The True Fiji Experience
Bamboozle
Jamie and Lucy Telfer
Tue 5 Jun 2007 08:08
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17:19.465S
177:07.913E
With our great friend Mark on board for a few weeks we have continued to have the most wonderful experiences of Fiji. We spent a couple of days relaxing in Musket Cove before heading off up through the Mamanucas and on north towards the Yassawa Islands. In typical Tennant/Telfer style our first stop was Castaway Island where we had an excellent lunch!! We nearly missed this little corner of paradise but as we rounded the end of the island a beautiful shady terrace slid into view so we thought we had better stop to check it out. Our next stop was Mana Island where the
entrance through the reef was probably our trickiest yet. We had been warned
that the pass was narrow and twisting but with one of the channel markers
missing it took a really good look from up the mast (and one near miss!)
to find the way in. Moving on north the next day Mark caught a
fabulous Wahoo (as you can see from the picture) which we turned into a
plate of Sushi for dinner that night. Mark knows we like to live well but
even he was surprised to see wasabi, pickled ginger and nori emerging from the
supply cupboard.
We are now in Wayasewa where the locals have given
us a very warm welcome. When we went ashore the kids all rushed down
to greet us "Bula! Bula!", (see the photo below) and then led us to the
village elder to whom we made the traditional gift of "kava root".
He performed the "sevusevu" ceremony to welcome us and he then explained to
us that having gone through this process we should now feel at home in the
village and able to use their anchorage, beach etc and to ask for any
assistance. He told us we should consider ourselves Fijian for the duration of
our stay!
Last night we also received a good reminder that
life is tough for the locals despite their idyllic surrounds. One of the
villagers burned himself quite badly when a fire got out of control while he was
smoking some bees out of a tree in his fields. The village elder
bought him out to us on Savoir Vivre to ask if we could help in
any way. We delved into our first-aid kit to get him salved in burn cream
and to hopefully relieve some of his pain. They are hardy people and
he sat in the cockpit hardly flinching while we did our best to deal
with burns all over his torso. We discovered later that he is actually the
village Mayor.
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