Nananu I Ra to Toba Basinga, North Eastern Viti Levu 17 32.573s 178 22.695e (Posted from Majuro in April 2016) Janet We sipped on celebratory cups of tea. The sun was out in spite of a gloomy forecast. Navire was underway again and her crew on full alert as we threaded through the coral minefields. We'd now rounded the top of Viti Levu and were headed south-east on the next leg of our journey.
We had ummed and aahhed about leaving Nanaui I Ra in overcast conditions. But we feared that if we stayed there too long we'd be trapped there for many more days by the strong headwinds predicted in a few days time. Ultimately we wanted to leave Fiji by the end of October to get north and out of the hurricane zone and had to move on.
*** "I've got room in the freezer for a fish," I announced to David, feeling a little cocky now that we had caught four fish in the last month.
He put the line out.
We were headed for Toba Basiga for an overnight stay, then on to Ovalau, our next destination.
I felt well satisfied with our visit to Nananu I Ra. We'd met some really nice Fijian/Tuvaluans, watched the rugby, and partied with several other boats.
Yesterday we headed around to Papu's for "church". Arriving on the dot of 11am, we climbed the steep path up to the house and found a group of people sitting cross-legged on a mat on the verandah, one of them quietly playing the guitar. A table had been set up with a white tablecloth, a bible and flowers.
The preacher arrived in a longboat and proceeded to deliver a service in English, for our benefit. As usual we were the only white bodies in the congregation, and obviously not church going folk, as we were the only people in the room without a bible in hand.
After the service I helped the women prepare the boiled titan shells for lunch. I peeled the shell off one and put it in my mouth. It was tough and tasted bland.
However once it was chopped up with onion and dunked in coconut cream (lolo) it was quite nice, sweeter and softer. The children were tucking into a sort of sea snail. I tried some. Instead of toothpicks to get the flesh out we were supplied with thorns off a nearby lemon tree. I scooped a few out and onto my tongue.
Juicy and slightly chewy, but okay.
As a thank you for the rugby hospitality, we'd made a chocolate cake, and iced and piped it with VINAKA, thank you in Fijian. In the heat of the day the icing threatened to slide off onto the plate, but the cake went down a treat anyway.
Saying our goodbyes, we gave the two-year old grandson a silver fern flag to wave at the next New Zealand rugby game, and dinghied back to Navire to get her ready to sail the next day.
*** Sailing away from Nananui I Ra I reflected on our time in Fiji. I missed a few things about New Zealand, mostly long term friends, and family, but what an adventure this is. You never know what will happen from one day to the next.
Yes we set courses, study the charts, identify anchorages, make long term plans, but the wind changes, it gets cloudy, or the sun comes out, we stay or go, and we have no idea what the next village or anchorage will bring.
*** As we sailed down the north-eastern coast of Viti Levu the scenery changed from the arid drought ridden hills of the west, to lush green slopes, heavily populated by coconut palms. Cirrus clouds were stacked up on the horizon. A long way ahead we saw the peaks of the island of Ovalau, where we would arrive the next day.
There were villages dotted along the shore but I couldn't see any evidence of roads or power poles. Back to remote village life again. As we covered the miles the sea changed from gloomy grey to deep royal blue. At last we were free of the coral for a few miles. I turned the engine off and the sails silently pulled us along.
It was hot. We abandoned our clothes. David was looking trim, this active sailing life suited him. Life was good.
In Ovalau our plan was to look up a family we'd met on an earlier trip. Mere and Joe and their four kids. In 2012 we came up here for a two-week holiday, sailing on a trimaran with American friends Bruce and Alene. We'd sailed into Rukuruku village on the north-west side of Ovalau, and decided to go to the island's main town, Levuka, on the local transport. We met Mere on the truck and she invited us to a birthday party for her five year old son Akuila, in the way that Fijians do with people they've only known five minutes.
Back at the boat that evening David and Bruce had made and decorated a cake, piping on 'Happy Birthday Akuila' in Fijian. At the party it was a hit, the feast was delicious, and we played music and drank Kava into the night. We fell in in love with the kids and they particularly took to David as most small children do.
Three years on we wanted to see these lovely people again.
Check out this link to my food blog for the full story. https://cookingclubwellington1.wordpress.com/2012/07/ *** "Can you see a mark ahead?" David asked, disturbing my reverie. He peered at a chart on the tablet mounted under the dodger. "It should be ahead at one o'clock." To make directions clear we see the boat as a clock, the bow being 12 o'clock, and the stern 6. So if something is ahead of us slightly to the right we say it is at 1 or 2 o'clock.
I gazed ahead, seeing nothing for while, then there it was. It's always a treat when a mark indicated on the chart is actually there in reality. This area had an unusually large amount of marks, so often absent in these waters.
We turned into Toba Basiga Bay and dropped the pick. Half-way to Ovalau.