sv evi

Small captain checking out the anchorage.

I find that wherever we go, the people really make the place. We remember places as beautiful and special mostly because of the friends that we made in those places.

On Rabi Island the people are Banaban. They speak Banaban (and English), not so much Fijian. They were given Rabi island to settle on after WWII because phosphate mining on their home island made it inhabitable. I found it strange to have to learn a new language again (only got as far as hello, thank you and goodbye), and I couldn’t connect as easily to folks as I can to Fijians. Mind you, my Fijian is still pretty rudimentary. It’s very good for a cruiser, and they always are surprised by how well I speak; but when two Fijians speak to each other they speak so quickly that I hardly understand anything. Which is a bit disappointing to me, after all this time here.

This fisherman, a pastor, came bearing gifts of eggplant & coconut.

The outrigger canoes they sail & paddle on Rabi Island.

We made friends in Catherine Bay because Riki gave a barracuda he caught to Tema, a fisherman. Tema then invited us to come over to his house. We paddled through a narrow passageway between the mangroves and found his home. He and his wife Ruthie were so welcoming, cutting us fresh coconut to drink, and sending us home with a sack-full of papaya, bananas, and coconuts. They also invited us back the next day for lunch. We saw that Ruthie had books on her shelf, which we had never seen before in a Fijian home, and so we proceeded to unload lots of our extra books on her.

The tide went out while we were there, so we had to walk in the sticky mangrove mud for aways. Well, I walked a short bit, then Tema pulled Tomu & I out in the dinghy. Riki walked a long way.

Next we sailed to Albert Cove, a beautiful beach on the north of Rabi Island, that has just one family staying there in a small home. We looked for Pita & Mateo, the folks we met last time, but they had moved to a plantation inland. I am always surprised by how much Fijians travel. We’ll go back to a village hoping to visit the same people, only to find they are in Suva, or Taviuni, or wherever else. But we made new friends, the most special being Toto.

Toto walked with us on an hour hike to Smiley Bay. He carried Tomu most of the way on his shoulders, with a cane knife in one hand to cut the vegetation back, barefoot. And he left me in the dust in my sneakers & light backpack! I was so impressed. He taught us that some vines have water you can drink, while others have poison inside. He really loved Tomu…he would hold him up to the trees so Tomu could hug them as if climbing them; he got him a cacao fruit; he carved Tomu’s name in a tree.

Later Toto insisted on catching a lobster as a gift for Tomu. He borrowed Riki’s fins and spear and went out in the night. In the morning, as soon as he saw Tomu on deck, he paddled out with his catch: no lobster, but a big crab. He told us to call him when we had it cooked and he’d come back to clean it. He gave Tomu the choice piece, the big claw, and we had a delicious crab-in-melted-butter breakfast. Tomu gobbled it up!

While in Albert Cove Riki helped fix Toto’s chainsaw, and helped fix a fiber boat’s engine. We also gave a lot of food to those guys (flour, rice, tinfish, tea, etc.)

Current favorite book.

Yum, leftover rice!

When we left Toto carried Tomu out to the dinghy & threw him in the air several times. As we pulled up the anchor, he bellowed out “TOMASI!”. Super sweet. I teared up, of course. As I said, the people really make the places special.