Our adventures with the hermit, Paolias, continued today. Of course, you may recall that due to the calm weather we have been experiencing recently Paoliasi had other guests too. His nephew and family spent the night and were up fishing very early this morning. They had spent the night on the beach, sleeping under the stars in the warm air. It reminded me of the summer nights as I grew up when a bunch of the neighborhood kids would sleep outside.

As promised Paoliasi and family took us clamming at low tide. Low tide was around 10:30. Life on Charisma and Orcinius was going early this morning too. By the time we went clamming not only had Bob and John gone across to an empty beach and burned the garbage but Lisa and I had gone for an hour long paddleboard/kayak trip circumnavigating “Bere’s Island” and wandering through the nearby motus. No turtle were seen but the lagoon was in its glory.

Ann shows her form digging clams on the beach.

The clamming expedition was quite successful. Bob, Lisa and John took to the water and looked for the “smile” that would indicate a clam. It is tougher than it sounds and takes a lot of practice to be able to identify and grab the clams before they bury themselves. Their harvest was greatly helped by both Paoliasi and Jimi. Meanwhile I was sitting on the sand digging at the “clam line” finding the small sightly green clams, with the help of Nailume, the 12-year old son. And we found plenty to add to the collection.

After harvest we took all of the clams back to the boats and Bob made his clam linguine which we brought back ashore for a lunchtime picnic. Ima added baked bread fruit and sliced coconut to the feast and a party was had! Using the fork proved too time-consuming for Paoliasi but the others worked through it and enjoyed a meal prepared for them.

Linguine and clams on a woven mat on the beach.

Testing our ukulele skills.

Ima was raised on Veti Levu, the main island, and has very good English so I was enjoying asking lots of questions about life in Fulunga. And of course she was teaching us new words. I was sharing my summer sleep out story with her when Paoliasi, from across the mat, announced, “Turn the TV off.” And then added hand motions to illustrate the request. You can imagine our laughter when we realized that he meant it was time for ME to stop talking and take a breath! Ouch. I guess when you are used to no voices you can get overwhelmed pretty easily. I told him that I was sure he would miss my voice when we left and he laughed and agreed, but did not rescind the request.

Lucky for me the attention of the guys quickly shifted to the sinking outrigger that Jimi, Ima and Nailumi had come to the island on. (Even though I am somewhat an expert in sinking outriggers I felt I should keep my mouth shut for a while so I offered no advice.) Bob offered some special adhesive (5200) in an attempt to seal the leak. More discussions ensued and John came up with some ideas and back and forth it went until suddenly John was headed back to Orcinius for supplies and Bob and the boys were working on getting the hole exposed by getting the outrigger further up the beach and emptied of water. Much easier said than done. But where there is a will there’s a way and these guys found it. By the time we left the island the outrigger had been flipped over, emptied, the first phase of the repair made and flipped back upright again. AND lifted out of the water and up onto supports to allow everything to dry out.

John and Bob spent quite a bit of time explaining the next steps necessary to complete the repair. (If only they had gotten Ima to translate we might be sure they were understood, but Ima was busy cleaning up the camp and the Fijians were indicating that they understood.) Quite an accomplishment given the 6 x 2″ gouge out of the bottom that was causing the problem. I am not sure how the family even got over to the island yesterday without sinking.

Fixing the canoe - first we have to refloat it.

Squaring the hole and shaping a plug.

With the repairs completed as much as possible and the family delivered by John, in his dinghy, back to the mainland we weighed anchor and returned to Maunicake – the main village.

Goodbye Pauliasi. We'll miss you!

Our presence at a Thank-you Event had been relayed to us via shortwave radio and we were asked to be there at 4:30. Wow, where does the time go! It was a rush back to the village anchorage and without time to shower, we all went ashore and were only 10 minutes late. Thank goodness for Fiji-time because our hosts were another 15 minutes later!

It felt like we had been gone for months, not just four days. We were happily greeted by everyone as we headed to the event at the far end of the village. And you guessed it, it was a kava party! This party was hosted by the teachers of the school to thank Orcinius for the donation of some computers and us for the encyclopedias. Actually the teachers were very appreciative of the encyclopedias that we brought from New Zealand and lots of people have been using them for reference. Lots of fun and beautiful carved thank you gifts were included. Oh, and yes, food.

The walk back to the boats in the dark was not so dark tonight. The new solar lights had been hooked up while we were gone and lights could be seen throughout the village. Folks were gathered on their porches enjoying conversation and kava, the kids were running around from house to house and of course escorting us through the village. Yep, reminded me of those warm summer nights that led to sleeping out under the stars.

These are the poetic words of Pauliasi Volau, the single inhabitant of the island called Yanuyanu Kalou. Directly translated the island name is “Island of the God” and we would have to agree.

Pauliasi has a poetic soul.

We kind of lucked into this spot. We saw it from our anchorage at Naividamu. It’s a little island about a mile from Naividamu with an inviting beach, so we decided we would anchor here. Imagine our surprise to find someone living here. You might call him a hermit, but that would diminish who he is. We have found Pauliasi to be a man of wisdom and inner strength. He is 72 years young. He has two dogs and a rooster.

Pauliasi's small hut...

...complete with newly made fishing spear (the last big fish swam away with his old spear)

He’s working on keeping hens but the rats on the island keep eating them. However, with fish (that he spears and/or nets) clams, coconuts, papaya, bananas and some gardening that produces cassava and eggplant he is not wanting except for water. That’s where we came in. There is a bit of a drought right now down here and Pauliasi, as with the other villagers on Fulanga, are short on water. Enter our buddies on Orcinius who are anchored with us in this lovely spot. They have a huge watermaker and they made a couple hundred gallons for Pauliasi today. As he put it, he now has water for daily use and more water “for Christmas”. Orcinius ran their watermaker and I ferried the water it produced into the island in 5 gallon jugs. Took a while but it was worth it to see his face knowing he had water to spare.

Once we met him we immediately took a liking to him and set up a sundowner session on his beach. We told him to meet us on the beach “when the sun is almost down”. The only worry was that just before sunset an outrigger canoe showed up with a women, man and young boy. Our first though was, “Darn, this is going to spoil our time with Pauliasi”. It turned out it that they were his nephew with his wife and son who had come out to bring him some food and company. They were delightful and we had quite a party on the beach.

Pauliasi's nephew and family.

Sundowners on the beach.

Ann and Lisa had gone out earlier and foraged for clams which John cooked and we brought to the beach. We had a hard time getting the clams away from Pauliasi who really liked them. In Fiji the elders have the respect and if they don’t share the food, the younger folks can’t ask them to share. We finally pulled “the Palangi card” and said he had to pass the clams. We gave him a big plate and then passed the rest on to the other family members. All the while sitting on one of the most beautiful beaches you’ll ever see in your life, looking out at our two boats with the sun setting behind them.

Sun setting over the canoe.

As Pauliasi said, “The sun sets and we rise and watch the night”. I couldn’t say it better. Magic.

Sniff, sniff…

We left Naividamu this afternoon and even though we’ve only spent a few days anchored there, it was tough. We’ve been there three times over the last couple months and made some solid friendships so it was really tough saying “moce” (pronounced “mothay” and means goodbye).

We had a lazy morning drinking coffee in the cockpit and watching some of the ladies out on the reef – not very far from Charisma since we were just off the reef – collecting mussels for dinner. We were waiting for the tide to come in to make it easier to get ashore in the dinghy and we were lingering, knowing that leaving would not be easy.

We also watched Chief Moses navigate an outrigger with a 50 gallon drum on it out across the reef to Orcinius, who was anchored right next to us in the tiny anchorage. He was getting water that Orcinius very kindly offered to the village. There is a bit of a drought here and they are very low on water. Orcinius has a high volume water maker and was able to transfer about 150 gallons that Moses rowed back and forth to the beach, about 30 gallons at a time, for his village. When we wandered through the village saying our goodbyes we could see that each house now had a fresh bucket of drinking water right outside its door.

Finally a little after lunch we went in and said our goodbyes. Lisa brought a Barrel Full of Monkeys game and jump rope in for the kids and John and I got roped into one last kava ceremony. So they taught the kids to play and we played with the guys. All in all it was a good leaving even though it lasted two hours instead of the planned ½ hour.

Playing "Barrel of Monkeys" on the beach.

We are now anchored about a mile or so NE of Naividamu on the south side of a little island in the middle of the lagoon that is Fulunga.

Anchored at "Bere's Island".

A hermit lives here named Bere. He came out to the beach to wave when we got here and we said we would come in tomorrow. As he walked back off the beach he wasn’t more than a step into the jungle before he completely disappeared from view. Tomorrow will no doubt be interesting.

Anyway, we’re anchored in about 18 feet over sand. Turquoise water right off a white sand beach that’s about 150 meters long. On either side of the beach are vertical basalt cliffs formed from volcanic action millennia ago. Each rises vertically 100 meters or so from the water and makes a dramatic end cap to the beach. The island itself is only about 300 hundred meters long and maybe 150 meters wide. We have a half moon lighting the white sand making for a stunning evening anchored here in our own little paradise.

Oh and did I mention the lobster dinner? The Naividamu fishing fiber came in where we were anchored late morning with fresh lobsters. Orcinius ponied up – $50 Fijian, or about $25 US for two of the biggest lobsters we have ever seen. John and Lisa had to use the pressure cooker and the BBQ to cook them both. Once cooked, they gave the heads of the lobsters to Chief Moses who was very appreciative. The four of us did our best this evening to consume them but our strongest effort could only account for about 3/4’s of the beasts. John was talking about either lobster omelets or lobster cheese spread for tomorrow night.

Lobster anyone? (Photo courtesy of Orcinius).

Oh yes, this is paradise.

It’s 0500, I’m somewhere between a dream and awake. I really don’t know where I am, but I hear angels. Huh?!

I shake my head and try to gather my wits. I realize I’m on my boat and then remember that yesterday we went a couple miles across the lagoon and are anchored at Naividamu – sometimes known as “The Third Village”. OK, but where are the angels? I get out of bed and head toward the sound – somewhere outside. Listening closely I hear it coming over the water from shore. Ahh, the church is lit (they have a generator) and the children’s choir is singing. Angelic. Beautiful. But 0500 in the morning!! Turns out this week is Fijian Father’s Day and all week the kids sing in the early morning hours. Wow.

Kids heading off to school over at the other village.

Anchored behind the Motu at Navidamu.

Navidamu from our anchorage.

This gives an indication of why we don't want to be here in rough/windy weather. The boats are very exposed to the reef

So…we’re here in Naividamu. We didn’t make it last year – the lagoon was too intimidating to cross – but we now are better and more comfortable at reading the color of the water to judge depth and see reefs so we came over. It’s a pretty cool anchorage. Only good in settled weather. You come over and there’s a big reef about 300 meters out from the village with a small motu (about 30 meters wide) that has a single coconut tree on it. You go toward the motu, but as you get to it, you go starboard (that would be to the right for you land-lubbers) about 80 meters around the reef and tuck in behind it. There’s a relatively small space over sand between this reef and the inner reef where you can drop anchor and be a little sheltered from the wind and waves. Orcinius (John and Lisa) came over too and dropped anchor right beside us. This spot is small and they are so close we can talk to each other without raising our voices.

As we got to the beach the ladies of the village were cleaning the day's catch.

The boys were helping too (sort of).

Yesterday Ann and Lisa kept the kids entertained with games, games, games while John and I did some village maintenance. John has been fixing the sewing machines in the villages here and Naividamu has been no exception. There are three here (they are all hand crank – two Indian brands and a Singer). He fixed two in the village and had to bring the third back to Orcinius for more serious work, but all are now fixed. I was tapped to fix one of the boats. I’m now three for three. Once boat repair in each village. Today’s repair was more fiberglassing of holes – this boat had two – and I screwed a long three inch wide board by ten foot long onto the outside bottom of the boat to protect it. They drag them up on the beach and it wears the bottom off. This should fix it for a while. I’m now completely done with fixing boats because this morning I used the last of the epoxy I was carrying.

Yesterday was also a great day because the Chief of the village, Moses, had finished the war club he was carving for us. It is beautiful. A real work of art; it is an exact replica of the ones they used 100 years ago. Turns out that he learned this from a master carver who used to make them and that master carver is the father of Tau, our host!. Moses has been making them for 35 years. He told fascinating stories about how he learned from the master carver and also talked of how after the warriors used the clubs they would come back and show their chief how the blood, tissue, hair etc. was embedded in the ornamental carving. This of course meant they had vanquished an enemy. An interesting bit of history.

The finished war club Moses carved for us.

Today we met Moses on the beach and he guided us on a tour across this part of the island to the west side and a beautiful white sand beach . Ann and Lisa decided it was the best beach we have seen all the way across the Pacific. Just stunning. It was so white it hurt our eyes to look, but when you did you could see fish swimming in the turquoise lagoon inside the barrier reef. A bonus on the trip was an encounter with a bright green iguana. This was the first we’ve seen in this area. As we came down the path, he scampered across it, jumped a rock and headed up a tree where he posed for some pictures. Then the strangest thing – as he climbed the tree a bit further there was a sudden tussle and the iguana fell 15 feet out of the tree and hit the ground, almost dropping on top of Ann. Turns out a bird swooped in and attacked him. Anyway quick as lightning the chief swung his machete and I expected to see two halves of an iguana, but what instead the chief had the iguana pinned against a rock with the machete. Unharmed. We got some close up photos and Moses released him to scamper off. You just don’t see stuff like this every day.

Mr Iguana just before the bird attacked him.

Path through the jungle to the beach.

Beach on the other side of the island.

If all that weren’t enough, Moses invited us to come back in as the special guests for a (what else!) kava party on the beach. He said to go back to our boats for the afternoon and rest, then come back around 1700 and we would party “until the grog runs out”. We thought we’d surprise them and we brought in our ukuleles and John’s bongo drum. We’re been practicing a song to sing for our leaving party from the island next week and this was a great way to test it out. They heard us last night practicing anyway and depending on who you talked to, it was either beautiful or noise. Anyway we broke out the ukes (Lisa in lead and Bob trying to keep up), Ann singing with us and John on the bongo. I have to say we were a big hit! They went nuts laughing (with us, not at us!) and everyone was pleased that we would sing for them. We did an encore as well, then handed over the ukes to real players. These guys are good! Our ukes never sounded as good and as a bonus John was invited to sit with the players (two guitars and our two ukes) and play his bongo. Priceless!

Quite a day.

…and jump rope.

Today was another “fix it” day. Joe, of Tara and Joe, has a hole in his fiber (that’s what they call the long boats here). Like the one I fixed the other day in Muanaira (the second village), Joe’s boat had a hole right in the bottom about 8 inches long and 1 ½ inches wide. He’s had some foam and other stuff stuck in the hole, but they need to bail continuously to keep it from sinking. I found out and asked him if he had any glass fiber mat and he said, “Yes”. I said I had the epoxy and there you go – a partnership is once again formed.

Yep, that's a hole all right...

I had him pull it up on the beach on Saturday, turn it over and we let it dry all through Sunday. This morning I met him at 0930 and we went to work. I mixed a couple batches of epoxy and we put three or four layers of mat on. When I was finished I asked him if he would like to use the left over resin before it “kicked” on any other sections of the boat and he showed me three other small holes that were plugged with a combination of what looked like chewing gum and closed cell foam. OK, we slapped some more mat on before the resin dried and called it a day. I came back to the beach around 1600 with my battery-powered angle grinder to smooth the patches.

He was back down on the beach half an hour later (how do they know??) and launched the boat to go set a net for the night. He came past and said thanks and headed off. Orcinius called on the radio and was kind enough to let us know that through their binoculars they could see Joe and the other two guys launch the boat with “the biggest smiles imaginable!” Nice. And I forgot to say Joe gave us four lovely papayas for the effort!!

Now they can fish without having to bail constantly.

Ann’s day was supposed to be weaving with the ladies, but they were busy gathering the raw materials to do the weaving so…jump rope with the kids. And some adults. Orcinius brought in a couple jump ropes that John made and they have been quite a hit. Ann and Lisa have been showing all the kids and many of the young adults lots of different ways to jump and the songs that go with them. Much silliness was had.

Jumprope anyone?

Paradise and jumprope…not a bad combination!.