Nabawalu Bay, Ono, Astrolabe Reef 18 53.212s 178 27.775e Janet June 15 Life has gone from monochrome to full colour. The day dawned calm and David woke feeling a lot better. We lowered the dinghy into the sea and loaded it up with buckets of salty laundry, empty gerry cans, kava for sevusevu, and a large box of biscuits to trade for fruit.
We approached the shore with David standing in the stern looking out for bombies. He switched off the outboard motor, raised the prop and paddled. The area was infested with coral outcrops, which would take out your prop in one hit.
Arriving at low tide the shore was a long way out. We buried an anchor in the sand, hoping the dinghy would be happily bobbing in the sea when we got back.
Stepping onto the sand I staggered, my legs registering a solid surface for the first time in five days.
"We have to go back to the boat," said David.
"Why?" "My the zip in my fly is broken, I can't front up to the chief like this." After a bit of fossicking around in my bag I gave David the safety pin from my bandaged hand.
Ashore we strolled along well-groomed paths. The village houses were simple structures with gardens of bright yellow, red and pink vegetation. Loaded breadfruit trees towered over the houses, passion fruit vines wove around fences, citrus littered the ground, and everywhere the ubiquitous coconut palms.
It was all I could do not to forage.
Ahead was a bright pink house, dwelling of the turanga, the chief. In Fiji to enter a village you need to participate in sevusevu. David describes it "This, so far as we can tell, is the expected protocol for gaining permission to anchor and gives pratique to the village. A powhiri of sorts in which a half kg of yaqona (kava) is the accepted koha." "Bula, bula" said the chief, "Come inside." He extended his hand, "Meche." We sat on the floor and handed the kava bundle to Meche. He said a prayer in Fijian and now we were welcome to explore the village. We met a man who had an opinion on Bainamarama. Almost everyone we have met is a fan of 'Frank' the 'elected' democratic leader of Fiji, so it was interesting to hear a view from a villager, someone who didn't think much of Bainamarama.
We learned the village tap was turned on at three. Back to the boat for lunch and David retired to bed. Later I motored in on my own struggling to see the bombies and rowed the last two hundred metres just in case. I was anchoring the boat way out on the reef and wondering how many trips to get the laundry in to the village when two men appeared. One took my dingy and towed it up a small stream anchoring it near the houses and the other lifted my heavy laundry bag as though it were a bag of feathers. "I'm Joe" . We shake hands.
The tap was right outside Joe's house.
"Bula," said a smiling young Fijian woman, with a two year old balanced on her hip, who emerged from Joe's house.
"Bula, I'm Janet, from one of the yachts in the bay," I gestured to the three anchored boats half a mile out.
"I'm Queenie and this is Ester," she introduced her child as she popped her on the ground. "Can I help you with that?" She said pointing at my piles of salty clothes and bedding.
"Really? Yes please!" She filled one of my buckets, helped herself to washing powder and started pounding the clothes. She didn't even blanche at squeezing out David's undies.
Food and cooking is my way of getting the flavour of a place and of creating links.
I pointed at a bunch of stubby looking bananas and asked how they are prepared.
"You boil them," said Queenie.
"How do you know when they are cooked?" "When the skin is brown. Would you like some?" Back at the boat, laundry flapping in the rigging, I boiled the bananas.
"Ugh, that stinks," said David, "Are you going to eat them?" He has a mild mistrust of strange foods.
"Of course." Despite my foolish moment with the shellfish at the market in Suva I'll try almost anything.
Using a pair of tongues I pick a banana out of the pot and peel it. Yum, soft, but not gooey, and sweet. First one I chop up, pour on coconut cream and have for breakfast. Sustained me all morning. The second one made into a 'potato salad'.
"This quite nice," says David at lunchtime.
June 16 1700 Sundowner time "Cheers," I clink glasses with David and sip on my shotglass of vodka and fresh coconut juice.
Things are looking up. We both had more energy today. I baked brownie, and made a divine sweet passionfruit sauce. David, not to be outdone, produced three jars of marmalade with grapefruit I collected from under a tree in the village.
Midnight Sun sailed into the bay and we've invited them for dinner and a writer's group tomorrow night.
David now has a date for a colonoscopy in Suva. I'd been wanting to sail out to the Lau group, out east, but there is no internet there to receive the appointment email from the hospital. Now it was decided, we stay at Kadavu till we return to Suva at the end of July. In the 60's in Island Bay (Wellington) there was a Fijian family in living our street and my mother became good friends with their mother. I have tracked down the Nawalawala's village, about 30 miles from here. We'll gradually work our way down there.