Kadavu (Fiji)

We have spent the last couple weeks in the Great Astrolabe Reef area, which didn't make the cut during last season's visit to Fiji. The land is much greener here than up north. There is no cyclone damage and plentiful water. The main island of Kadavu, owing to its moist, well draining soil, is the source of the best yaqona (kava) in Fiji. It's a major cash crop for the folks here and the well kempt villages reflect the added income it provides.  As with most of the traditional villages in Fiji, visitors (including boats) are required to present an offering of yaqona to the village chief in a ceremony called sevusevu. Ironically, the yaqona we are bringing to our recent sevusevus may have been grown in Kadavu, shipped and sold to merchants in bigger towns, bought by us, only to be sailed back and returned to villages in Kadavu. It seems like cutting out the middleman could help both the producers and the cruisers, but it's tradition.

We also have some mangy looking yaqona that we picked up in the Lau group. We haven't used it here in Kandavu as Matt made the point that bring it as a gift would be akin to visiting a First Growth chateaux in Bordeaux and presenting a gift of a boxed Chilean red wine.

After the month in the Lau helping out with Sea Mercy, it's nice to get back to 'normal cruising', which means basically having no set schedule, and enjoying beaches and remote areas. Cell phone reception is no longer a given and we haven't seen a store for weeks.

Boat school and Perry keep us busy, as usual. The other day, our port engine sputtered to a stop as we weaved our way around coral heads. Matt bled some air out of the Racor filters and the engine fired up again. Later investigation revealed that the Racor bowl had somehow deformed itself into a pentagonal shape (it's usually round), despite being nowhere near a heat source. Near as we can figure it must have been a bad production run of plastic that never fully hardened.

We have done some snorkeling, including swimming with some good sized manta rays. Unfortunately, the weather has been of the shiver-producing variety: cool, cloudy and windy. It's more comfortable for sleeping and sitting around, but not so much for swimming.

Meg at Women's Day on Ono

 

This sea snake wandered onto our transom.

 

Our new friend Va near Ucuna Naigoro

Perry and Amelie IV at the anchorage in Ucuna Naigoro

 

Bright Lights, Big City

Perry as seen from a bay near Avea in the Lau Group

Savasavu has a population of a little over 3,000 people. To put that number into (somewhat morbid) perspective, almost as many people have been shot this year in our hometown of Chicago (and some people think our lifestyle is dangerous!). But after five weeks in the remote islands of the Lau Group, Savusavu feels like a bustling metropolis to us.

Another shot of the same bay near Avea. Most of our days
in Savusavu have been rainy and much less scenic than this.

We got to Savusavu on June 30 and spent more in that one day than we did the entire preceding 29 days in the Lau. A comparison of May and June's numbers illustrates just how little money you can spend when you have almost no way to spend it.

A week in the 'big city' has provided ample opportunity to part with our cash, despite the very favorable exchange rate and the relatively inexpensive food. Besides buying lots of provisions (Fiji may be the last place we can stock up on many items for awhile), we have been fixing things that need fixing: sewing a separated stack pack seam, having the broken stop solenoid on our engine welded (so we can stop the engine with the button, rather than going down to the engine dungeon and sticking our fingers into areas with lots of moving parts), having a leaky high-pressure hose for our water maker re-crimped, replacing a leaky water filter, calibrating the secondary autopilot, and replacing the motor on an electric toilet (that would be the third and final electric toilet motor on the boat that we replaced after re-splashing). That last task was a beauty that required Matt to kneel on an injured knee and inadvertently place his face in some stray pee left behind the seat (I won't say by who but it is someone who stands up to pee). I thought it was funny; Matt, not so much.

Our iPhone 4, which Matt describes as older and more valued than our children (therapy is in their future), had something akin to a stroke and entered a vegetative state--still alive, but not performing any useful functions. Radical surgery (also known as opening the case and poking at wires and connections) failed, so we removed its feeding tube and it slowly withered to a 0% battery. As it was our primary method of accessing the internet in most countries, we needed to replace it. We are having a new one (meaning a new iPhone 4, because we already have a waterproof case for it and because 10 year old technology is super cheap on eBay!) as well as a castoff phone from my Uncle Gideon sent to us in Fiji by my parents. Some things are simpler when you're cruising but many others are not.

Matt also visited the doctor (the pricey private doctor- costing all of $10 USD) in Savasavu due to an infection in his knee that seems to have been triggered by all the kneeling he did while helping to build the rowboat in Boitaci. While we were still in the Lau, his knee ballooned to the size of a grapefruit, got really warm, and was agonizingly painful. We were able to get advice from Pete, our doctor friend, and my brother John, also a doctor, and chose a couple of antibiotics from the selection we carry on board. The doctor in Savusavu added a third antibiotic to the mix and the infection seems to have subsided. No need to amputate, which is somewhat disappointing to Mark on Amelie IV, who had his Sawzall ready. 

We're off to Kadavu and Astrolabe for a week or three and may not have internet for awhile.