[p]beale12.4
[s]
pos: 19 09.210s 178 32.562w
Date: 10/07/2017 10:00 gmt+12:00
Reflections on an Island Time week in Fulaga.
We are settling into a very relaxed mode, taking it easy, with a series of wonderful occasions, and the odd moment of terror. The terror happened yesterday when Joanne had a Shark moment while snorkelling through the reef passage. We were drifting in on an incoming tide with an undersea motion picture show being put on for us by Mother Nature, when 3 sharks started circling Joanne, just deep enough underneath her that she could not tell what kind they were - the reef sharks we like to look at, or the kind that like to nibble large dark shapes just to see what they taste like?
Jo calmly signalled to the boatman - please come get me.
The boatman was tangled up in problems of her own, with a pair of rubber dinghies lashed together and floating into the coral with a risk of being munched.
Jo observed that she was effectively being ignored and escalated the urgency a touch - OI SOMEBODY, come get me NOW!!!!
I responded with the classic Charlie Chaplin look - run across the coral towards our dinghy, wearing flippers. I somehow stumbled into the boat, untied the boatman's anchor from the coral it was wrapped around, rowed the dink across the coral and out into the channel and finally got the outboard going to rescue Jo. Awesome high speed emergency response. Not.
Fortunately the dark shapes beneath Jo had decided she wasn't appetising and moved on, but even so she'd decided that her snorkelling was done for the day.
It was an amazing snorkel though. The island reef entrance is over half a kilometre long, about 50m wide, and has a wall edge on the east side and a shelf on the other with a coral garden of every hue.. And fish everywhere. All the amazing tropical colours and shapes. Huge hosts of tiny dark blue fish grazing on coral. They change colour to turquoise as I approach, then green as they try to disappear into the background. Thousands of them in a darting, flitting, floating, gleaming, ever-changing cloud of tropical life.
We started snorkelling as the low tide approached and the tidal outflow stopped. Then as the tide began to come in, we got a free ride down through the pass, accelerating to a couple of knots as time passed. Idly flapping flippers to change drift direction as we spy angel fish, clown fish, coral trout, zebra fish, shiny fish and dull fish, blue fish and red fish. As you can tell from my detailed analysis, we forgot to bring the tropical fishes book with us, so we have no idea what any of them are called. It doesn't matter. We just love the show, the languid drift of the fish through the coral plates and fronds and ferns and heads, then the lightning dart when they think we might be too close. I never actually see any fish et any other fish, so I guess this ecosystem is mostly grazing fish, feeding on the coral. Except, of course for the sharks.
After jos shark moment I went back for another drift through the pass. By now the tide was really starting to race in, so it's almost like a ski run. Catch the ride to the head of the pass, tie on the dink for driving, then take the free ride back down through. Quite a hoot.
There have been several other quite amazing moments. Friday all the cruisers went in to the village for a shared pot luck picnic, including a pig cooked in the traditional village way. Kind of like an umu, but above the ground.
The afternoon included entertainment and shared hilarity. The kindergarten kids first, then the school kids, did some singing and dancing for us.
Then the awesome Palangi Ukelele Orchestra put on a performance as part of the cultural exchange. Fairly impromptu, and surprisingly tuneful. Pokarekareana, Ten Guitars, and When the Saints Come Marching In. Somehow we all ended up dancing and sharing and hooting with laughter. I danced with the kindergarten kids, then pulled one of the big village mamas us up to dance with me, which she did with peals of laughter. And all without the benefit of alcohol, which they don't have in the village as far as we could tell.
The Fijians really do have an instinct for fun.
Mind you, so do the Palangi cruisers, in my humble opinion.
Saturday held another treat for us. It was the 3rd and deciding rugby test between the British Lions and the All Blacks at Eden Park. The village school here in Fulaga has a satellite dish, a large screen TV and a Sky subscription, including the sports channel. So we were all invited to watch the rugby with the village. They built a whole extra lean-to -with a tarpaulin roof and corro walls - onto the headmasters house to accomodate the crowd. About 15 to 20 cruisers joined a similar number of locals to create a really spirited atmosphere for rugby watching. Interestingly, several of the local women supported the Lions, not sure why. It was wonderful. Such a warm atmosphere, woven mats on the floor, bench seats from the church, they even cooked some kind of deep fried donuts for us for half time. It was a memorable way to watch rugby and made us feel even more strongly part of the village.
Today is Monday, and half the fleet has moved on, some north, some west. It is another beautiful day after a few cloudy, slightly rainy days, and the lagoon is emptying out. Only about 5 boats left, and our sense of isolation, peace and freedom is increasing. We are probably going to stay another 4 or 5 days here, then move on in the next good weather window. We are heading north to explore the nearby islands of the Lau group a little, then west to Kadavu and the Astrolabe reef area.
So many Islands. So little time!

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