Daliconi

In the morning we motored around to the west side of Vanua Balavu and anchored off the small village of Daliconi. We motored almost all the way. For a while we did have the head sail up to assist but this obscured our view of the reefs ahead so we soon furled it again much preferring to see where we were going.

We ate lunch then rested through the hottest part of the day eventually going ashore with our bunch of cava roots around 2:30pm. A lady met us on the beach and took us through the village to the chiefs hut. About 5 of the village elders joined us including the chief to perform sevusevu. In this case an assistant performed the ceremony. (Here they have a local visitor ambassador called Samu who usually greets visitors. He was away so his assistant performed the ceremony). Again, a long speech in Fijian and much clapping which later we learned we could join in. We’ll try next time. We then sat around chatting about where we’d been on our journeys and a little about the island.

We were next invited to have tea with one of the younger looking elders called Isireli at his house. He turned out to be 77 and put his good looks and health down to a cup of squeezed lemon every day before breakfast. We spent a while with him learning more about each other. We learned, among other things, he was with the British Navy for a while and witnessed three of our atomic bomb tests based out of Christmas Island back in the late 50s. We drank a couple of mugs of tea and were given a bunch of ripe plantains.

We were taken back to the beach by Samu’s wife where we were given some bananas. By now the kids were out of school and surrounding us and the dinghy. So out came the back of toffees and they all got once each. They seemed delighted.

Back on the boat we had a very pleasant evening. Outside of high tide the area is very calm but with a slight breeze. The stars were again out in all their glory. The sunset was spectacular.

We hope to go for a walk today although right now it’s pouring down so it may be a bit muddy, we’ll see. We also hope to meet Samu. Some good news is that we now have tracking info on our charger and so far it’s reached Hong Kong. We’ll probably rendezvous with it early July in Savusavu.