Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

We had a fairly relaxed morning aboard the boat. I needed to sort out a credit card issue which primarily involved waiting for the cell phone network to come up so I could make calls and use (‘use’ is hardly the appropriate word) the internet. Once that was all sorted I left Helen aboard to go ashore, primarily to check out their printer once more and to see if they used refurbished toner cartridges rather than the manufacturers own. The village has to pay Fiji$210 (about $120) for each one which is a fortune for them. In the US the manufacturers toners cost $75 and the refurbs cost about $25. If there’s room amongst all our bilge pumps, etc. we’ll load a few onto our friends coming in August. At the school I learned they were using the refurbs which I would have been reluctant to send had they stuck to HP ones. I also met the headmistress and chatted with her for a while and shared a few of the educational ideas I’d learned worked well from my time involved with schools and our own children in the Uk.

On the way back I stopped off at Eroni’s to say hello and ended up sitting through a rainstorm chatting with him, his wife Biu and another friend. I learned that the sound on the second TV I looked at the previous night came on just after I left and stayed on. Word was getting around and his older brother, whose TV hadn’t been working since last October, wanted me to take a look at his. So after the rain subsided Aaron took me up to his brother, John, to look at his TV. During the day there was no power but I was able to ask him how he connected his DVD player. He had to fetch the player from his daughter. The cables in the back of the player were in all wrong and John wasn’t aware how to plug it into the TV. I showed him how to correctly wire it up and promised to be back at 6pm when the power came on.

While there another villager showed up with a DVD player wrapped in a blanket. She said it had stopped working and was brand new and asked for help. Brand new, I was learning, was anything under 2 years old. I was also learning that the only real ‘modern’ technology in the village were old TVs and cheap DVD players which they could use during the 2.5 hours the generator was on each evening. Anyway, I explained the the lady how to properly connect the wires to the DVD player then followed her up the hill to her father-in-law’s (Semiti) house to see how they connected it to their TV. Again, they had little awareness how to connect it up so I showed them how and left it promising to come back in the evening. Semiti was the cava grower of the village and suggested we could have some grog when we returned.

On the way back I dropped into Samu’s house and had a brief chat with him. A few of the villager’s had expressed interest in seeing the boat and we’d had a loose invitation that I wanted to cement. Some of the wive’s were off in the neighbouring village so we worked out they could visit at 4pm if they returned in time or the same time the following day.

By the time I reached the boat it was nearly 4pm anyway. The wive’s didn’t return until nearly 5pm so no visit. Helen and I ate our dinner then went ashore just before 6pm. On the beach we were met by an older fellow who greeted us. He had some wires in a bag and I asked him if he had a problem. It turned out to be his cell phone charger which he said didn’t work. He said his phone charged on other people’s charger but not that one. I took it promising to take a look inside the following day.

We came ashore by Eroni’s. I’d brought some spare WD40 ashore for Aaron to try on his hair trimmer which had jammed up. That didn’t work but I left him the oil. In Fiji, a gift to one individual is a gift to the village as everyone shares. Sort of.

We went up to John’s house to see if his TV was now working. It wasn’t so I put it on the floor and took it apart. It was also full of cobwebs and dust so I spent a while cleaning it out and making sure all the connections were firm, much as I had done, unsuccessfully, for Eroni’s TV the day before. Feeling under pressure and with 3 generations of family looking on I plugged in the TV and turned it on. We had a picture. The grandson was sent off to get a DVD from someone else and while we waited we sorted out the remote control and had the DVD player connected. When the DVD was inserted it played to the huge delight of the family, particularly the grandson who was grinning from ear to ear. While I cleaned out the case and put the TV back together, John’s wife gave Helen a couple of her traditionally hand made mats. It was a wonderful gift and something we’ll treasure far more than the same thing we could buy once if it had made it’s way into a gift shop.

The rounds were not yet finished. We trouped up the hill, by torch light as there are no street lights, to Semiti’s large home overlooking the village. From his son who lived in a small house on the same plot of land we learned that the TV was working. We went up to Semiti’s house to take a closer look. For some reason Aaron had been reluctant to approach Semiti’s house but when he learned we’d been invited for grog he became more enthusiastic. Even then he didn’t show himself at the door but asked me to say he was my ‘brother’. I duly spake as asked and Aaron and Biu were invited in too. There’s obviously nuances to the village life that are beyond us but anything we can do to help (if it is helping) we’ll do.

The TV and DVD were indeed working together. They had another DVD player which I’d looked at earlier in the day and I suggested we test that. That one also worked fine. Semiti’s teenage grandson, also called Semiti, showed up so I asked if he was keen to learn how to connect them up. He was so I showed him what connections to look out for on the back of the DVD players and the TV so that if they became disconnected in the future, someone would have a chance of knowing how to put them back together. I had done a similar exercise back at John’s.

With all the technical work complete we all went downstairs to partake in some grog. We remained there sharing a couple of bowls for about an hour and a half chatting about various things, often about our trip so far to Fiji and what both Helen and I used to do. The cava was prepared quite mild so we didn’t go tingly straight away but ended up quite mildly relaxed by the end of the session. It was nice to have their company for the evening, during which time I learned the Fijian version of my name is Sitibeni and Helen’s is Hilena.

When all was done we said our goodbyes, inviting Semiti to join the others visiting our boat today. Aaron and Biu took us back to the beach and we headed off into the dark finding the channel through the reef fairly easily. We’re definitely getting to know our way around the neighbourhood.

We’ve also learned that the village wants do have the farewell party when we leave the area in a week or so’s time. For now we’ll spend one more day/night in front of the village before going off to visit the anchorages here in the Bay of Islands and some of the islands on the far side of the main island. There are other villages on these other islands and if we had the time I imagine we could spend as much time with them as we have here but sadly we don’t. At some point we’ll need to head back to Savusavu for our charger and there are a few places we’d like to visit on the way.

While the rain poured down outside, I spent the first few hours of the day ordering boat parts using the internet over the local vodafone connection. We’ve been getting used to using the very slow GPRS rate and here it’s worse. It takes a long time to do anything.

Once this was all done we went ashore to meet up with Samu and hopefully be pointed in the direction of a walk. We mentioned we were keen on seeing a view so he first insisted on taking us up to the local peak. This involved a lot of climbing through vegetation and getting to a point where we were high but no view. He pointed out that when last year’s hurricane came through the view was all clear. The land repairs itself quickly so we headed off to a clearer peak. After a few slips and slides we were back down on the road and soon a truck passed by and gave us a ride part of the way. Then it was back to battling through long scratchy grass to a point where we overlooked the bay and the village. It was a good workout in the humid air that followed the morning rainstorm.

We walked back to the village and past the primary school. Back at Samu’s home his wife had cooked us lunch – a fish curry. As is their custom they let us eat our dinner without any sign of showing any desire to eat theirs. We discussed what the school needed and toner for their copier/printer is in short, difficult and expensive supply. We suggested we go and take a look at the printer and look up prices on the internet.

On the way back to the boat we stopped off at Eroni’s who had a non-working TV. I had offered to take a look at it so sitting in a beach side hut with the cool wind off the sea helping to counter the humidity I took the TV apart. It was full of cobwebs and at least one cockroach. The only (and very slim) hope I could offer was to clean the TV using the vacuum on the boat, check all the connections and once the shoreside generator came on at 6pm I could test for dry joints.

We took the TV back to the boat wrapped in an old sou’wester. There I opened it up again, chased out the last cockroach (into the sea) then vacuumed and cleaned it out. We sorted out a few spare DVDs that we have as this is one of the villagers’ few entertainments.

Around 5:30 we both went back ashore and spent time with Aaron while we waited for the power to come on. When it did we took the TV apart one final time and plugged it in. It showed some signs of life but my guess is that the high power circuit that drives the tube was defunct as I could hear no high pitched whistle.

Before departing a neighbour invited me over to look at his TV/DVD combination which had had no sound for 6 months. There was a cabling issue but fixing this did not restore the sound. He also had another DVD player which was dead. While looking at that the sound came on the TV – perhaps a loose connection. Declaring the second DVD player totally dead I went back to look at the TV. To get the back off and check for loose connections turned out to require a tool noone had ashore and we might have on the boat. There is hope for this one. If I can find the right tool I can go back this evening and see if there is a loose connection or dry joint that will restore the sound.

With the kind hospitality of the village and the challenge of a few problems it looks like we’re staying for a few days. The villagers have offered a farewell feast when we go with food and dancing. We’re looking forward to that. Sadly, the villagers have a funeral to go to too in a nearby village. A couple of weeks ago three of the locals (not from this village) took off in a small boat to a nearby island to collect a can of propane for the ice making plant. It was supposed to have been on a ship that had just traveled from Taveuni to that island but the people responsible for putting it on the ship had been late and missed the boat. The three guys took it upon themselves to go all the way to Taveuni to collect the propane. On the way back they were hit by bad weather. Only the boat was found. Sad.

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.

As planned we started the day with a trip in the kayak. We ended up paddling all the way around Qilaqila Island to the west of our last stop. The swell was coming in from the North East and we timed it perfectly so that high tide was when we were paddling into the swell coming over the distant reef. We got a good work out. We made one stop for a rest on a tiny beach set into a dark tree filled gap in the rocks.

We rested the remainder of the morning before going for a snorkel just before midday. It wasn’t that good. Although we saw some reasonably sized fish, the coral was sparse and the stinging jelly fish larvae were not. So we cut this one short and headed back to the boat for lunch.

After lunch we up anchored and headed round the corner to Bavatu Harbour. We had received a formal invitation to this island from the plantation owners and we wanted to meet/greet them. The harbour itself is calm and delightful. There are some interesting sandstone cliffs near us giving us clues to the geology of the place. Enormous fruit bats circle our corner of the bay and the deep whooping sounds of barking pigeons echo around us.

The plantation owners house (when they’re there) is set into the NW corner of the bay. Right now there is a splendid ketch stern moored to their jetty. A few of their relatives from Tasmania are over here to visit briefly. We met them when we went ashore to find the owners and/or their representative, Biu. They let us know one owner, David, was up in the plantation in the saddle of the hill which could be reached by climbing the nearby path.

So up we went and it certainly was a climb and a half. In the afternoon heat we were dripping with sweat by the time we reached the top. The plantation itself was a fenced off area that had been more or less cleared of undergrowth and left with palm trees which were the crop. In the field were horses and a small pony. At the far end was a dry stone wall enclosed area with a few small buildings. It really felt like we’d stepped back in time.

After asking one local where David was we crossed the field and entered the smaller enclosed area. There we met David and Biu and signed their guest book. We chatted for a while. They invited back to their home in the bay in the evening and had one of their workers show us the way to the path that took us to a lookout on the west side of the island. We walked this further trail and after another steep climb reached the lookout over the area they call the ‘Bay of Islands’. The view was awesome but being mid afternoon the sun was low down and created a lot of reflection. We decided we must go back one morning. There is an easier trail up to the plantation. We can take that.

Back at the boat we were desperately thirsty as we hadn’t planned on climbing anywhere. We gulped down some refrigerated soda water and then a slow beer. We sat back in the cockpit taking in the surroundings as the bats came out in force.

At 5:30 we headed over to the house and met David and his relatives. We took some wine and beer as gifts and shared some with them. David spent some time with me sharing information about some of the other islands in the Lau group. We have plenty of options. We were invited to dinner on the boat which was a delicious salad and spaghetti bolognaise. When we were tired we headed back to the boat across the bay. With a clear sky and no light pollution the night sky was as clear as it could be.