Nov 2-Nov 9, 2014, Musket Cove, Fiji Week 4
We have been in Fiji 4 weeks. It is time to get out of the marina and see some of the islands before the hurricanes start. The weather has been nasty the last several days but on Sunday it settles down. Monday morning we are off and clear the channel smoothly even though it is almost low tide. We have never found a good cruising guide to Fiji and Alan is worried about reef and atolls so we decide that for this first venture we will go to Muscat Cove. It is only 10 miles away and everyone has been telling us about how wonderful it is. Although the weather predicted 15-20 knot winds and moderate to rough seas, it is flat calm and we motor all the way.. I am guessing this is what it is like in the Caribbean, islands and reefs everywhere, just a short sail from each other.
The dress code in Fiji calls for skirts over the knee and covered shoulders for women. Apparently long pants don’t qualify It must be a skirt. Men wear a wrap skirt with a short sleeved dress shirt. This mostly applies to the outer islands but even in the main cities you seldom see the older women in pants and sleeveless tops. So in anticipation of getting to the outer islands, I have reconfigured my closet with matching t-shirts and skirts and bought a skirt for Alan. We have also laid in a supply of Kava roots. The villages own not only the land but also the water around the island. Whenever you anchor you are expected to dress properly, dingy ashore and present the chief with a bundle of kava and then attend the kava drinking ceremony. Then you are free to swim, sail and explore in their waters, not before.
Having said that, Musket Cove is a resort and so the rules don’t apply. I put on a bikini and grab a sarong and I am good to go. This turns out to be my week in Paradise. The end of the season regatta was a few weeks ago and the resort is quiet. There are a dozen boats in the bay, including old friends heading for New Zealand. The weather is lovely. Alan joins the yacht club for $15 for a lifetime membership. The only requirement is that you must have sailed here from a foreign country. The yacht club consists of an office on the wharf and a bure bar on a little island just off the beach. Along with a well stocked bar, it has coin operated barbecues. Buy your meat from the little store on the beach and drop a coin in the slot. the staff provides utensils and even does the clean up. Eat at one of their tables and then curl upon the beach front couches and watch the sunset. Like I said, paradise.
I go for 3 snorkel trips while Alan lazes around the boat and does odd jobs. The dive boat takes us out to a reef and we all jump in and drift for an hour until we get to the boat and climb back in. The snorkeling is wonderful. Finally i get to see brightly colored living coral. Up to now it has almost all been while, grey or brown. Here it is vivid fuchsia, blue, red, green in all kinds of fabulous shapes. The fish are equally colorful.. I am by myself and can just drift quietly along. The fish come right up to see who/what I am. There is one kind that has black and while tails in a v shape that are particularly persistent. I finally realize that my flippers are colored the same way as their tails. They must think i am a big fish.
One afternoon I join a trip to the village where most of the resort workers live. It is obviously set up for the gueats from the 2 resorts on the siland but it is a very sad experience. We are treated to a kava ceremony and then an extended request to donate money to the poor villagers. Our guide points out one traditional building that has stood for 20 years through numerous storms and then points to the sorry modern buildings and tells us that seven of them were lost in storms just last year. When asked why they don't go back to the old way of building he replies that it is too much trouble and that most of the big trees they need for posts have been cut down. The rest of the visit is an opportunity to but cheap trinkets from the village women. About 20 tables have been set up along the beach but none of the items for sale are made here. They are bought on the mainland and brought over to sell..Poor quality and poor design.
We decide to join in the hotel feast night. Alan is always up for a lavish spread and we certainly got onu moneys worth on this one.; pig roasted on a spit with a lavish spread of local foods. There are several salads, including ne of ferns with coconut and lime dressing, roasted eggplant, taro, rice, etc for sides and fresh fruit and several coconut deserts. After dinner we are treated to a dance presentation. Once again it is similar to but different from anything else that we have seen . It is mostly the men doing the dancing this time. When the women join in they are much more restrained. I have heard that the Hawaiian hula was originally a men's dance and I can see evidence of it here. The men used much more hip movement than I have seen before but not the knee shaking that was so common in the societies. I would love to see a comparison of the dances from each island. It would be fascinating to see the evolution as populations spread throughout the Pacific and then were impacted and suppressed by the missionaries. Fiji is one of the oldest cultures and Hawaii is the newest.
Saturday the weather changed and the rain came pouring down all night long. Alan got up 3 times to bail out the dingy so that it would not sink while I slept like a log. I find the sound of rain on the roof very soothing. The rain finally let up the next afternoon but then the wind kicked in and blew for another 24 hours. So we had two lazy days on board. Since we were safely anchored and not trying to sail through it we could just read or sew or work on odd jobs. I have a lovely piece of jeweled fabric that I have had for years that I have decided to make into an elegant outfit for New Years Eve. Now I just have to find somewhere to wear it.
With the storm blown out, we treat ourselves to a final barbecue on the beach before we head back to Vuda Marina. Most of the cruisers are gone or on the way out and we are now meeting the people who stay here year round. The only immigration requirements are that you leave every four months. Not hard to do since flights from here to other island countries are just a few hundred dollars. They are planning a Thanksgiving potluck with at least three turkeys already ordered and we are encouraged to come. Unless we get a better offer in our marina or the weather is nasty, I expect we will be there.
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Fiji Week 3
Oct 26-Nov 1, 2014 Vuda Point, Week 3
The laundry is finally all done and everything sorted and stowed again. Cupboards have been cleaned out and repacked and we are settling into living a lazy life here. We hope to get out to the islands during the next several weeks while the weather is still good We have been studying charts and asking other cruisers for waypoints.
Alan has been working on various odd jobs, most importantly the sink. The drain pipe rusted through allowing the dishwater to pour onto the floor. A long day of walking from store to store in Lautoka finally produced the perfect replacement and one day later we were back in business.
We rented a car one day to explore Nadi, the next bigger town and Port Denaru. It was fun go go exploring but in the end we decided that we have no real need to go back there. There were more stores but they stocked just the same things that I can get in Lautoka. Denarau is interesting. We thought it would have lots of marine supply stores and places to get work done cheaply. Instead it turned out to be mostly tour boats, tourist shops, restaurants and hotels. All of the marine shops there also have representatives in our marina. This will make life much easier, since we won’t have to rent a car or take a 2 hour bus ride to arrange for work to be done.
My big event of the week was gardening. There are 2 nursery areas here, one behind the kitchen and one right by our slip. The marina offers fresh fruit in return for help gardening so I decided to take them up on it. I traced down the gardener to see what needed to be done since I did not want to just start pulling weeks or planting vegetables on my own. He was amazed and delighted with my offer and suggested I take over the kitchen garden. Someone had laid it out, covered it with shade cloth and built a number of raised beds and then given up. At this point it consists of about 50 pepper plants, all infested with white fly, and nothing else. My first day was spent weeding and spraying with soapy water to knock down the whiteflies. Next I tracked down the marina manager to make sure I had his approval before going further. He not only approved but took me shopping to buy herbs; pots and pots of basil, thyme, oregano, dill, chives, rosemary, parsley. I am in heaven. The rest of the week has been spent planting, repotting, and spraying the whiteflies. I am keeping one plant of each herd in the nursery by the boat where I can get to them quickly. I have already been able to run out and get fresh oregano for spagetti sauce and chives for scrambled eggs. I found tomato and eggplant plants in the market so they have been added. The marina workers have become used to seeing me puttering around the garden and they area quite intrigued by what I am doing. I think i have things under control so that they will be OK while we go sailing next week.
The marina put on a halloween party and it was amazing to see what people came up with on short notice from their very limited boat stores. The day after, 2 of the cruisers hosted a pig roast potluck. the pig was buried in the village up the road at about 3 am and by mid afternoon when it was brought back it was wonderfully tender and delicious. We invited the whole star and polished off the entire pig. Just as we all started eating the skye opened and we got our first real downpour of the season, good for my garden.
Now just to get everything packed away again so we can go sailing.
The laundry is finally all done and everything sorted and stowed again. Cupboards have been cleaned out and repacked and we are settling into living a lazy life here. We hope to get out to the islands during the next several weeks while the weather is still good We have been studying charts and asking other cruisers for waypoints.
Alan has been working on various odd jobs, most importantly the sink. The drain pipe rusted through allowing the dishwater to pour onto the floor. A long day of walking from store to store in Lautoka finally produced the perfect replacement and one day later we were back in business.
We rented a car one day to explore Nadi, the next bigger town and Port Denaru. It was fun go go exploring but in the end we decided that we have no real need to go back there. There were more stores but they stocked just the same things that I can get in Lautoka. Denarau is interesting. We thought it would have lots of marine supply stores and places to get work done cheaply. Instead it turned out to be mostly tour boats, tourist shops, restaurants and hotels. All of the marine shops there also have representatives in our marina. This will make life much easier, since we won’t have to rent a car or take a 2 hour bus ride to arrange for work to be done.
My big event of the week was gardening. There are 2 nursery areas here, one behind the kitchen and one right by our slip. The marina offers fresh fruit in return for help gardening so I decided to take them up on it. I traced down the gardener to see what needed to be done since I did not want to just start pulling weeks or planting vegetables on my own. He was amazed and delighted with my offer and suggested I take over the kitchen garden. Someone had laid it out, covered it with shade cloth and built a number of raised beds and then given up. At this point it consists of about 50 pepper plants, all infested with white fly, and nothing else. My first day was spent weeding and spraying with soapy water to knock down the whiteflies. Next I tracked down the marina manager to make sure I had his approval before going further. He not only approved but took me shopping to buy herbs; pots and pots of basil, thyme, oregano, dill, chives, rosemary, parsley. I am in heaven. The rest of the week has been spent planting, repotting, and spraying the whiteflies. I am keeping one plant of each herd in the nursery by the boat where I can get to them quickly. I have already been able to run out and get fresh oregano for spagetti sauce and chives for scrambled eggs. I found tomato and eggplant plants in the market so they have been added. The marina workers have become used to seeing me puttering around the garden and they area quite intrigued by what I am doing. I think i have things under control so that they will be OK while we go sailing next week.
The marina put on a halloween party and it was amazing to see what people came up with on short notice from their very limited boat stores. The day after, 2 of the cruisers hosted a pig roast potluck. the pig was buried in the village up the road at about 3 am and by mid afternoon when it was brought back it was wonderfully tender and delicious. We invited the whole star and polished off the entire pig. Just as we all started eating the skye opened and we got our first real downpour of the season, good for my garden.
Now just to get everything packed away again so we can go sailing.
Fiji week 2
Oct 20-26, 2014, Vuda Point, Fiji, Week 2
The big boat project tis week is the electrical system. We have had trouble with the batteries not holding a charge ever since Mexico. Almost everything electrical has shorted out or stopped working because of exposure to water. You would think things for boats would be really waterproof and immune to salt water corrosion, but NO. All of the solar stopped working due to messed up wiring. There is a tangle of wiring inside the food cupboard (which leaks) and several of the wires don't go any place but Alan does not want to just take them out until he figures where everything is supposed to go. And on our last day out we fried the charging system.
Once we got a electrician in to look at things we made an interesting discovery. The new batteries which we bought in Tahiti were supposed to be sealed batteries, which means that you don’t need to be sure they have water in them to work. When he looked at them he realized that they were actually lead acid and completely dry. It is amazing that they worked at all, and good that we do not rely on all of those fancy electronic systems that most newer boats have. The batteries were removed and taken off to be tested, with not much hope of success. Sure enough they were dead. Several days later the proper new batteries were delivered and installed and we also got a step down inverter so that we can plug into shore power any place in the world. (one more thing to store)
This is Diwali week so I decided to treat myself to a day on the town while Alan messed with batteries. On the bus all of the school kids were dressed to the max in their Diwali clothes, sparkling and bejeweled, beautiful saris for the little girls and lovely embroidered shirts for the boys. I was sorry I had not brought my camera. Downtown the stores are full of fireworks, lights and wonderful clothes, everything on sale. First order of business is a spa treatment, manicure, pedicure, facial, etc. After so long on the boat my body needs to be pampered. It was lovely. 2.5 hours of self indulgent bliss. Feeling refreshed and ready, i headed for the shops to find myself a sari. I an not willing to pay $200-$300 but hopefully I can find one on sale. It is silly since I will probably not wear it much and have nowhere to put it on the boat but they are so lovely I just can’t resist. After several delightful hours of wandering from shop to shop I finally spot the perfect one on a sale table, black with red and gold trim. Perfect and only $50 Fijian that is $30US. The sales girl showed me how to wrap it and as soon as i got home I stitched the pleats in place and add a button to hold it. No wardrobe malfunction for me. Another store provided bargain jewelry and stick on sparkly tattoos. and then on more outfit also on sale. This one a tunic and pants. Feeling great, I actually managed to find the right bus back to the Marina. The bus station is a chaotic mess with dozens of busses coming and going, engines running, horns honking and people shouting. Everyone I asked gave me different information but eventually I found the right bus.
Back at the Marina, boats are coming and going. Little by little those that are heading for New Zealand for the summer are taking off and those that are going to stay are settling in. We are saying good bye to lots of old friends. The marina and the hotel next door put on a wonderful fireworks show for Diwali and the restaurant prepared a special menu. A few more odd jobs are getting done on the boat. Mostly we are just relaxing. This is the first time since we left home that we have not had deadlines and projects.
The big boat project tis week is the electrical system. We have had trouble with the batteries not holding a charge ever since Mexico. Almost everything electrical has shorted out or stopped working because of exposure to water. You would think things for boats would be really waterproof and immune to salt water corrosion, but NO. All of the solar stopped working due to messed up wiring. There is a tangle of wiring inside the food cupboard (which leaks) and several of the wires don't go any place but Alan does not want to just take them out until he figures where everything is supposed to go. And on our last day out we fried the charging system.
Once we got a electrician in to look at things we made an interesting discovery. The new batteries which we bought in Tahiti were supposed to be sealed batteries, which means that you don’t need to be sure they have water in them to work. When he looked at them he realized that they were actually lead acid and completely dry. It is amazing that they worked at all, and good that we do not rely on all of those fancy electronic systems that most newer boats have. The batteries were removed and taken off to be tested, with not much hope of success. Sure enough they were dead. Several days later the proper new batteries were delivered and installed and we also got a step down inverter so that we can plug into shore power any place in the world. (one more thing to store)
This is Diwali week so I decided to treat myself to a day on the town while Alan messed with batteries. On the bus all of the school kids were dressed to the max in their Diwali clothes, sparkling and bejeweled, beautiful saris for the little girls and lovely embroidered shirts for the boys. I was sorry I had not brought my camera. Downtown the stores are full of fireworks, lights and wonderful clothes, everything on sale. First order of business is a spa treatment, manicure, pedicure, facial, etc. After so long on the boat my body needs to be pampered. It was lovely. 2.5 hours of self indulgent bliss. Feeling refreshed and ready, i headed for the shops to find myself a sari. I an not willing to pay $200-$300 but hopefully I can find one on sale. It is silly since I will probably not wear it much and have nowhere to put it on the boat but they are so lovely I just can’t resist. After several delightful hours of wandering from shop to shop I finally spot the perfect one on a sale table, black with red and gold trim. Perfect and only $50 Fijian that is $30US. The sales girl showed me how to wrap it and as soon as i got home I stitched the pleats in place and add a button to hold it. No wardrobe malfunction for me. Another store provided bargain jewelry and stick on sparkly tattoos. and then on more outfit also on sale. This one a tunic and pants. Feeling great, I actually managed to find the right bus back to the Marina. The bus station is a chaotic mess with dozens of busses coming and going, engines running, horns honking and people shouting. Everyone I asked gave me different information but eventually I found the right bus.
Back at the Marina, boats are coming and going. Little by little those that are heading for New Zealand for the summer are taking off and those that are going to stay are settling in. We are saying good bye to lots of old friends. The marina and the hotel next door put on a wonderful fireworks show for Diwali and the restaurant prepared a special menu. A few more odd jobs are getting done on the boat. Mostly we are just relaxing. This is the first time since we left home that we have not had deadlines and projects.
Tonga again
Sept 4-Oct 4, 2014 Tonga
Lovely, lazy, laid back Tonga. We intended to stay for a week and have been here a month without doing much of anything. Tonga is hundreds of small islands with about 70 anchorages to try. Gone are the spectacular peaks of the Marquesas and the Societies and the flat coral atolls of the Tuamotos. Tonga is low, flat hills that go straight down into the ocean floor Anchoring is done very close to shore or not at all. Luckily most of the best spots have mooring balls. One of the tour complains has produced a map with all the anchorages numbered. so now everyone refers to them by the numbers rather than the names. This is actually a good thing for cruisers once you get your hands on a map because the names are very difficult to pronounce or remember. One of the nicest is hosted by a former cruising couple who have build themselves a house boat/art gallery and shop and host potlucks on the beach every Saturday night.
We got the outboard and generator fixed. The problem was old gas which had varnished the spark plugs. We had had that gas since Mexico, almost 6 mos ago. Time to toss it out and buy new.
Decided not to bother to get the main sail patched here. We will wait until Fiji where we may have a new one made, since this one is 30 years old and keeps tearing. We almost never use the main sail any more anyway. We mostly use jib and mizzen and if the wind is right the mizzen staysail. We have double reefed it so we can use it if we need to.
A man came by in a rowboat selling bread. After an exchange of pleasantries and numerous queries as to what else he could provide he asked if we would like to go to church on Sunday. He emphasized that it was the Wesleyan Church which is the Kings church. Since Tonga is known for the wonderful acapella singing in the churches we accepted eagerly. This offer was augmented by an invitation to lunch (for a small fee) and a promise of real Tongan beer. He claimed that all of the local beer was actually made in New Zealand. Bright and early Sunday morning we were collected from the dock and walked through the town and up the hill to his house Where Alan was dressed in the traditional tepee and ta’ovaala. Since I had worn a long skirt I was deemed OK. Once dressed, we were taken to the church and escorted into a large meeting hall where about a dozen men were seated on mats in a circle. Room was made for us and we were introduced. Among the men were the village chief, the preacher and a high school math teacher. There was long, quiet discussion among the men and eventually kava was passed around. As far as I could tell, this was a weekly meeting of the elders to discuss village matters. Most of the men pulled out pouches and rolled cigarettes. Everything was done very quietly and deliberately. After another round of kava the bell rang for church and the meeting broke up. (The real Tongan beer that we had been promised was the kava)
It was women’s day in church and women ran the whole service, including the sermon. Several of the speakers were in tears. Obviously we did not understand a word but when I asked afterward why they were crying I was told that it was because they were so moved. I was captivated by the variety of kaikai and ta’ovala. the younger girls all had kaikai that matched their dresses. Even the little boys wore Ta’ovala Lunch back at the house was interesting. The family was very poor. There was no furniture but there were several pieces of electronic equipment, speakers, tape decks, amplifiers, even a TV. I am sure none of them worked. There were piles of trash around and a pig wandering the yard. Several cats wandered in and out trying to snatch food off the plates. Ou host and his wife sat on mats on the floor with us and we were served by his daughter who ate in the kitchen with her husband and children. The stove was a wood fire. Despite all, the food was very good, fried fish, taro, pork, stewed spinach, papaya in coconut milk for dessert.
I went to the Catholic church the next week where it turned out to be confirmation Sunday. The church was packed and and people were sitting all around outside. There must have been 200 young people confirmed. Religion is very important to the Tongans. It is illegal to do any work on Sunday. The day is spent going to church or eating with friends. Most of the time in Tonga we were moored right in front of the Catholic church. The sound of Tonga will always be the ringing of the church bells. The sound of French Polynesia is roosters.
Lovely, lazy, laid back Tonga. We intended to stay for a week and have been here a month without doing much of anything. Tonga is hundreds of small islands with about 70 anchorages to try. Gone are the spectacular peaks of the Marquesas and the Societies and the flat coral atolls of the Tuamotos. Tonga is low, flat hills that go straight down into the ocean floor Anchoring is done very close to shore or not at all. Luckily most of the best spots have mooring balls. One of the tour complains has produced a map with all the anchorages numbered. so now everyone refers to them by the numbers rather than the names. This is actually a good thing for cruisers once you get your hands on a map because the names are very difficult to pronounce or remember. One of the nicest is hosted by a former cruising couple who have build themselves a house boat/art gallery and shop and host potlucks on the beach every Saturday night.
We got the outboard and generator fixed. The problem was old gas which had varnished the spark plugs. We had had that gas since Mexico, almost 6 mos ago. Time to toss it out and buy new.
Decided not to bother to get the main sail patched here. We will wait until Fiji where we may have a new one made, since this one is 30 years old and keeps tearing. We almost never use the main sail any more anyway. We mostly use jib and mizzen and if the wind is right the mizzen staysail. We have double reefed it so we can use it if we need to.
A man came by in a rowboat selling bread. After an exchange of pleasantries and numerous queries as to what else he could provide he asked if we would like to go to church on Sunday. He emphasized that it was the Wesleyan Church which is the Kings church. Since Tonga is known for the wonderful acapella singing in the churches we accepted eagerly. This offer was augmented by an invitation to lunch (for a small fee) and a promise of real Tongan beer. He claimed that all of the local beer was actually made in New Zealand. Bright and early Sunday morning we were collected from the dock and walked through the town and up the hill to his house Where Alan was dressed in the traditional tepee and ta’ovaala. Since I had worn a long skirt I was deemed OK. Once dressed, we were taken to the church and escorted into a large meeting hall where about a dozen men were seated on mats in a circle. Room was made for us and we were introduced. Among the men were the village chief, the preacher and a high school math teacher. There was long, quiet discussion among the men and eventually kava was passed around. As far as I could tell, this was a weekly meeting of the elders to discuss village matters. Most of the men pulled out pouches and rolled cigarettes. Everything was done very quietly and deliberately. After another round of kava the bell rang for church and the meeting broke up. (The real Tongan beer that we had been promised was the kava)
It was women’s day in church and women ran the whole service, including the sermon. Several of the speakers were in tears. Obviously we did not understand a word but when I asked afterward why they were crying I was told that it was because they were so moved. I was captivated by the variety of kaikai and ta’ovala. the younger girls all had kaikai that matched their dresses. Even the little boys wore Ta’ovala Lunch back at the house was interesting. The family was very poor. There was no furniture but there were several pieces of electronic equipment, speakers, tape decks, amplifiers, even a TV. I am sure none of them worked. There were piles of trash around and a pig wandering the yard. Several cats wandered in and out trying to snatch food off the plates. Ou host and his wife sat on mats on the floor with us and we were served by his daughter who ate in the kitchen with her husband and children. The stove was a wood fire. Despite all, the food was very good, fried fish, taro, pork, stewed spinach, papaya in coconut milk for dessert.
I went to the Catholic church the next week where it turned out to be confirmation Sunday. The church was packed and and people were sitting all around outside. There must have been 200 young people confirmed. Religion is very important to the Tongans. It is illegal to do any work on Sunday. The day is spent going to church or eating with friends. Most of the time in Tonga we were moored right in front of the Catholic church. The sound of Tonga will always be the ringing of the church bells. The sound of French Polynesia is roosters.
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