Labasa, Vanua Levu

[Kyle]The night before we left Blackjack/Bula Bay to sail to the Labasa anchorage ourselves, my back made one of those terrible pops it used to make way back when. Now I had two bad choices: collapse to the floor in agony, or remain standing in agony. I decided to compromise by slowly crawling down the adjacent wall to the floor in agony.

Oh, man! To the best of my knowledge, I haven't one of these back incidents in over five years. That's a pretty good run, but ow, not enough. This is my fault. We had a cinder block I was trying to get rid of by tossing it off the boat, like it was a discus. For some reason, I was still thinking I was young enough to hit the shore with it.

No! That's not what happened. What happened is that I did absolutely nothing at all that would be considered a test of any part of my body. I think I had just flexed a minor muscle in preparation for turning to pick up my toothbrush. I lift much heavier stuff all the time, and crank winches, and do pushups every morning, and walk virtually everywhere, and this is what gets me. How disheartening.

Maryanne wanted to postpone our sail to let me recover, but I managed to convince her that it would be better for me to convalesce at the next anchorage, where I promised to do nothing between our arrival and going into the city the day after next.

Fortunately, because of a lot of the stuff above, my recovery was quick. I was a little sore in the morning, but promised to let Maryanne do anything strenuous during the sail. The next day, I was basically fine again. The day after that, I was feeling as good as if the whole thing had never happened.

Time for a big day of provisioning.

Labasa, which of course, Fijians pronounce "Lambasa", is the only place along Vanua Levu's northern coastline where it is possible to do any more serious provisioning than picking up a few canned goods at a small shop. The more we thought about it, the less Maryanne and I were looking forward to our upcoming stop there. {Maryanne: The north coast of Vanua Levu is very remote and poorly inhabited, Labasa is a giant anomaly - providing the nearest good size town for so many people - with a giant market, and multiple large shopping complexes (electronics, hardware, supermarkets, etc) it is busy.

The problem is that Labasa is several miles up the shallow, tidal river from the mouth. The delta is also so shallow that it is necessary to anchor more than a mile out from the river mouth just to find enough depth.

Varying reports said it might just be possible to get Begonia up the river at high tide, but what if it's not? We eventually dismissed that idea on the basis that we didn't want to risk being the big news story for the week.

That left going in the dinghy as our remaining option. As anyone who has read this blog for a while knows, our Portland Pudgy is not fast. It's a displacement vessel (meaning not able to plane) with a hull speed of about two-and-a-half knots. With the electric outboard operating at a speed that will last the endurance of the round-trip, we would likely be a touch slower, particularly when weighed down on the return leg. Also, the Pudgy's bluff bow makes it pretty slow and wet when pushing into chop. The river itself would be fine, but the mile-and-a-half long upwind bash to get there was going to be pretty miserable for us. I estimated that the trip, hopefully with a little help from the current if timed right, would take about two hours each way. To get everything done in the top half of the tide, we would only end up with two hours in town to run around and get everything before we had to be back in the dinghy. Also, this whole expedition was going to have to be done in one load, so purchase wisely.

Plus, there was another problem: it was a full moon. It isn't werewolves we worry about; they're very friendly here. The problem is that during the full moon, high tide is at sunrise and sunset. That meant that to be in town at high tide, we would either have to go up the river before dawn or down the river after sunset, take your pick. Eventually, we chose an evening return, since the stores don't open that early, and also so our moonlit return would be our second time traversing the river's length.

When the day came, I decided we would be leaving at noon. That would get us to the river mouth at 1:00pm, which was still pretty low water, but on the flood tide, going up. If we grounded, we could wait for the tide to float us, and then continue so as to arrive in Labasa at the very first possible minute.

The day was looking pretty windy and choppy. I was just about to get up the motivation to drop the dinghy and start our long slog, when Maryanne decided to try her secret option.

Since Labasa is the only sizeable city that is accessible to the north coast, lots of the local villages and outlying islands get to town by periodically taking skiffs up the river. She was hoping she could flag one down and hitch a ride.

At the start of the afternoon tide, most of the boats we saw passed way too far from us to hail, as we were way out in the middle of the sound, and they were running closer to shore. Then we spotted a boat on the horizon coming right at us.

Maryanne waved like crazy and they stopped. Initially, they seemed to think we might have run aground or something and were asking for help. When Maryanne explained that we were hoping for a ride, the eight or so people aboard rearranged to make room for us.

In no time flat, we were zooming toward the river at fifteen knots, slicing and then effortlessly pushing aside the waves Maryanne and I had been fully expecting to be wearing not half an hour ago.

The boat was from the island of Kia, twenty miles to the northwest. The first fifteen miles of their journey was in big cross-swells and headwinds in the open ocean. Now they were in the flat water of the lagoon and looking forward to the glassy water of the Labasa River. Everybody was really nice and seemed to enjoy the novelty of picking us up and riding along with them. Nobody could remember ever doing that before. It was certainly nice to chat away with these lovely people as Captain Reuben navigated us up the river. They told us that on most days, two or three boats a day make the trip from Kia to Labasa, so that the islanders can do their shopping. Forty minutes after picking us up, we were all dropped off along the riverbank in town.

Looking back, we probably could have got Begonia all the way to town, provided we had followed a local boat instead of the channel. The problem then would be that there is nowhere to moor to shore and not enough room to anchor out of the way of the traffic. I liked this way much better. The ride was fast and smooth and we got to meet some really nice people.

We snagged a Kia Island village boat that happened to be going into town for the ride up the river (and back). Each of the 3 villages on Kia Island run a taxi-like service for the locals to shuttle between the mainland or do a shopping run several times a week (but not every day).

{Maryanne:The villagers were as interested in us as we were about them, and the young girl on the right of one of the pictures also happend to be called MaryAnn. She was a keen history student and shared how the village of Yaro on Kia Island was considered to have invented tatooing (although that might not be fully correct, they certainly had a long history of tatooing). Here tatoos were limited to virgin girls; the art known as Veiqia (or weniqia) involved distinctive geometric body markings applied to adolescent girls and women around the pubic area, hips, and thighs by specialized female practitioners called dauveiqia. The arrival of Chiristinity instantly put a stop to that! Christianity has so much to answer for.}

Most of the other passengers had loose return plans. Some were staying with family overnight, some were not. Almost everyone told us they would "get the next boat". Maryanne and I obviously don't have family in town, so we were a little more anxious about not getting stranded than they were. In the end, Maryanne pressed Rueben (the captain) on exactly when he was going back, and then declared that we now had to do all our shopping so as to be back by then with time to spare.

This plan was foiled almost immediately as we stepped into the first store.

Usually, when provisioning, even in a big city like Whangārei, New Zealand, we end up having to spend all day trudging across town from store to store to fill the holes left in our big list from the previous stores.

Here, in Labasa, we walked two blocks from the boat to the Extra Supermarket and found EVERYTHING. Not just that, but lots and lots of everything. Do you want peppers? What kind? Bell? Jalapeño? Serrano? Green? Yellow? Red? How about plant milk? Oat, almond, or soy? Sweetened or unsweetened? The whole store was like that. The only thing we ended up not being able to find was tofu. They were sold out. After we checked out, Maryanne left me in charge of our bulging cart and hiked over to New World Supermarket to find some. There was none there, either. What kind of a backwater is this?

Between the busy market and the giant "Extra" supermarket - we returned well provisioned. The only thing I couldn't find was tofu (and even the nearby New World supermarket was out of that). On the fresh produce front, we both excited to puchase the first broccoli, mushrooms, cauliflower, etc that we'd seen for months!

Now we had a problem we had not expected: We had loads of time to kill before meeting up with Reuben later. Maryanne did an exploratory walk around and returned saying that she had found a place in a kind of food court, within shopping cart range, where we could have lunch. Our Indian meal turned out to be uninspiring and very greasy.

After a relaxed lunch, we pushed our cartful of provisions back to Extra, transferred everything to our own bags, and shouldered them for the walk back to the boat landing. We arrived with an hour still to spare. Looking at our pile, it seems like it would have been a tight fit for our dinghy. We would have been riding home perched on top.

While we were sitting there, enjoying some local people watching, Sabe introduced himself. He was another Captain, also from Kia, who was in the next boat to leave. Maryanne I would have liked a chance to get home earlier, but we felt like we made an agreement with Captain Reuben. We didn't want to miss out on a chance to give him the promised gas money, both for picking us up earlier, and for the ride home, so we decided to stay put. While we were waiting, a few people from the inbound boat recognized us and stopped to chat, assuring us that Rueben was around here somewhere.

At the appointed time, he did show up, recognizable in his bright yellow shirt. We loaded up our stuff, bucket brigade-style, and climbed in. Then Rueben took us the short distance under the bridge to the fuel dock.

There, he told me to hold onto the dock, then grabbed a couple of jugs and headed for the pump. It did not escape my notice that the only thing mooring the boat and its contents to the dock was my left arm. Uh, Reuben...

Then it got better. Other passengers arrived. The boat was away from the ladder and too far down for those above a certain age to be expected to jump. One woman started handing me down her bundles of shopping, which I had to stand on tiptoes on my seat to reach. I handed them down to Maryanne, who placed them on the floor of the boat. Periodically, I had to ask the woman to wait a second so I could pull on the dock. I was still the boat's only connection to it. Then came a big flat of eggs. Eggs, yeesh! Careful with that one! When they made it to Maryanne's hands, just as quickly as if it were the next package, she picked up the child clinging to her skirt and dangled her in the air for me to take.

I'm pretty sure virtually every mother in the world would characterize her child as the most important, beloved thing in their whole entire world. This woman took her BABY and handed it to ME, a man she met twenty seconds ago, hasn't ever said a word to, and who has only communicated with her in an exchange of polite smiles. What am I going to do?

I got on my tippy toes, reached up, and took her baby, of course, as if she were as fragile as... eggs? I kept thinking this would be a really bad time to lose my balance and end up in the river, floating away with a baby. I'm the same guy who did a faceplant on the rocks of the riverbank less than an hour ago while trying to get myself on the boat. Did I not mention that earlier? That was supposed to be a secret. I'm just fine.

Also, who is supposed to be holding onto the dock? Still me...

You could imagine my relief when Captain Rueben appeared on the dock above and told me it was time for me to pull the boat around to the ladder so that he and the rest of the passengers could board.

Since the tide was higher now, Reuben didn't bother to slow down for any of the river's shallow sections on the way out. We exited the river, skipped over the chop in a tailwind, and in no time at all, we were pulling up to Begonia. Sunset was way off. Maryanne and I thought we would just be making our way back to the dinghy for the dark ride home by now.

Reuben was keen to get to Kia before dark, but assured us when we offered that he had enough time to come aboard for a look. We gave him some money to help with the fuel, as well as a bunch of kava, for his kindness. Once Reuben was aboard, everyone else decided they also wanted to see. Most said they hadn't been on a sailboat before and were really happy to step aboard (Amelting Heart happened to be at Kia at the moment, maybe a different village).

Much later, I was remembering the visit. I was thinking in particular about the mate and I going to some trouble to make sure the bow line was properly secured to Begonia before he came aboard as the last person. Then I remembered that none of the people I helped aboard earlier had been carrying a baby. We assume she was probably fast asleep under a tarp, and they didn't want to disturb her. Fiji is so laid back.

Update: Not about the above boat. This is something else. Days later, a local boat, the same basic type as above, that was carrying six medical workers on a 2 hour passage, was swamped and lost engine power somewhere between Oneata, Moce and Lakeba Islands, in the Lau Group. Unable to restart the engine, the Captain left the boat and swam for MILES to get help (to the nearby Aiwa where he could get a phone signal). After an extensive search, the passengers were all found the next day. The boat had capsized and they were all in the water clinging for 36 hours to whatever floats. Most local boats carry little safety equipment (no radios, few life jackets, etc), so any incident is a serious threat to the lives of the occupants. Thankfully this particular story had a happy ending.

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Anchorage location at the Labasa delta/river entrance >> On google maps

Blackjack Bay (aka Bula Bay)

[Kyle]From Nubu, we had an easy, downwind sail to the Sau Sau Passage, where we transited the fringing reef to Blackjack/Bula Bay, on the east side of the entrance to the Wainikoro River.

A pleasant sail to a small anchorage

Blackjack is uninhabited, but as we were anchoring, four men emerged from the jungle there, waded out to their anchored boat, and headed for Begonia. They were four fishermen from the nearby Druadrua Island, about six miles to the northeast, having a midday break while waiting on low tide. We made them some tea, gave them the tour, and accepted the captain's phone for charging while they did their afternoon rounds. As a trade, Maryanne was able to convince one of the men, Soni, to show us the technique the locals use to sharpen their machetes with a metal file by having a go at our rusty, less heavily used one. Word got out and soon, we were visited for a few minutes over tea and cookies by every passing boat on its way to or from the main supply store a few miles up the Wainkoro River.

At low tide we could walk on the beach, and scramble around the beautiful rocky shoreline

A day later, on a lull between visits, Maryanne and I were out on a beach walk/jungle bash/rock skipping session when we could see a sail approaching. It turned out to be Amelting Heart again.

Unlike the last time we met, they were not planning to stay the night. They were in a hurry to get a few miles further on to Labasa, Venua Levu's second-largest city, before dark. Both Andrew needed to extend his visas, but the Fiji Government's website was foiling him at the part where it came time to pay the fee, so they eventually resigned themselves to going to the city, where they could hand cash to an official in person to get the problem resolved. As they were going by, they saw our AIS target and decided to see if they could stop and borrow our internet in the hopes of solving the problem and saving themselves the second half of the trip. If it worked, we could hang out again for the evening.

An hour later, they were weighing anchor and chasing the sun toward the horizon. They stayed in the shipping channel and arrived at the Labasa anchorage well after dark. They messaged us the next day to say they had gone in and managed to sort everything out.

And of course we managed a bit of snorkelling (mainly among the mangrove roots)

On our last night another cruising boat arrived in the bay - it was Ian and Ann of the boat Tourterelles, and they kindly invited us over for sundowners.

For being at an uninhabited anchorage, we sure got a lot of visitors!

A host of friendly visitors in a surprisingly busy "quiet" anchorage: Local fishermen, Amelting Heart, and Ian and Ann (from Tourterelles)

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Anchorage location >> On google maps

Nubu, Vanua Levu

[Kyle]As expected, our northbound leg to pass Udu Point on our way to the northern shore of Venua Levu was, uh, boisterous. As we left the flat water of Albert Cove/Motaua, the wind protection of the anchorage decreased. The fringing reef also receded to the northeast, which allowed more and more of the open ocean swell to get through. We eventually ended up going nice and fast, with hardly any sail up at all, across three-meter seas. The wind wasn't bad, because we were reefed down for even more, just in case. Beam seas like that can be especially annoying, though.

At about the halfway mark, on our transit of the gap between Rabi and Udu Point, a four-plus-meter wave broke right when it hit us. I was able to turn and duck away from it, but I still got hit in the back with a couple of buckets-worth of cold water, which also soaked the seat. The wave filled the cockpit to ankle-depth.

Since we were in the tropics, I was not dressed in foul weather gear. I was dressed for a picnic in the park. Technically, I was dressed like someone at the picnic who had been thrown in the pool as a prank. My reasoning is that it is warm outside and that stuff dries quickly. If it doesn't, it's easier to change.

The problem was that since the boat was continuously being coated in salt water, I didn't want to track the wet outside into the nice, dry inside to change outfits, particularly since I'm probably going to end up getting wet again anyway.

The temperature was in the high 20s Celsius, so it was nice and warm out, but the thirty-knot winds made for quite a windchill! I shivered my way through the next half hour until I was starting to feel dry again. Wham! Another bloody wave would resoak me! I know intellectually that waves don't have agency, but they totally do seem like they enjoy messing with me sometimes. After a few more wet/dry cycles, I was legitimately cold-soaked and shivering almost uncontrollably. Fun officially over, let's get this thing over with!

We rounded the reef three miles from Udu Point Light, which is as close as you can get, turned downwind, and had the reverse experience from leaving Rabi. In twenty minutes, we were sliding along a flat sea with only a quarter of the jib out.

We pulled into our planned anchorage at Nubu. It was exposed to the wind, which was coming along the coast. I was worried the anchorage would be uncomfortable, but it is surrounded so extensively by drying reefs that the deep basin had completely flat water.

Entering the pass into the protected waters at Nubu

Once we were settled, we got a message from Amelting Heart, asking about the anchorage. They had left Rabi a few hours after us and were hoping to make it to Nubu by nightfall.

They didn't make it. We spotted them on the eastern horizon just before sunset. Their sails were down and they were motoring into an anchorage there. In the middle of the subsequent dark, cloudy nights, their distant anchor light served as the best way to find Begonia's orientation.

Nubu is a convenient stop, but doesn't otherwise have too much in the way of tourist attractions. The two things to do are snorkel, which is hazy and meh, and go see the waterfall up the creek. My check on the anchor and Begonia's immediate vicinity satisfied the first to the degree that Maryanne was convinced to not bother getting wet in the first place.

Then there is the waterfall. The river is blocked by a mudbank at low tide, so we were up early for the morning high tide to have a look.

As a waterfall, it's not particularly impressive – just a brook pouring over a few meters of rock.

At the bottom, we left the dinghy and walked upriver along the banks. This was the best bit. A series of minor waterfalls made an interconnecting chain of deep swimming holes that would be a perfect place to spend the upper half of the tide on a sunny day. We certainly thought about it, but the chill of the early morning made us less than enthusiastic about the idea. Maryanne and I contented ourselves with rock-hopping our way up the creek until we were stopped by sheer faces on both sides. With the tide falling the entire time, we were aware we needed to keep it moving to avoid being stranded. We were back at Bagonia by noon.

Our trip up the river to the stream

A little while later, we could see Amelting Heart heading our way with sails up. We thought they would surely continue on, but Andrew called us on the radio to tell us they were planning on coming in for the night. After giving him the rundown, he and Isabelle said they would come over, but decided to try to make it up the river beforehand.

"Okay, you'd better get going, before the tide drops too much!"

They mostly made it. Just as we were starting to get worried that they might be stuck up there and were figuring out what we would be able to do about it, they appeared at the entrance. There were a couple of spots where Andrew had to lift his outboard and punt through the goo, but they made it to deep water after all. Then we were finally able to commence our planned evening of cards, drinks, and stories.

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Anchorage location at Nubu >> On google maps

Rabi Island

[Kyle]Since Begonia was on a mooring at Paradise Taveuni Resort, I had really been hoping to release the lines and depart under sail.

Just before sunset the previous night, a boat came in and picked up the one right behind us. The whole time we have been here, we haven't seen a mooring go unoccupied for more than eight hours. That boat was a little close to be confident we could gain steerageway before drifting into it, so we ended up using the engines after all.

Our sail started out well. Winds coming over Taveuni passed over the ridgeline and descended to the anchorage as a twenty-knot breeze. With lots of reefs tucked in, we shot northeastward towards our destination at Rabi Island.

That lasted for about an hour, until the terrain to windward got too high. Taveuni has some pretty high mountains (Taveuni is an elongated shield volcano, its peak reaches 1,241 m). Once we were in the lee of that part of the island, we got lots of wind, no wind, and backdrafts going completely the wrong direction. Eventually, to keep from arriving after dark, we had to resort to using an engine to keep moving.

Of course, as soon as the thing was warmed up, the wind returned. Then it picked up as we peeled away from Taveuni and headed through the gap between the Venua Levu mainland and Rabi Island.

We were expecting it to die off again in the lee of Rabi, but it never did completely. Instead, we had gusts and lulls that had Begonia's speed bouncing back and forth between four and nine knots. As we did, another boat, Amelting Heart, left an anchorage ahead of us and also headed for our planned two-boat anchorage at Albert Cove/Motaua, where there was already another boat at anchor. They were bouncing between three and six knots, which wouldn't be slow enough for us to beat them in.

The anchorage at Motaua is fairly large, but the sandy part is very deep, requiring all of our chain and thus a big swinging circle. The anchorage also has weird gusts arriving as downhill blasts from every direction, so it is not reasonable to assume all boats will swing in the same manner. The best thing to do is make sure there is no overlap whatsoever by being at least two hundred meters from the nearest vessel.

The original boat, Otama, had the best spot. Amelting Heart got the 'other' decent spot, which is deeper. That left us to try to fill remaining space or find another anchorage altogether.

We made our first attempt on the north side of Amelting Heart, between them and the reef. Maryanne let all our chain out and then we waited a bit to see how Begonia rode. It seemed fine, but if we swung too much, we might end up being uncomfortably too close to Amelting Heart or the reef. That wasn't going to be good for getting a restful night's sleep. After a while, Maryanne announced that she didn't like it and wanted to move.

We pulled everything back up and moved halfway between Amelting Heart and Otama, where Begonia would have no chance of encountering either. The only hazard in our circle was a shallow reef, helpfully marked by a buoy that was dead upwind of us at the far end of our circle. We dropped our anchor on the edge of a sand shelf at seventeen meters and set it. Begonia ended up sitting in thirty-five meters at the center of the basin, with a big loop of catenary in the chain for cushioning the load on the anchor.

With the current wind direction, our spot ended up being really good. The gusts hitting Begonia varied in direction by 180 degrees, but they generally didn't last long enough to move us around much. We pointed everywhere from northwest to southeast, but we never drifted more than twenty meters from our original spot. That was frustrating for getting the solar panels set right, but otherwise, very reassuring.

Amelting Heart, on the other hand, seemed to be anchored right in the middle of a permanent eddy formed between competing winds. Every time we looked at them, they would always be pointed a completely different direction from before. They seemed to go through a complete circle about ten times every hour. That made us even happier that we had moved.

Rabi (pronounced "Rambi" because, Fijian) has an interesting history. Unlike the rest of Fiji, where the main two demographic groups are ethnic Fijians and Indo-Fijians, Rabi is almost entirely populated by Banabans, descendants from Ocean Island, in Kiribati/Gilbert Islands. They arrived in two different waves.

The first was after the Second World War. The Japanese captured most of the Gilbert Islands, and the Banabans were taken to various internment camps for the duration. Once the war was over, they were released, but not allowed to go back to their home island, so the "helpful" British government purchased Rabi as a place for them to resettle, offering them land and houses. They made good on the land, but the houses turned out to be tents and only enough rations to survive for two months.

Many years later, in the 1970s, tremendously overzealous phosphate mining made Ocean Island uninhabitable and second wave of Banabans were removed to Rabi for resettlement.

Now, the primary language and culture on Rabi is Gilbertese. All residents have dual citizenship with Fiji.

Motaua does not have a permanent village, although we met one brother/sister pair who live there seasonally as farmers. It also seems to be a popular spot for picnics and overnight camping for locals from other villages that are looking for a getaway. When we arrived, a big group was having a church barbeque.

Heading ashore at Motawa (known to the cruisers as Albert Cove) on Rabi Island, we were greeted by some friendly local kids

We went ashore on the next morning's low tide for a walk. Maryanne and I had intended to join a trail that is reputed to go over the island to the bay opposite. None of the people we encountered knew much about it. We found a likely candidate path, but quickly lost it again in the thick jungle beyond the beach. Eventually, we gave up and decided to console ourselves with a beach walk.

Once we got to the end, we found that the tide was low enough that we could keep going for miles on the exposed, dead top of the fringing reef. We went as far as we dared, knowing the tide was starting to rise again, before turning back to the safety of the main beach. Then we filled out the rest of our time by walking the more accessible reef in the other direction.

There was plenty of beach/coast line to walk and explore at low tide Just at our turnaround point, we saw three people coming from the opposite direction. One of them turned out to be Andrew, the owner of Amelting Heart. He explained the spelling of the name by pointing out that his boat is built by Amel. Ah! With him was his crew, Isabelle, and a local man who had guided them over the trail Maryanne and I lost earlier. The tide was so low that they all decided to walk back by going around the intervening headland along the reef.

While the crew from Amelting Heart were off collecting useful flotsam and jetsam, the local visitors were having a grand game of volleyball

Andrew is an electrical engineer, originally from England, who recently bought his boat with an aim to work half the year in New Zealand, and spend the other half on the boat in Fiji. Isabelle, who is French, has been bopping around for years as crew on different boats.

Andrew admits to having a few compatibility missteps with crew, but he and Isabelle seem to have a good rapport. Maryanne and I had initially assumed they were a couple, since they finish each other's sentences and occasionally bicker over minor things. They both assured us that that was not the case, but neither of them seemed the least bit offended by our mistake.

The next day, Maryanne and I had a good, long snorkel of the huge tongue of reef forming one side of the entrance to the bay. There was plenty of variety to keep us entertained. Afterward, we were expecting to meet up with Amelting Heart, but their dinghy was gone.

A few hours later, Andrew invited everyone to the beach for a sunset picnic. Maryanne made some food and we were the first dinghy ashore. When Andrew did arrive, he dropped off some stuff and then returned to the boat to pick up Isabelle. When they returned, he announced his plan to try baking bread with cassava flour in a traditional earth oven, which he had never attempted before. This was news to everybody, but the local fishermen/farmers having an overnight campout on the beach took it in stride and started two fires – one for regular cooking and one for the oven. In the meantime, Andrew and Isabelle filled us in on their day ashore.

In what seemed like very Begonia-like fashion, they had originally set off for a quick stroll, intending to get back in an hour or so, so they could start cooking. Then they got lost and spent hours bushwacking their way through the jungle before coming across terrain that they decided was too treacherous for them to continue. Then they spent hours bushwacking their way back. They got to their dinghy half an hour before sunset, still fully intending to make it to the beach for dinner.

To their credit, the local guys adapted to Andrew's plan well. They were there not only to camp and fish, but also to harvest kava crops they have there to take to market. They pounded a big portion for everybody and then made space for us all in their clearing, where we could form a circle around the bowl to imbibe while we wait for the food.

An evening ashore - Kyle "helps" pound the Kava, and the cooking fire is prepared

Sarah, another American, who was there with her Australian husband, Hayden, on Otama, kept saying that Maryanne and I looked familiar to her. It did seem to us like we must have met her before, but when we started comparing histories, we could find no overlap at all. We must have two of those faces…

They bought Otama in 2021 and have spent most of the time since bouncing between Fiji and New Zealand, while Maryanne and I were nowhere near either place.

A long while later, while telling Andrew a story about something that happened to us in Australia, Sarah asked us where we had been there. I was going through the list when it hit her.

"You were the boat that came to Gove, in the Northern Territory, in 2020 during Covid!" She continued, "We didn't have a boat then, but I was the Manager at the Gove Boat Club."

That's when it hit us smack in the face. "Of course! That was you!" It all made sense now. We didn't recognize them, since we didn't recognize the BOAT.

Sarah had been so kind and generous during our visit to Gove. She kept saying she hoped she wasn't too rude to us then, she had a lot of stressful things going on in her life at once: Covid, an international move, searching for a boat…

"Are you kidding? You were the best!"

What must she be like on a good day?

More locals arrived later, until we ended up with over a dozen people sat around the kava bowl. One guy even sang us a song about his people crossing the sea to their new paradise home. It certainly seemed like it.

Maryanne and I stayed up as late as we could, but still didn't make it long enough to see how Andrew's bread fared. As we fell asleep, we could still hear music and laughter wafting its way in from the beach.

Not surprisingly, we were up late the next morning. We emerged to find the entire group of Banabans long gone already. Later, replacements came, and Begonia was visited by three very giggly young girls who were only partly in control of their kayak. They had a great time bouncing their way past us and ducking though the tunnel between our hulls. Maryanne handed them all lollipops, which only increased their delight.

We certainly would have enjoyed staying for more time, but our next leg to the north coast of Vanua Levu was going to be a long one. With a day of strong winds that were forecast to not be in too bad a direction, we would need to use them to move on.

A beautiful place to visit for us and the locals

And of course, some snorkelling

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Anchorage location at Albert Cove/Motawa, Rabi Island >> On google maps