total energy expenditure was snorkeling a bit, taking a saltwater bath (you jump in the water, get out, soap up then jump back in to rinse, then you get a teapot of fresh water to rinse in the cockpit). Oh and Ann’s been making a little wall hanging for “Ma” (short for something like Makareeta) since she’s been so nice to us. And she polished the starboard stainless just to keep Charisma looking her best!

I spent a fair amount of time getting weather faxes to try and figure out where the low that’s somewhere near us is, and where it’s heading. The grib files are not accurate right now which generally means there’s a low sneaking around somewhere ready to pounce. I think it’s currently south of us and heading east. The wind has shifted into the NNE, so we’re almost parallel to the beach right now. Four out of five of our neighbors left for another spot. We are hanging here with the cat, Lady Nada. One reason folks left was that it’s full moon high tide and that means our nice sand spit that’s been blocking north wind waves disappeared under water. That means we were getting some bigger waves over the sand in our little paradise. But, the tide’s gone down and now we’re settled back into our nice calm anchorage, but with four fewer boats who went ½ mile across the lagoon. We might have gone as well, but we’re planning to leave tomorrow anyway, so thought we’d just stay the night. It’s always a bit of a gamble in changing weather to decide whether to stay or move. The wind is forecast to go north-which is fine for us-but then shift around to the west before going back to SE. West is the problem. If it goes west in the middle of the night and blows hard, we’ll swing right over to the sandy beach. We’ll literally be 20 meters off the beach given how close we have anchored to get out of the wind and how much anchor chain we have out. We’re betting the swing won’t happen until tomorrow in the daytime when we’re ready to either move to the village anchorage where we’re picking up a carving that they are working on for us or can just leave if the weather cooperates (and tides, but that’s another story). Then it’s either off to Savusavu or stay here one more night for better weather and then off. In either case, we should see some favorable winds by Monday at the latest (knocking wood). We’ll see. In any case, guess what? As I’m writing this there’s lightning and thunder somewhere to the north of us. OH, my favorite! It’s looking to be an interesting night.

The day started with a fund raiser of sorts. We cruisers donated stuff to sell and the villagers bought it. The funds went to a village fund for improvements.

The children enjoyed the event.

Cute!

There was stuff for sale that we could buy as well, like these cakes.

And $5 Fijian would get you a lobster.

Then the whole group moved on the the "Goodbuy Party" Here they are mixing the kava (the blue bucket has water in it to mix with)

Now we know how they pound the kava

There was laughing and dancing and general silliness...

...and then the presenting of goodbye presents (this is a floor mat with the name "Charisma" woven into it).

What a wonderful party!

So unexpected! Let me explain. We’ve been sitting here in Fulanga in the high winds essentially trapped on the boat looking for something, anything to do and out of the blue, the village got in touch and said; “We want to do an event.” What kind of even? Well, no one was really sure. It seemed like it might be a thing where we bring stuff to donate to the school. It also seemed like it might be a farewell to the cruisers event. Whatever, we were game-let’s just go and find out.

So, despite high winds, two of the five boats in the anchorage (Kalida and Lady Nada) volunteered to ferry the rest of us around to the village, about two miles away, so we wouldn’t all have to move our boats (good on ya mates — thanks to Derek and Alison on Kalida for our ride). It was blowing 30 knots as Derek picked us up in his dinghy and brought up his anchor and headed over to the anchorage by the village.

All 14 of us cruisers who are left in Falanga (seven boats) met on the beach and began the 20 minute walk into town asking; “What do you think? What are we supposed to be doing?”

Well it turned out we were all prepared and not prepared for the day.

What we were prepared for was that there was a lot of food that the villagers were selling in order to make some money. Wonderful Roti sandwiches with fish or corned beef went for $1 Fijian (about $0.50 US)-they were delicious. There were also papayas, bananas, plantains, cassava and a variety of cakes for sale at equally amazingly slight prices. We were very happy to contribute to the cause and get some fresh produce along the way. At one point Ann and I split up and I went down the village path to see some carvings that were for sale while she stayed with the “event”. As I was leaving, someone was walking in with two cooked lobsters that were going to be for sale. I saw them and thought, “Boy, it would be great if Ann bought one of those!” Much later in the day when we got back to Charisma, Ann pulled a lobster out of her backpack and said, “Surprise, look what I bought (for $5 Fijian!)!” Guess what dinner tomorrow night is going to be 😉

So, back to the event. We brought some stuff from the boat in as gifts not knowing exactly what the event would be. Turns out part two of the day was that OUR STUFF (meaning the cruisers’) was put out on a table and the local villagers who showed up competed to buy it. It was interesting to see how it was priced and who bought it. We brought some cans of food, three plastic bowls and a couple other things. They all sold very quickly. Fortunately Ann held back a few things for “later” as well.

As things were winding down on part one of the day-the food and auction part-I left the hut and walked down village to one of the better carvers to see what they were up to and to my surprise, they were carving some beautiful bowls that I hadn’t seen before. Oblong, about 14 inches long, with intricate edges hand-carved and two turtles etched into the bottom of the bowls. Ohhhh! How much might these be, I asked and could one for us be ready by Sunday morning (when we’re planning our departure)? There was some discussion but it was decided that they would make the bowl for us by Sunday morning before church-so we may be the new proud owners of a gorgeous turtle bowl. We’ll see.

But I digress from the real story….

While I was gone, Ann and the rest of the group moved from the hut where we had lunch and the auction of sorts. They were done with the fund-raising part and we (the cruisers) were glad to have been part of it, coming away with some nice, fresh food and happy to contribute some of our goods for the betterment of the village. The next step was 100 meters up the village to a large hut that would end up holding somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 people-and importantly a big bowl of kava!

Without detailing every minute of the next two hours, I’ll just say that it was nothing short of amazing and wonderful. Before I go on, I should add that there was dancing. I might even have a picture to add later of me (Bob) dancing with our Fijian friend Sara’s 70-something year old grandma. Just she and I. In front of a village crowd of 50 or so people. It was….amazing.

Essentially the village filled the hut with song, kava and gifts for the departing cruisers. It was a farewell to end all farewells. Most of us who are left here are waiting for the winds to let us out, have been here in Fulanga for some weeks and have made friends with many in the village. Besides the general kava party and music, many of them made gifts for us. Every one of the cruisers got something different, but Ann and I received a beautiful woven handbag and a pandanas mat with our boat name “Charisma” woven into the middle of it. We were stunned and of course will treasure this for ever! Where does this generosity come from? It was wonderful. In fact, given that we have been here some weeks, as were the dozen other cruisers (some Aussies, Kiwis, Brits, Canuks and US) all of whom have formed relationships with the folks in the village, there were a lot of tears from both sides that we were leaving.

Music, kava, and sincere beautiful friendships. We were touched as never before and hope we can visit here again.

I have to end this with one vignette. Ann has noticed in the last two weeks as we have gone to church here, that one girl, about 10 years old, wears dresses that are hand sewn, but don’t have clasps to hold the dress together at the back of her neck. It doesn’t seem to bother her but Ann is a seamstress and I can see her itching every time she sees it. (I’m sorry I don’t remember the girl’s name -many of the Fijian names are unusual and hard to remember unless we’ve seen them written down). Ann found a set of 10 clasps in her sewing kit and brought them into town in the hope of seeing the little girl, even though we knew the kids would all be in school. Fortunately school let out early-it being Friday and a stormy day. The little girl came over to the farewell party and ran up to Ann with a big, “Bula!” Ann responded by pulling the set of clasps out of here pocket and giving it to the girl. I can’t even begin to describe the huge smile and look of thanks on her face. Her lovely but incomplete clothes could now be completed. We were left almost breathless by the joy such a simple gift could bring. If Ann had had a needle and thread she would have followed her home to do the repair herself!

Now the back of her lovely dress will have a clasp to close it with.

Life in paradise can be so simple and joyful and we so enjoy this opportunity to be part of it.