Aradonna's blog

Picture a long white sandy beach, in a neat curve, forming a bay that protects us from wind in any direction (apart from westerly and that almost never happens). Behind the beach you find long tall skinny pine trees, where the island gets its name - the Isle of Pines. But this island is much more than beach and trees. The bay is home to several turtles, that pop their heads up to say hello off and on all day. We also have a resident dugong that comes up looking like a floating log and then gives us a graceful wave of the whale-like tail. Now and then a small ray will flip out of the water to make a splash. There are great snorkelling spots near by, teeming with fish. On shore the scenery is fabulous, with various walks offering different views of this spectacular place. On top of that, just 1km down the road is a little grocery store and a bit further on a bakery that bakes fresh baguettes every day. The bakery opens at 5.30am and has fresh bread baking until about 8am. The morning walk to the bakery has become a pleasant part of our daily routine. There are some resorts on shore, so if we feel like treating ourselves to an ice cream, a coffee or a meal, we can.

We sailed to Matuku Island on 14th August because troughs and fronts were on the way, bringing changing wind directions and unpredictable conditions. Matuku harbour is very protected from wind of any direction, so we tucked oursleves in, ready to sit out whatever came. We were in for a very pleasant few days! Early morning on the 15th, we had rain and lightening, with misty cloud hanging over the mountains all around us, but the day became fine by mid-morning. A local boat was on the way out of the bay to go fishing when its outboard motor stopped. We watched the man repeatedly try to start the motor and it was clear he was not going anywhere apart from drifting out of the bay. So Karl jumped in our dinghy, motored over and towed the boat back to Aradonna. This is how we met Jese-James, who prefers to be called Jay. Jay came on board and Karl worked on his motor, replaced the spark plugs and got it going again. Jay is 30 years old, he is a fisherman, a lay preacher, a father of three children and is the tour guide for visitors to Matuku. He was born with one leg deformed. From the knee down the leg is half the size it should be and his foot is very small with only three toes.

We sailed to Matuku Island on 14th August because troughs and fronts were on the way, bringing changing wind directions and unpredictable conditions. Matuku harbour is very protected from wind of any direction, so we tucked oursleves in, ready to sit out whatever came. We were in for a very pleasant few days! Early morning on the 15th, we had rain and lightening, with misty cloud hanging over the mountains all around us, but the day became fine by mid-morning. A local boat was on the way out of the bay to go fishing when its outboard motor stopped. We watched the man repeatedly try to start the motor and it was clear he was not going anywhere apart from drifting out of the bay. So Karl jumped in our dinghy, motored over and towed the boat back to Aradonna. This is how we met Jese-James, who prefers to be called Jay. Jay came on board and Karl worked on his motor, replaced the spark plugs and got it going again. Jay is 30 years old, he is a fisherman, a lay preacher, a father of three children and is the tour guide for visitors to Matuku. He was born with one leg deformed. From the knee down the leg is half the size it should be and his foot is very small with only three toes.

We have been in Vanua Balavu for 11 days. What a wonderful time we have had! The first thing we had to do on arrival is a gift ceremony, called sevusevu. When a yacht comes into a bay here, that bay is owned by a village. So before we swim, snorkel or fish in the bay and before we can walk around the village or walking tracks over the island, we must meet the chief for sevusevu. The gift we must deliver is a 250g bunch of kava. Kava is the root of a pepper tree and the locals here beat it and grind it and mix it with water to make a murky looking drink. The drink tastes like muddy socks and numbs your mouth. We do not like it, but the locals say it is relaxing! Once we give our kava to the chief, he welcomes us to the village in a ceremonial speech with claps to punctuate the speech here and there. Then we are treated like family. We have become part of the village and we are allowed to do anything we like! At four of the villages we visited, we arranged for the local people to get together and try on reading glasses. We got them to approach one by one, starting with the lowest strength glasses and slowly moving up as they tried to read their bible.