One of the last ones we had was a night out with the Ross family (from the catamaran Muse) at a Korean restaurant (Grace Kitchen) that had been recommended to us by everyone we met that had been there. It was A-mazing! I ordered a spicy dish that came out actually spicy and we had an incredible dessert called a Snow. The description on the menu kind of implied it was an overpriced snow cone. I ordered the red bean version because it seemed most in keeping with the Asian theme. We used to get red bean buns in Chinatown when we were in Oakland and I always liked them there.
It took them so long to make it that I thought they forgot our order. I mean, how long does it take to drizzle some red bean flavored syrup on a snow cone anyway?
Okay, I’m a jerk. I was wrong. What came to the table was clearly something that had taken a lot of time and care to prepare. It was a big bowl filled with a thick slush suffused with coconut cream, a little lemon and a few other flavors I couldn’t identify. It was topped with a generous blob of sweet red bean paste covered in pistachios and shaved coconut meat. There was a bunch of other stuff in there as well. The whole thing was a masterpiece of low key sweetness and mouth-pleasing textures. The most amazing thing was that it contained no chocolate whatsoever. Ordinarily, I would be opposed to such things on moral grounds. I think I may have found my new favorite dessert, beating out a whole raft of other things with names like Decadent Triple-Chocolate Insanity, Explosion, etc. Then it’s blah, blah, blah, blah…prunes. Prunes are a terrible dessert.
The awful thing is I probably won’t be able to find the “snow” as readily as all of the chocolate desserts in all of the world’s Chili’s and Chili’s knock-offs. Sigh…
Savusavu, and both types of Fiji flags - the red one is the official 'maritime' courtesy flag, but everyone actually uses the pale blue one which matches the country flag
There are plenty of opportunities to purchase stuff in Savusavu (From a coal fired iron, to Kava roots, to a sula/wrap-around-skirt for Kyle, and a 'snow' desert - all while enjoying the views.
During dinner, as we and the Muse gang recounted the days in the week since we had last seen them in Tonga, I told Phil about my day and my concern over the water situation.
I asked Pretti, the marina manager about their water. She repeated what the Health guy had said that it was potable, but should not be taken after rains.
”How soon after? Days? Hours?” She wasn’t sure, but seemed to feel that it was alright now. I told her that I got the impression from the Health guy that it may not be okay just yet. She seemed surprised by this and agreed to call him over as soon as he was done clearing his next boat.
When I spoke to him, he said the water was perfectly safe to put in our tanks. We’re using it for washing, right?
“And drinking”, I said
“Oh, you should be fine, then.”
Good! But then he would finish off by saying something like, “Just take normal precautions, like boiling it” at the end, almost as an afterthought. We’re not going to boil all of the water in our tanks.
”So it’s NOT safe to drink?”
”No, no, perfectly safe…..just use a filter.”
”For the contamination?”, I asked.
”No, just for the chlorine, but I wouldn’t drink it.”
”You wouldn’t drink it?”
”I would drink it because I’m used to it, but you probably shouldn’t drink it.”
”Okay, but CAN I drink it?”
”Yes, of course, but you may want to boil it, though you don’t have to, but you should, even though it’s not necessary, but you really should, especially after rains.”
I relayed all of this to Pretti. She said they don’t use the city water during rains. They use a big tank they keep filled from when it has not been raining. She told us we could fill our jugs from the tank if we weren’t comfortable using the hose.
”Yes, please! Oh, thank you, thank you!” Running back and forth in the dinghy with jugs is not nearly as convenient as using a hose, but I may thank myself later for that.
As we were filling our first jug, the nice laundry lady ran up and told us that the tank water was only for when it was raining, we should just use the hose. We told her about our concerns, to which she responded by filling a big, white mug full of hose water to show that it was clean and safe now. The hose water was safe.
Okay. It was going to be a while before we could refill our tanks and there was no way we could last until then with the water we had, so we decided to roll the dice with it and fill our jugs with tap water. Oh, how I wish we had saved all of that rainwater. We could have put two months worth into our tanks in an hour.
So here’s where Phil comes in. After hearing the whole story and seeing us fill our jugs from the hose, he decides he just can’t let us put that water into our tanks. Muse has a watermaker (desalinator), so they fill their tanks from the sea. Once their water is turned from salt to fresh, they then filter it with carbon filters before it goes into their tanks. He went home and then got their big filter, an electric pump and all of the wiring necessary to plug it into a 12V socket and came over to Begonia. Now we had a system that would filter all of our jug water as it was being pumped into our tanks. Brilliant! He told us to get it back to him whenever we were done.
The problem was that Muse was leaving in the morning. Phil made a point of saying there was no rush, but overhearing his conversations with his wife and kids, it really seemed like it would be better for them to leave as early as possible. I decided we couldn’t be responsible for delaying them, so I needed to get all of our water that night.
It took seven round trips to the tap in the dinghy. I finally got the last of our water at 1:30am, but we could now last through our whole stay in Fiji and Muse could leave on time. Maryanne graciously agreed to get up early to hand off Muse’s system to them as they left Savusavu the next morning.
The following morning, after collecting our neatly folded laundry from the nice lady at the marina, we returned to Grace Kitchen, a mere eighteen hours after we left, where I ordered the exact same meal I had had the night before. Well, almost. This time, I ordered the large snow instead of the medium one. I just knew Maryanne was going to steal a bit every time I looked away, even though it’s MINE, so I needed extra. The whole repeat meal was no less incredible than the one the night before and I made a point of slowly savoring each bite. Magnificent!
Next on the list was kava. The drinking of kava and the ceremony around it is an important part of Fijian culture. When going to a new village, visitors are expected to first go to the Chief, introduce oneself and present a gift of kava root in exchange for his blessing. This ceremony is called sevusevu. The Chief’s blessing effectively makes the visitor a de facto member of the village. It hasn’t been that long since not being a member of the village meant you were soon to be surrounded by cassava, breadfruit and papaya as part of a big feast. Maryanne and I were planning on visiting many villages in Fiji, so we needed a lot of kava.
Kava is normally sold in bunches, each the customary size for sevusevu. The bunches are wrapped in newspaper and ribbon and look like a bouquet of sticks. None of the vendors in the market had enough bouquets for our month in the boonies, so we had to pre-order the requisite amount the previous day for pickup today.
I guess most people ordinarily buy one or two of these things at a time and then buy more for their next visit. We needed nine. Nine is beyond the number where the bundles can be tucked in with other shopping or hidden in a shirt. I ended up with a bag in each hand, the kava tips sticking out like the tentacles of a dried octopus.
Walking down the streets of Savusavu with a bag of kava root in each hand is like walking through downtown Santa Cruz with a case of beer under each arm. Suddenly, I’m everybody’s best friend. People were constantly coming up to me and asking me where I got it and how much I paid.
When we got it back it back to the boat we found a place inside out of the sun. We were told to hang the bundles, but the only place we could do that is in the cockpit. Leaving nine bundles of kava in the cockpit would be like leaving a bail of weed on your front porch. Not gonna happen. That stuff’s expensive. We quickly learned that although kava doesn’t have a detectable smell in the market, in the enclosed cabin, it wasn’t long before we had a whole hull that smelled of the stuff. The smell isn’t pharmacological, but it’s also not pleasant if you’re not that into kava. It’s like having an open bag of stale yard mulch aboard.
Weighed down with as much water as we could carry and reeking of kava, we were off to the wilds of Fiji.
{Maryanne}Our stop in Savusavu was really all about getting our paperwork done. We needed to clear into the country and then wait for our cruising permit to be approved. During that time we did chores (with a quick trip to the Gardens). We should have also visited the hot springs in the town, but somehow that just didn't get done (something for next time).
Visiting Flora Tropical Gardens - a pleasant way to see a huge variety of palm trees
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