[password]waiknot
[position]18 53.334S 178 27.903E

[status]
Now at Ono Island in the Great Astrolabe Reef. Grey skies for the last couple of days, with a few showers, but that hasn't stopped us sailing, fishing and snorkeling. See the blog for more info.

[blog]
The lovely people in the village of Gasele adopted us into their family on Friday. There are about 35 houses in Gasele and another dozen or so in the next village. We joined in with their family reunion celebrations and they helped us celebrate the birthday of Heather's Mum and Niece. At the Kava party, Heather had her first ever drink of Kava. This is a root of the Yacona (pepper) tree, which is pound into a mash and squeezed into water. The drink tastes like muddy socks - or at least what you might imagine muddy socks to taste like - this has not been verified! There is a whole ceremony that goes with the kava drinking and the whole room shouted "Bula" for Mum's birthday when Heather had her first bowl of Kava. The neighbouring village also joined in the festivities and the chief took us to his house. The neighbouring village can only be reached by boat, or by crossing the "Mogili" bridge. Crossing the bridge was fun - it is straight out of Jungle Book! Trunks of coconut trees lie
horizontally across the water, supported underneath by sticks coming up out of the water at opposing angles to form a V. Everything is lashed together with vines so that the tops of the upright supporting sticks come up past the horizontal trunk, to about waist height. More sticks are lashed horizontally between the upright V sticks to form a sort of handrail. It still requires a balancing act to cross it and the handrail is not really a support - it would give way if you put all your weight on it, so it is there just to guide and steady. Good fun! The feast itself was interesting. The men cooked the "lovo" which is like the hangi we have in NZ. Stones are cooked in a fire until hot, then placed in a pit in the ground. Root vegetables such as taro and cassava are placed in baskets woven from coconut leaves. Pieces of pork are wrapped in banana leaves. The food is placed in the pit with the hot stones, covered and cooked for a long time. Meanwhile the ladies in the village prepare yu
mmy chicken dishes with onions and garlic and ginger and rosemary that they grow themselves. Karl gave pieces of chocolate to the children and quickly made many friends! The "lunch" we had been invited to lasted the whole day - we didn't need dinner. We were given fresh coconuts and breadfruit to take back to the boat and reminded several times to send best wishes from both villages to Mum for her birthday. A truly wonderful day. It is interesting to watch the children after school - they borrow one of the local boats, complete with 75hp outboard motors and zip around the bay. One boatload of kids stopped near us, threw a concrete block tied to a rope over the side as an anchor and all jumped in for a swim. Yesterday we went for a sail for several hours in a stiff breeze to try out the auto pilot (Raymond). He behaved well on both tacks, even with full sails up and heeling over considerably - so perhaps we have fixed him! It was also a good time to do some "hove-to" practice. During
our sailing around we caught a rather large Mahimahi. Enough for 6 nights worth of meals! Dinner was Coconut battered fish and breadfruit chips. We ate like little piglets! Now at Ono Island, have been snorkeling amongst pretty coral and starting to prepare for our return to NZ. A few passage meals now in the freezer and some maintenance jobs done, plus a "to-do list" of other little items that will need our attention in the next couple of weeks before we head back to NZ.

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