Blogs

Seawindow is in the Duck Pond, Townsville QLD. Nice little anchorage close to landslide facilities and services. You can dingy up to the marina and pay $5/4hrs or $10/day to tie up your ducky. Add another $5 and you can access showers, toilets and laundry. The Breakwater Marina is trying really hard to attract boaties. Today we shop and tomorrow we move into the marina for a night, wash the boat, recycle some engine oil and use the courtesy car ($10 donation for 2 hours) to buzz around Bunnings, BCF, chandlery, Target, Kmart, Dan Murphy's, F&V shop etc.

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.