The last time I wrote from Also Island I explained a bit about some of the cultural aspects of Fiji that have affected the economy. I continue to learn about that, but the last week has been full of activity with other cruising sailors as well as local Fijians, so I'll tell you a bit about those things.
I mentioned in the last 2 messages that Red Sky had turned up, with American sailors Steve and Carol on board. Then New Zealanders Laurie and Anna came in on a nice old wood planked 46-foot Salthouse designed boat, Loran-C. Most surprising was the late night arrival of Sea Eagle 2, a steel sloop from Whangarai NZ, with Ross and Pauline and their boy Hunter. That was the first time I realized how powerful the new electronic navigation systems really are. They ended up late arriving at the pass off Thawaro, but having been through it before, they had a reliable track on their Maxsea navigation chart, so decided it was better to get in and anchor rather than sit off the reef in gusty, strong winds. At 11:00 at night they tracked right thru the coral and put the hook down 100 meters from us.
We all got to know each other a bit as we worked together at a near frantic pace to put up the new antenna for Jim, so he wouldn't miss doing the Rag of the Air radio net for the South Pacific cruising sailors. That went quite well. Then the next morning, Marama ni Wasaliwa (Mother of the Ocean), the supply boat for Cikobia, came in with a propeller shaft problem.
Jim had spent most of a year off and on doing a refit on her, stopping when the funding would suddenly dry up, and even going so far once as to take her out of the shop and put her on a mooring. Once everyone was convinced that he wasn't going to finish it on credit, just to get it out of the shop, they came up with enough cash to get it running again. But about $50,000 was allocated by the Ministry of Transportation for the refit and by the time money got to Also Island, there was only half that available. Another job for the corruption probe committee. So, the shaft and rudder were left patched up rather than properly redesigned and refitted. Now that has come home to roost. And, despite Jim's strong warning that the new engine MUST come in for an oil and filter change at 200 hours running time, this is the first time she's been back, with about 230 hours on the hour meter. Looks as if they'll once again run it until it won't go before any service is done. Nonetheless, all of us have had a hand in getting her beached, blocked up, drive train parts pulled out and assessed, and repairs started both inside and out of the hull. Jim made a flying trip to Labasa for bearings and machine work, while we and the Fijian staff at the Island kept an eye on things here. He left Sunday afternoon, to return late Monday.
Laurie and Anna had a schedule to keep, and had done a list of nice things for all of us here, so they headed out Monday morning. But not before he had helped me get my GPS receiver to interface with my computer, to let us see at a glance where the boat is relative to the charted waters. That is going to make life among the coral reefs a LOT easier for us.
Karen and I have been promising ourselves for weeks that we'd get over to Qarnivai for a look around, and meet the people there. I met the chief from there a couple weeks ago when he visited the Island, and he invited us to come over. His name is John, pronounced "Shonie". They soften the "J" to an "sh", and add the obligatory end syllable for Fijians (spoon is pronounced as spoonie). John is almost 70 years old now, but is of the opinion that what's wrong with Fiji right now is mostly Fijian customs and the Methodist Church. He thinks it's time the villagers stopped drinking so much kava, started planning ahead a bit, and quit giving so much of their meager income to the church. There are churches in every village, church conferences several times a year, and ever expanding modern offices in the cities, while not all Fijians have houses, over half don't have running water in their houses, very few have a toilet in the house (villages have one or more communal toilets), and half the Udu Peninsula has no access to telephone, no reliable road system, and one clinic that is as much as 2 hours travel from many villages. Steve and Carol were in need of exercise and an outlook too, so on Monday morning with things ticking over slowly at Also Island, we decided to go to Qarnivai, and walk down the track to see if we could find John's place.
It's still blowing pretty hard here, so the dinghy ride across the bay was challenging and damp, but we were promptly met by a nice couple who welcomed us and showed us around. Turns out the whole village is one extended family, and our hostess, Miriama is John's younger sister. Her husband, Louis invited us to follow him down the track toward the "main road", visit a few people, see the farm. We accepted his offer, and spent several hours walking the track to where it meets the logging spur road, near where the bus comes by twice daily. John's brother William and his family live there at the junction. He says the traffic on the road amounts to about one 4-wheel drive a week going to Langie, where the clinic is. That is, when the road isn't washed out somewhere. We had opted to travel Fijian style, barefoot, so decided not to walk up the road to the bus stop, as there is some fairly harsh gravel in the clay of the road surface. Had a relaxing rest and talk with William's family on their well kept lawn, under the mango trees, before heading back. About halfway back, we made a detour, thru the bush to John's farm, and spent a delightful hour sitting with 3 generations of his family, drinking coconuts, talking politics and religion. He offered us the use of his punt (flat bottomed boat) to take the river back to the village if we were tired, but we opted to hike back out along the shortcut thru the woods, crossing two pretty creeks, back to the track into the village.
A half dozen of the villagers and their children came to Miriama's house to sit on the porch with us and talk about Fiji, New Zealand, and the USA. We had sandwiches and mixed nuts with us, which we shared with them, and Karen took over holding the only new baby in the village, a pretty, happy little girl a few weeks old. After an hour of visiting, with the tide high, they helped us get our dinghies launched and we headed back across the bay with spray flying and boats leaping up and down. As we neared our anchorage, we saw Jim's runabout round the point a mile out, throwing a cloud of white as it bashed thru the waves. As we got to Sequester we heard him on the radio, asking for someone to bring him a little more fuel. Pauline got the gas can and dinghy from Sea Eagle and was away, halfway out to him, when his motor stopped. Bucking the wind coming back, he'd burned 20% more fuel than usual.
I went in to the Island to see how the parts search had gone, and found a surprise there for me. When I first arrived, I'd found a broken guitar there, left by Ma'am Khatta's son to see if it could be repaired. It had been there nearly a year. In a week of intermittent little jobs on it, I had it ready to go, and he came by and picked it up. The word has now spread. The wrecks of two guitars had been dropped off at the Island on Monday, to see if I could rebuild the bodies. They're pretty rough, but with some glue, fiberglass and a bit of wood, I think we can squeeze a couple more years from them. No lack of projects here. Ted
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