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Here are a few photos from our time in
Fiji so far. We are up on Vanua Levu, the smaller of the 2 main islands
and are currently in Savusavu to try and catch some coverage of the
Olympics. Despite being relatively third world, the island is rather
surprisingly blessed with an excellent Vodafone 3G network allowing us to enjoy
all that is currently going on in London. There aren't many British boats
around to enjoy the golden moments with but there are plenty of Australians who
don't seem to be enjoying it quite as much as we
are!
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Sunset over Savusavu, a well protected
little creek with a delightful small town. It is a bit of a honey
pot for cruisers with an excellent market and friendly inexpensive
restaurants. A frosty Fiji bitter costs about a pound and
it's only about 3 quid for a main course......I am even fatter
and happier than
usual! |
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Stripping down the outboard to
replace a worn out impellor but as I have learnt to my cost in the past,
the important bit isn't so much getting it to
pieces.......
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...... but rather putting it back together
without having any bits left over (and of course actually getting it to
start again). |
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The north of the island is all
sugar cane country and these trucks are delivering the freshly cut sugar
cane to the factory. It is all cut and loaded by hand and the
farmers were queuing for 6 hours to deliver their loads. The queue
stretched for several miles but here at the entrance most still managed a
friendly wave and a shout of "Bula" the ubiquitous Fijian
greeting. |
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At Viani Bay, at the eastern end of the
island, there are no roads so all the transport is done by water.
This is one of the "school buses" which you can often hear coming as
the kids always seem to be singing on the way both to and from
school. |
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Jack Fisher, who lives in Viani Bay. His
grandfather was an Englishman who married an Fijian and the family still
owns much of the land surrounding the bay. Jack loves showing the
cruisers around the area and is here taking Bamboozle out to a sandy spot
on the reef on a snorkeling expedition. He knows the area
extremely well which is comforting given the unchartered reefs and coral
bomies that lurk beneath the
surface. |
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As you can see we took quite a team from
the other cruising boats in the anchorage out on our trip. Rainbow
Reef is a world renowned dive spot and provides some amazing
snorkeling. |
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Walking on the beach in the late afternoon, we
came across these kids playing touch rugby in the surf. They are
enthusiastic, skillful and incredibly quick and it is easy to understand
how this small group of islands produces so many of the best Sevens
players in the
world. |
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Rugby players are a major Fijian export and it
is quite possible one of these kids will end up playing for Auckland Blues
or Leicester
Tigers!! |
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Getting ready to dive on the Great White Wall
of Rainbow Reef. The fast flowing current and pristine ocean water
provides some truly outstanding diving with extraordinary colourful hard
and soft corals. The Great White Wall is known as such because of
the prolific white soft corals that cover a part of the sheer
underwater cliff. |
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Walking on the island of Taveuni..... you can
see from the greenery that it rains a bit around here but thankfully not
the day we went for a hike up to some water
falls. |
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Drinking kava with Jack in his house.
Kava is the mildly narcotic root based drink that is the centre of all
social drinking in the Pacific. It looks and tastes like muddy water
and makes your tongue go numb. Apparently too much makes everything
else go numb as
well!! |
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As you can see Lucy is really enjoying this
and I am sure she is thinking, "I'd actually much rather have
a G & T with ice and lemon please"... but sadly that didn't
seem to be on
offer!! |
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