Fun in Fiji, Rugby and a Birthday in Paradise!

We had a wonderful week in Savusavu, the smallish town that was our entry port. The Fijians were very friendly and welcoming and we went on a couple of tours with our guide called Ashika. The first was just the three of us, and we had to hire the car for the trip. Firstly we went to the market to buy kava root. This is a crop that is used for the sevusevu ceremony, when a visitor wants to get permission form the chief of a village to be allowed to visit their local places, in our case the village and the waterfall.

The houses are mainly one storey and constructed from light wood or corrugated iron or both. Hats and sunglasses are not to be worn as a sign of respect to the chief. Apparently the chief has an official hat, but we did not see it, in fact we arrived too early for the elderly chief to get up, so her daughter stood in at the ceremony. Fijian is widely spoken and although English is the official language, we often needed translators. Our guide was from northern Indian heritage and spoke Hindi as her first language, all very interesting and very different from French Polynesia.

Once sevusevu had been observed and we had bought a few items of their handicraft we walked around the village calling “Bula” (hello) to the children and women, most menfolk were seeing to their crops of Taro, Banana, Cassava, Kava, Papaya. We then walked to and swam in a beautiful waterfall and then lolled in a hot spring pool. The first I have been in that was not sulphurous.

The kava is an intoxicant and we managed to sample it at the Coprashed marina where we were berthed. Celtic Star and crew photobombed and gate crashed the Oyster (a high end make of yacht, we previously owned one!) World Rally stopover and welcome ceremony. We were actually invited and enjoyed the event and the kava. The root is ground up and soaked in water before being served in a dish so it looked like muddy water, a bit daunting as we had been told by the health officials that Typhoid was endemic here. However, we managed to drink a few coconut dishes full and felt the mild buzz it evoked, or was that the Pina Colada?

Our second outing was with a few Oyster crews and we walked to another hot spring , this time it was at boiling point, so we didn’t get in, but a local was cooking corn on the cobs!!

Apparently Fiji is at the centre of 3 tectonic plates , hence the volcanic activity and hot springs. After viewing the bubbling pools we walked to Koka Mana chocolate plantation and were shown around their biodiverse farm before tasting several flavours of delicious chocolate, the jars show beans hrough to nibs on the left, Cocoa the cat on the right, nd a cocoa pod in front. Ginger and chilli were my favourites, but Laura and Richard preferred sea salt, so we bought a variety. Other flavours were Chai masala, 85 % or 70% cocoa, coconut and fudge!

Finally, we couldn’t leave Savusavu without seeing a local rugby game or two, and on the Saturday we caught a taxi to the local ground where we watched a provisional and club woman’s match followed by a provisional men's match. This was grass roots rugby and a huge part of Fijian culture so the games were at a high standard and very exciting to watch, but after three matches my derrière was numb! Laura is a keen rugby player and teenage Richard played at County level so they were enthralled.

Being part of the crowd was incredible, the one simple stand was a quarter full when we arrived and steadily filled to capacity of about 2000, with people sitting around the edge of the pitch as well. The crowd's chanting and singing got louder and louder and more high pitched and was deafening at times, and all without alcohol, it was very family friendly, babies to grandmothers were joining in. The formal attire is covered shoulders and knees, and the men and schoolboys wear a “sula“, which is a tailored sarong! Nice and cool!

After 5 days alongside at the Copra Shed, it was time to go to anchor, so we visited the market and stocked up on fresh food before heading down a short way down the coast to Cousteau’s resort, set up by the son of Jacques Cousteau. Jacques Cousteau had lived in Guadeloupe, in the Caribbean, and invented Self Contained Breathing Apparatus, “SCUBA” which we use for diving nowadays without a second thought. We had already been on our first fantastic dive in Fiji, the Purple Garden reef which was a soft coral garden, followed by a swim through a tunnel, we saw a leaf fish and magic coral, which changed colour when touched. The coral gardens we have dived and snorkelled on have been so colourful and varied, they are beautiful and in one bay, just when I was lamenting the lack of shoals of fish, I found myself above a huge fish ball, literally thousands of fish swimming together that was amazing to snorkel above. A quite night aboard in a beautiful anchorage was followed by my birthday breakfast and calls to home.

The phone signal and connectivity here is so much better and more reasonable priced than in French Polynesia. The 3 weeks we had spent re-commissioning the boat in FP must have been some of the most expensive we have ever had! Thankfully, Fiji is more reasonably priced. After breakfast we set off towards the next island, Taveuni, which was back up wind and back towards 180 degrees and the date line which meant I was getting younger and the next day, when we visited the onshore meridian, I had another birthday!

The resort we had sailed to was called Paradise, where better to enjoy a birthday meal and cocktail? The following morning we boarded a mini bus at 7.30 for a tour of the island. We visited the small town of Soma Soma, the Catholic Church, the date line, and the small prison, yes, there are even criminals in Paradise!

Although the 180 degrees meridian runs through Taveuni, in reality the dateline jinks around Fiji, so it is all one side of it, because it would be totally confusing to have an island and a country split into different days! However, we did put some navigational waypoints into our plotter and forgot to change East to West, but spotted the mistake as we would have been sailing across the land, yep, we really know our stuff! Mountains and tropical conditions often lead to grey cloudy days with heavy rain, so waterfalls abound in this mountainous country. We were taken to a waterfalls where the water had carved rounded chutes through the rock which made great fun slides! I don’t think Health and Safety know about this or he village children playing in the pools downstream as well.

After another 2 hours drive on a dirt road, (the only road), we arrived at the end and the last village where we had our lunch on the beach before we set off on a 2 hour walk along the coast and into the jungle to visit another astounding waterfall where we swam and frolicked! There were other falls to visit on the way back, so we didn’t arrive back at the resort until 1900 hrs, totally exhausted after an amazing day out.

We stayed in Paradise for four nights, enjoying the freshwater pool, attentive staff and dive centre as well as socialising with hotel guests and other yachties. Our next anchorage was back across the SomaSoma Straits where we snorkelled on the most amazing coral garden before joining a few other crew for sundowners on one of the big catamarans. These are so spacious, they are like apartments, excellent for a party. We decided to split off from the group and visit a tiny horseshoe shaped island where we hid from some challenging weather that was affecting a lot of the Antipodes. It’s not always plain sailing in the South Pacific, sorry to disappoint you, but it does rain in Paradise!

We went shopping in the small town of Somasoma on Taveuni before heading to our present anchorage in Namata Bay, where the very friendly Fijian Mitchell family live in a beautiful bungalow and astonishingly colourful garden on the beach.

Their siblings, nieces and nephews live close by, but their own children have grown up and left home. We presented the sevusevu, which is a bit like a camping fee for using their bay to anchor in, and they welcomed us to stay as long as we liked. Although the kava is presented, the islanders all grow and dry their own as well.

We were the only boat in the bay so intended to stay for a couple of nights before heading south to the Lau group to explore, but we are waiting for the weather to settle down. We have a strong wind and rough seas warning and have experienced heavy rain and squalls last night and this morning with the wind "boxing the compass" making the anchor catch and jerk on coral heads. We refer to this as a Fakarava moment, referring to when two yachts went up the reef next to us in a terrifying localised weather phenomenon June 2019! Thankfully, our anchor is holding and we are taking the opportunity to plan our next few weeks cruising in Fiji, before Laura flies home.