Did someone say party!

Dinghy raft up cocktail party.

Bring your own chair.

Add a little sunset and we're good to go.

So, there are seven of us yachties here in one of the more remote places in the world. What do we do? Dinghy party. How do you do that? Just before sunset, you make your favorite beverage, and a snack, jump in your dinghy and motor up into the shallows and throw out an anchor in about four feet of water over sand. Seven dinghies, 14 people sitting in their dinghies watching the sunset, drinking various boat drinks (in our case, Charismas of course) and telling stories of sailing daring do. Really fun.

Food wise, there was humus, popcorn, fresh baked bread, tahini, nachos. Yum!

We also went snorkeling today. We dinghied around the windward side of the island and inside the reef. It was a bit of an adventure getting there and back, but the snorkeling was fantastic. The water is exceptionally clear. We saw a white tip shark and tons of coral and the associated fish that congregate among the coral reef.

The wind was down today for a change and no squalls, so tonight we have unbelievable stars with no clouds in sight. Tomorrow is supposed to also be light wind before picking up again in a day or so, so we’re planning paddleboard adventure for the day and maybe some more snorkeling.

We’re getting some amazing pictures and can’t wait to post them when we’re back in “internet country”. The blue sky, turquoise water and incredible undersea world are fantastic. We’ll likely be here at least another week just enjoying being in a place this clean, clear and beautiful.

By the way, if you’re reading and enjoying this blog, let us know. It’s good to know whether anyone is following or whether we should just take a break and not post so often 😉

Adios for now.

“That was great! Could be the flavors, but maybe it’s the banjo music”.

Ah, Spam or Taj Mahal. That’s the existential, question for today.

Our anchorage.

Some pretty sweet snorkeling here.

Ann's turning into a fish!

So, we finally got a nice sunny day where we could see the reefs (bommies) under the water and avoid them on our 1.8 mile move over to the other anchorage. We’ve now got a 7:1 scope out in 18 feet of sand. Nice. And the bonus is that this part of the lagoon is completely different from where we’ve been for the last 10 days. We moved 1.8 miles and are in essence in a completely different place. Nice.

Once we got anchored and had some lunch we went out with some of the other folks “over here” to snorkel the pass. Gypsea Heart, Blue Rodeo, Evergreen and Slip Away are over here and it was nice to hook up with them again. Anyway, to “snorkel the pass”, you get your gear in the dinghy and motor about ½ mile around some rocks and outside the reef where you jump in the water just after low slack when the tides coming in. In theory the new tide washes you into the lagoon with clear fresh water. That’s pretty much what happened. We got just outside where the waves were breaking, slid over the side of the dinghy (with it tied to my waist) and then I swam to keep the wind from blowing it to the other side of the pass onto the reef while the tide pushed us in. At a couple points we were moving pretty fast. It was exhilarating. We saw a lot of fish and coral and clear water. Just what we expected. Tomorrow I’m hoping to go further out and jump in where the pelagic fish are. Reports are that the large fish further outside are stunning to see, but we wanted to take it easy the first day here and not get too crazy. One of our friend’s dinghy flipped over onto the reef two days ago-everyone’s OK, but it could have been bad. We want to avoid that kind of problem and be conservative.

So….tomorrow, we’re thinking that we’ll tow the two the paddleboards with the dinghy about 150 meters toward the island into the calmer water and tool around. It’s blowing about 18 knots in the area where we’re anchored which is a bit much for paddleboarding, but in toward the beach looks really nice. We’ll see and report back. There’s also talk about taking the dinghies into the shallow water near the beach for a sunset raft up cocktail party. That would be nice 😉

Hallelujah, the ship came in.

Waiting on the beach while the supplies unload.

The longboats go a mile out past the reef where the ship waits to unload, then they bring the supplies back to the beach to be unloaded.

Eventually everything has to come off the beach and be carried (or wheelbarrowed) into the village. There are no land vehicles on the island.

And the shelves in the island store are now stocked.

Last evening around twilight, a longboat from the village came out to Charisma and essentially begged us to give them some of our extra petrol so they could go across the strait (about 10 miles) to the other island where the supply ship was anchored. Its tender had engine trouble and there was a lot of concern that it would just skip Falunga . Of course we would donate our gas to the cause. We hope to get it back once the ship comes in, but even if we don’t it’s a small price to pay for all the hospitality that the villagers here have shown us this past week or so.

Fortunately the longboat expedition seemed to have worked and the Falungis made an impression because the ship came today. Even though the tender wasn’t working, the Falungis used their longboats to unload cargo and passengers. We were fortunate to have been here to see it as it was fascinating to witness.

We walked into the village about 1000 to pick up a carving that one of the villagers was doing for us. Once near the water near the village we could see the commotion. There were at least 50 people sitting on the beach and in the palms just off the beach, among stacks of their possessions that were leaving with them for the trip to Suva. There were literally stacks of boxes all along the beach. Some had already been delivered via longboat to the beach from the ship and most were yet to be transported along with their occupants to the ship and onward to Suva.

The effort to make all this happen is huge. You have to picture a 150 foot ship sitting ½ a mile offshore outside the reef going up and down in 10 foot waves waiting for the little 18 foot longboats to come alongside to load and unload cargo. They use a crane with a cargo net to drop the supplies (boxes and sacks of commodities-we saw 50KG bags of rice, flour, boxes of canned corned beef, crackers, etc as well as 50 gallon barrels of petrol). The longboats then leave the large ship and have to navigate in toward the reef where they have to time the pass just right as waves are breaking over it. Once inside the pass, they have to go slowly for another 150 meters picking their way over the shallow reef. Once inside, they are then able to motor quickly the last 200 meters into the beach where a dozen folks would swarm the boat and offload the supplies. Everything from commodities to petrol to the new village nurse to grandmothers back from Suva were brought ashore. Some looking happier to be back than others.

Then the “tide” of people and supplies turned the other way and folks from the beach started loading onto the longboats for the harrowing ride out to the supply ship. Ann took one look at it in our binoculars and said: “uh, uh…I wouldn’t go anywhere near that….”. It’s a two day ride into Suva and you pretty much sleep on the deck on your own mat. Not fun.

So, we said our goodbyes to all our new friends from the village and now we’re back on Charisma by ourselves in our little bay in the lagoon. We were hoping to get across to the other side of the larger lagoon where several other “yachties” are anchored (about two miles away) by the pass enjoying the snorkeling and diving in the clear water-but the weather had other ideas. It’s been squally and cloudy all day. Not conducive to moving in a reef strewn environment. You only move the boat around here when it’s sunny and you can see the “bommies” that lurk under the water waiting to tear the bottom of your boat apart. OK, we’ll wait ’til another day in paradise. We feel privileged to have met and spent time with the villagers on this island and hope to connect with them again someday in the future. They are such wonderful, sincere people. While we’ll be here in Falunga at least another week, we’ll be across the island and out of touch with the village. What fun we’ve had, but we’re looking forward to a new kind of fun snorkeling and beachcombing on the other side of the lagoon a couple miles from here.

That’s the word on the “street”. Everyone is speculating on when and if the ship’s coming in.

We hear: “It’s going to be here today”, or “it’s at the other island and will be over here tomorrow”, or “it’s going to drop our freight today, then anchor at the other island and come back tomorrow to pick us up”. So many possibilities. It’s like the Fulanga version of the Lottery. When’s the ship coming?

(“The Ship” by the way is purported to be a tramp steamer type of vessel. Probably about 100 feet, or so, but we haven’t seen it yet. More to come on this aspect of island living)

Well, it turns out that the latest scoop is the ship has some engine trouble and is anchored at the island next door. This turned into a greater crisis later in the day when it seems people here became concerned that the ship would just skip past the island since it’s tender or boat that brings the cargo in through the reef actually has engine trouble. After a week of activity getting ready for the ship and doing stuff like harvesting coconuts, catching and crating pigs, gathering and processing clams by the bushel and much, much more, the thought that the ship would skip past here was unthinkable. It missed last month too, so the Falungis are absolutely out of everything. Gas, propane, commodities. Right now they are surviving on fish, cassava (a root vegetable) and coconuts. Their one store is out of everything except a few batteries, some steel wool and half dozen jars of jam.

So, given that we were paid a visit today by a “longboat” (very similar to the Mexican panga-about 20 feet long, solid fiberglass, open boat with a substantial outboard that can propel it about 20+ knots) from shore. They were desperate. They had no gas, but wanted to get across the strait between Fulanga and the next island to talk with the supply ship. They wanted our gasoline store for our dinghy. We keep about 2 gallons of gas on deck in a jerry can. The folks here never ask for anything, so when they asked we knew they were desperate. So…sure-your can have our gas. We have some in the dinghy so we’re not high and dry, but we’re hoping they succeed in their mission as it would be more convenient to get the fuel back for our further travels. We’ll see tomorrow how it goes.

Other than the drama of the supply ship, today was delightful. We went to church again. On the one hand, being in church seems a lot the same as being in church anywhere. You see the minister in a coat and tie up behind the lectern and take it for granted that you’re, well, in church. Then he comes out from behind the structure and he has a dress (i.e. a sulu) and is barefoot! OK, so we ARE in Fiji. The singing is glorious and the service, while in Fijian, is fun to participate in. And it was communion day. Apparently it goes consecutively through the villages, so once per month “our” village gets communion. And as Ann delighted in seeing-I had my first communion experience. I could hardly decline as the minister was staring directly at me as he was exhorting people to come forward to take bread and wine and all the little children on the three rows in front of us were straining in their seats begging us forward. “OK, I’m going”. It was a first, and fun. The minister, as he passed across each person muttering in Fijian even changed to English for us; “…body of Christ…etc” So today-I feel blessed.

One of the reasons we stayed here and went to church today was one of the couples in town had asked us several times over the last couple days would we please come to their house for lunch after church this week. We could hardly say no. To give you some idea of the sincerity of the offer: they had no food other than the fish they caught yesterday and some cassava root they prepared. They were almost besides themselves, but actually the food they made was delicious. They made a yellow curry with coconut milk that was delicious and the fish and cassava was we all we needed. After they apologized that the only thing they had was fish, we were glad that we elected to bring them a tin of corned beef and some canned tomatoes which were all very well received.

Hopefully the men in the panga made it across the strait and are convincing the ship to come in tomorrow. We so want to see all our friends in the village get back to regular life with some of the basics like rice, flour, petrol, etc.

That’s life in the hinterlands of Fiji. For us it’s an adventure, for all of our friends it daily life.

P.S. Just an extra word about where we are. We are presently in a small lagoon about 200 meters across and maybe 400 long within a much larger lagoon that’s several miles across with numerous ilands dotted throughout. We have only barely begun to explore this area. It’s dark and we’re looking up, more or less to the south, right at the Southern Cross faithfully shinning above. The wind is gusting a bit through here at up to 15 knots, but the water is fairly smooth since about 200 meters upwind of us are five or six little islets that are breaking up any waves. We’re the only boat here. It’s quiet, but for the sound of little wavelets splashing against the dinghy that’s trailing behind Charisma, the gusts of wind in the rigging and the occasional whistle of a bird over toward shore.

It’s not easy to get here, but it’s so worth it.

Paddleboarding in four feet of water over sand.

It feels like floating on air...

So fun working our way through the little motus

Yup, we finally got to deploy the paddleboards. The wind dropped enough that we felt we could go out without struggling too much. Turned out to be fun beyond our expectations. We were cruising along in 12 inches of water right over the sand and coral, then in six feet of water over the turquoise bottom, along little islands. Suddenly a stingray shot out right beneath Ann’s board, then we saw two mantas. Way too much fun. We were out for over two hours. I had to take a nap in the afternoon. I know, tough life.

In the meantime, we now have a local mascot. A sea turtle has set up housekeeping between Charisma and a little reef about 75 meters to starboard. Every day now he pops his head up and takes a few breaths, looks around, then dives back down to do whatever sea turtles do. He’s fun to watch. We have decided we’re not going to tell anyone in the village though since they do catch and eat sea turtles even though they are supposedly protected.

The last couple days we have tried to take a walk along the long beach that connects the two villages. It’s a beautiful white sand beach with a turquoise lagoon that goes out 200 meters to the reef where the ocean waves crash and expend their energy from their thousands of miles long voyage. Well, what should be a relaxing stroll looking for seashells always turns into an exhausting, but ultimately fulfilling trek. One minute we’re walking along, then we hear; “Ann, Ann!!”. We’re found out. The village kids have seen us and a dozen or more are running over to join us on our walk. They particularly like Ann, although there are always a couple who HAVE to hold each of my hands as well (sound of grumpy man…hruph, hrruph!). Then you play 1000 questions. How old are you, where do you come from, how many children do you have, what are their names and on and on!!!!!?????? It’s at the point, where most of the kids can answer the questions themselves and often do! OK, it’s actually quite endearing, but it IS exhausting and from this I also have to take a nap we’re back on the boat.

Naps are very important out here.

Tomorrow we’re attending Church again. One of the families here has been asking us for days now if we would please come to their house for lunch after church. That’s part of the reason we have stayed in this spot for a full week was so we could have lunch at their house tomorrow. Also, one of the villagers is supposedly making a wood carving for us and it will (hopefully) be done tomorrow. If not, we’ll have to come back here later. We’re looking forward to lunch but also to moving across the lagoon to the other side by the pass where the snorkeling is reported to be quite good. There are five or six boats over there and it will be nice meeting up with them after having enjoyed the solitude of this anchorage for the past few days.

So, that’s our report on this July 6 from Fiji.

This may be the closest thing to paradise that there is. The island is gorgeous, virtually untouched and the villagers are the nicest, kindest folks we have ever met. It’s such a delight to be here and to spend time getting to know some of the folks who live here.

Alfredi, one of the many talented wood carvers in the village.

Alfredi showing us where "our parrot" is going to come from.

A couple of cases in point-today we walked into the main village to pay Alfredi for a carving of a parrot he did for us. On the way in we stopped by another house where we have gotten to know Bis and Joana. A young couple in their early 20’s who have gone out of their way to befriend us. As we were sitting in their house (they have a more substantial home than many, having inherited it from Joana’s parents who have passed on) they invited us to come for lunch this Sunday after church. Unless something changes our plans, we will do that.

After our walk through the village, we finally got to go snorkeling. The wind has finally laid down a bit and we were able to run around in the dinghy exploring some of the vast lagoon that is inside the 6 mile wide reef/island. There are literally hundreds of little island motus inside the reef, many with their own little sandy beaches. We could (and might) literally spend weeks here or more just exploring these islands and beaches. The snorkeling was unremarkable except for the two manta rays that Ann spotted before we were ready to actually get in the water, but we weren’t trying very hard to find a nice spot. This was just an excuse to get in the water. Tomorrow the wind’s supposed to go down further and we’ll likely spend most of the day exploring.

Mattei and family visit Charisma.

Such a great time having them on board.

The absolute highlight of the day was a visit that we had planned a couple days ago-from Mattei, his wife Ma and son Wise (pronounced “Wyse”). As you may recall from previous posts, Mattei is the island Chief’s grandson and was our host at the Sevusevu when we first arrived. He and his family have since been particularly gracious and when he mentioned he had never been on a “yacht” before, we jumped at the chance to host him and his family. So, after diving, we cleaned up ourselves and the boat and at 1600 as agreed they all showed up on the beach. I went in on the dinghy and brought them out to the boat and we had an absolutely delightful time. We took pictures with their camera and ours of each other behind the wheel, on the bowsprit, in the dinghy, etc. Then Ann taught everyone to play Farkle-the entire South Pacific will soon be playing this game if she gets her way. She presented a game to Wise as a gift as well as Fiji World Cup Rugby hats to Mattei and Wise. These went over very well along with some other miscellaneous commodity goods to help tide them over until the next supply ship gets here.

Such a beautiful gift they brought us!

Ann showing how a Gafigafi is worn (ours will be treasured and used as a wall hanging instead)

The highlight of their visit and our day-if not our whole season-were the unexpected gifts that they brought us! First off the dinghy was a very kind gift of the small, sweet bananas that grow around here. They presented a whole “bunch” of them to us in a woven basket made from palm frond. Delightful! And so appreciated as we’re out of bananas. But then, they reached into their pack and brought out a carving-a Fijian mask. Beautiful wood and carving, about 20 inches high. We’ll treasure it in the years to come. But, then Ma got a smile on her face and pulled out a gift that we’ll truly never forget. We would call it a lava lava-Mattei corrected us but we forgot to write it down. (We’ll get the name and correct this post when we’re back in town). This is a very intricate woven dress for very formal occasion. It turns out they were leaving to come down to the boat and trying to sneak out past their grandfather, the Chief, when he saw them and asked what they were up to. When they told them about coming to see us on Charisma he told them they must bring a gift and had them go into his things and bring this incredible “garment”. I call it that because people wear them, but they also use them to decorate their homes, which is what we’ll do.

We have seen and admired them in our travels, but these are not available for purchase anywhere-they are made for family and literally handed down over the generations. We were speechless.

The top is made from very finely woven pandanas leaves-much finer than the mats we sit on everywhere since this is meant to be worn, or in some cases used as a wall hanging (which of course is what we’ll do someday). About 2/3’s of the way down the 4 foot wide item, very bright colorful yarn is woven into the piece in a zig zag patter of brilliant pink, green, blue, white, maroon, green of varying shades. Then at the very bottom is a 10 inch long bit made from tree bark that has been shredded into very soft and fine flowing fringe. The entire piece is almost six feet long-enough to wrap around a substantial size woman and cover from high waist down below the knees-or as I noted, in our case made into a beautiful wall hanging that will always remind us of the beautiful paradise and our friends Mattei, Ma and Wise.

By Ann

Ann and an admirer.

Our "guides" on our beach walk.

More kids on the beach.

You're never alone when you're walking on the beach.

We are still anchored off the main village of Fulaga. Today was full of mundane chores for me. Translation – laundry day. I really miss a washing machine. My wrists hurt by the end of the day from twisting the clothes to wring the soap and then the excess water out. But it must be done. I also made Joaner’s Chocolate Chip Cookie dough. We are hoping to have Mattei (the chief’s grandson) and his wife Ma, and son Wise out to see how the “sea natives” live and thought it would be a fun treat.

After these fun chores we went ashore to walk through the village and then back along the pretty beach to look for shells. We have figured out that it is never a quick walk through the village. Everyone wants to meet you and talk to you. Today we were welcomed into a home of a young man and his wife. Very nice house. She inherited it from her parents. (Unfortunately unless their names are Anglicized or very simple we don’t catch them.) We ended up having a nice discussion about life in Fulaga with these folks. This is what struck us…people here are really quite educated. You just don’t expect it. But we are finding that most young adults ( over 20) have been to the university in Suva. We are not sure who pays for their education but they have attained a degree and returned to help their home village. The couple we spoke with met while in college getting degrees in Economic Development. Yes, we were surprised too! Kudos to these guys for trying to improve their island’s economic status. We find that even the teachers have been educated in Suva and come back to teach. Most of the villagers that are aged 13-30 seem to have learned quite a bit of English. The children are being taught English in school as well as the basic Three R’s. Those older than 30 always seem to have a youngster around to help translate. It’s amazing. As the title of the blog indicates we had a lovely walk with the kids today. It was not intended. It just worked out that by the time we got around to passing the first village, the kids were out of school. Of course it started with a huge. “Bula!”. They love to greet us. And from then on we had at least ten “shadows”. As Bob and I realized this we decided to play with them. You should have seen their faces-first fright, then surprise and delight, when we quickly jumped around on the one lane path in the middle of the jungle and shouted, “Boo!”. They were NOT expecting it and shrieked and laughed. Our shadows were now firmly attached. Our afternoon stroll, possibly romantic – remember this is our honeymoon! – included at least a dozen school kids. They happily searched for shells, climbed trees to act like monkeys, and beg us to come to their village, their church, take their picture….you get the idea. Very entertaining. Finally the kids departed and we returned to Charisma. We bashed our way from the beach back to the boat into one foot wind chop and are hoping that the winds die down a bit tomorrow. Can’t wait to get into the water or at least play on our paddle boards. Tomorrow we will wander into the village again and see who follows us this time!

If church was surprisingly fun, the rest of our Sunday-the first full day in Fulunga-was equally exciting.

This is the Chief's residence.

Ann and I with friends on Slip Away (who we met for the first time in Savusavu) and Chief Daniel.

Chief Daniel with his grandson Mattei and great grandson Waes

As we mentioned before, we were fortunate enough to have met the chief’s grandson, Mattei. After church he was kind enough to ask us if we were like to meet his grandfather the chief of the island. As we sometimes say in California; “Duh…” We of course could not pass up an opportunity like this and followed Mattei to the chief’s hut -actually a bit larger than the others, but comprised mostly of a large room about 20 feet square with a wall at one end that partitioned Daniel’s bedroom. The main room had little furniture, you sit on the floor covered by several large woven pandanas mats. The Chief sits in a chair behind a small table and behind him on the wall are several lovely tapas.

Daniel is 84 and has been Chief for about 10 years. The position is hereditary-going to the eldest son. Mattei is in line to someday take on the role, but not for some years as the Chief has several brothers and there’s a line of succession.

After spending some time meeting with the Chief, Mattei said that we would stay for lunch. OK… At this point we moved to the next hut where there was again the pandanas mat on the floor. Also, there was a large cloth that ran down the middle of the hut on which were numerous plates of food. We all sat cross-legged along each side of the food with Mattei, his wife Ma and son Wise and several other relatives. Along with Jan and Rich from Slip Away there were about a dozen for lunch. After a prayer, the cloth covering the plates was lifted to reveal plates of Octopus, Red Mullet (local fish), and two kinds of Casava root-all cooked in coconut milk. Delicious!! Stuffed from lunch we decided to take a walk down to the second village (there are three on the island and a total population of about 90).

Lunch after church with Mattei and family.

This kitty was just sure he was going to get some of the delicious fish!

It was about a 10 minute walk through the jungle to the next village and no sooner did we reach the edge of the village than all the kids came spilling out of their Sunday-school class to greet us. One of the delights here is that everyone you meet comes up to you, shakes your hand, tells you their name and asks yours. “My name is Bob” is something I got very good at saying as the day wore on. There were two dozen children here all of whom went through the ceremony with Rich, Jan, Ann and I. It took a while.

After the introductions, the kids quickly split up into two groups and suddenly started a singing competition. One group would sing a song and then the next group would try and out-sing them. Fun!

A delightful day getting to know all of our new friends here at Fulunga.

Tomorrow, the cannibal caves.

Yesterday was amazing. Arriving here after the long sail down from Savusavu, doing the sevusevu and then back to the boats and an invitation for cocktails on Slip Away (before we all dropped dead from exhaustion). We had a nice time on Slip Away and back on Charisma dropped into a deep, deep sleep only to be awakened by our alarm for Sunday service at the church in the village near where we’re anchored (there’s a church in each of the three villages here).

The kids were so excited to have us with them in church.

One of the choirs in the next village.

The other choir in the second village. They were competing with each other as they sung for us.

We were told to arrive at 9:30 and being cruisers were of course 10 minutes late. No worries, the villagers knew-the service didn’t really start until 1000. But there was singing.

As we arrived the children we met yesterday ran out of the church calling our names (everyone here is amazing at getting and remembering your name). “Ann, Ann, Bob, Bob, come with me…” was what we heard and then little hands grabbed ours and off we were towed into the church. All the kids guided us almost to the front and then adjusted the pews to give us some extra leg room. Once we were settled all the kids sat in the first three pews in front of us….and stared. They just smiled and stared at these strange people from so far away. They were fascinated with us and since they knew our names from the day before when we in town, now they wanted to know where we came from, how old we were–everything And they were all so beautiful and darling. Big smiles, big eyes, happy personalities. They were delightful! Seating in the church is very specific. Children on the front left, (there were about 15 of them from the ages of about 6-15) yachties (us and Slip Away) behind them, women on the front right and men in the back.

The service was all in Fijian (other than a small bit in English welcoming us to their church-so nice!) , so I have no clue what was said. Since it was Methodist and not Catholic, Ann was a bit lost as well, but there was a lot of singing and it was heartfelt and beautiful. The harmonies were amazing. And there was only one instrument. A triangle. This helped to keep the beat, but other than that, nothing. Just lovely voices and the sound of happiness.

During the service since I didn’t know what was being said, I was struck by the visual richness of the scene- A tropical trade wind was blowing through the windows Out the windows on the left side of the church you could see the ocean with waves breaking on the reef and the turquoise lagoon inside. Out the right side windows were the village huts. Rusting corrugated tin roofs showed many luscious shades of orange, red and brown against the tropical foliage of palms, bananas and such. The sides of the huts were painted in many pastel hues including pink, orange, turquoise, lavender and peach All in all, a stunning visual feast for the eyes.

Church for me has rarely been so captivating.

The last couple days have been amazing for the incredible hospitality that everyone here at Fulunga has shown us. Today was incredible for the adventure we were able to take to see the caves where cannibalism was performed a hundred years ago.

You have to climb up the rocks, then you peer over the edge-oh my!

Yup, after hiking through the jungle and climbing up the hill, here it is!

Climbing up to get to the cave.

Our guides to the caves.

Judging by the condition of the trail (almost non-existent) we are a of the few who have had the good fortune to visit this spot. We gathered in the village with our friends from Blue Rodeo, Slip Away, Evergreen and Just In Time, a Kiwi boat we just met.

Anyway, Mattei had mentioned the existence of these caves and we said we would very much like to see them. Not expecting too much, we gathered outside his house this morning around 0900 for the hike up to the cave. Well…our expectations were far exceeded. As we hiked up the hill behind the village, we were treated to an anthropologists dream. Mattei showed us where the “old” village used to be situated back when there was open warfare among villages as well as islands in this part of the world. As we hiked higher up the hill, we were literally transported back to a place in time when sentries were posted on the peak watching for any sign of an enemy approaching. The rock foundations of the old village-not inhabited since the late 1800s-are still visible and we were able to see how it was sited literally at the top of the hill and on the edge of an impassible cliff. This was a fortress in its day-now mostly swallowed by the jungle-since the village moved down to its present position nearer the water a hundred years ago. Still-you could almost feel the spirit of the ancestors.

And if you couldn’t quite feel the spirit, once we came to the cave and climbed up to look inside, you could see the spirit. Skulls and bones. Stacks and stack of them. Some staring out at you untouched for these many years. It was eerie and amazing. The fact that this is still here completely intact is absolutely amazing! We ended the day feeling extremely privileged that we could experience something like this in such a pristine environment, untouched, in a state of repose that so vividly depicted a way of life that (fortunately) has been gone for over a hundred years.

Amazing. (I can’t wait to share the pictures when we’re back where we can access internet)