sv evi

Fiji is a special place for Riki and I — we met in Savusavu in July 2012. We also cruised in Fiji for 10 months on Riki’s old boat, SV Guava Jelly, in 2014-2015 when Tomu was a baby. It feels like a treat to come back to Fiji. The people are so kind here. Often, walking down the street in Savusavu, I will make eye contact with someone, and they will smile and say “Bula”. The proprietor at the Chinese restaurant in town remembered me after 9 years! She said, “you used to come here a long time ago with your baby”. I was astounded that she remembered my face, as I just stopped in without the rest of the family.

That said, our first 10 days in Savusavu were a little bit tough. We were all adjusting to the climate — so hot and humid that sweat drips down your face when you are just chilling on the boat. And to the bug bites — the kids’ legs were covered in them. In Savusavu the bay is pretty dirty, so we didn’t swim at all, and there was often no wind. I felt like I needed to work up my courage every time I needed to go anywhere to do anything b/c it was so hot. We took about 5 cold showers a day at the marina. Oh yeah, and the head lice survived the passage. So, we shampooed again, I started picking nits again, Riki shaved my head & cut Tomu’s hair. There aren’t that many nits, but it was still demoralizing to find we hadn’t shaken the bugs.

Riki was busy fixing the things that broke on passage — he got the aft head working again, yay! And he found a pinhole in the wet exhaust pipe, so he took it off, took it to a welder for a patch, and installed it again. And washed all the gear in the aft lazarettes, and washed the boat. We started home school again, the highlight being doing a scavenger hunt on land around the Copra Shed Marina to learn about Fiji (a lesson I got from Teachers Pay Teachers).

Our friend Anjana had us over to her house one day for lunch. Nine years ago, she was still building her house. Her mom Sushila cooked us a feast: rooster curry, chicken & veggies in soy sauce, chips and chicken nuggets, fried fish, rice, and dhal. We sat on mats on the floor and ate with our hands, as is the custom here. Anjana’s brother Devan brought out the kava, and he & Riki drank lots of beer — “taki”!

After leaving Savusavu we motored 5 miles to Cousteau, where we enjoyed snorkeling and swimming, but were also introduced to the teeny tiny jellyfish that you can’t see, but that sting you. The stings leave a string of small red bumps that itch like bug bites for a few days.

We had a rough sail to Viani Bay — heading upwind in 15-20 knots was bumpy, and we all felt seasick except Riki. In Viani Bay we hung out with our friends Margeaux, Jarrett, Gretchen & Edgar on SV Lion’s Den — the kids spent hours playing in the water on surfboards and the paddleboard. We also did some amazing snorkeling on Rainbow Reef. It was a super long dinghy ride, but we arrived at Rainbow’s End just a slack tide, and enjoyed the marvelous soft corals, hard coral and fish. I also saw a big eel slithering down there, and a big purple jellyfish.

We did an overnight sail to Vanua Balavu, and did the sevusevu ceremony at Daliconi village. The sevusevu ceremony is where the visitor presents the yagona root bundled like a bouquet of flowers, and requests permission from the village chief to swim/snorkel/go ashore. On our visit, the village headman, Tuta, was adding on to his house. Many men were involved in the building, and others were sitting on a porch drinking kava, which is part of the tradition of house-raising.

We reunited with our friends on SV Pangea in the Bay of Islands, near Daliconi village. We dropped the hook at 4:45 pm, and Taylor invited us all over for fish tikka masala, dhal, and homemade naan at 6 pm. She’d been feeding 4 people on board, hadn’t provisioned in 2 weeks, and didn’t bat an eye at having 5 more mouths to feed.

The next day was Brad’s birthday, and SV Pangea crew came to evi for dinner. I made chicken chow mein, and the girls decorated the boat and made Brad cards. During the day the kids did their first swim through with Brad & Taylor. We snorkeled and saw a turtle! and beautiful fan coral, fish, and tons of multi-colored soft coral on a log.