Bamboozle - We got Hammered!

We got Hammered!

Bamboozle

Jamie and Lucy Telfer

Sun 14 Jul 2013 06:45

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After a frustrating but enjoyable wait in Opua we finally managed to find a narrow window in the boisterous New Zealand winter weather that allowed us to scuttle north as fast as we could towards the warmer climes of the tropical Pacific. We stopped off for a couple of days in Minerva reef en route to allow some grotty weather through before racing on to Vanua Levu the much less developed of Fiji's two "big" islands. We had stopped in North Minerva right back in October 2006 as we made our way towards NZ for the first time on Savoir Vivre (see http://blog.mailasail.com/bamboozle/28 ) . It is an amazing spot, two submerged atolls in the middle of no-where and a wonderful place for rest and refuge on what can sometimes be a fairly hairy passage north or south, depending on the season.

The welcome in Savusavu was as warm as ever with broad smiles and a hearty "Bula!" even from all the customs and immigration officials and there aren't many places in the world you can say that! It is a small friendly town and a great place to sort things out after the ocean passage before heading off to the remoter parts of the archipelago. We have done a few jobs and are stocking up on fresh fruit and veg as well as a healthy supply of Yanqona otherwise know as Kava, the mildly narcotic root that we will have to present as our formal gift once we head off into more traditional villages.

We have dug our dive gear out from the depths of the lockers and in addition to filling the tanks ready for our trip managed to do a couple of dives with Koro Sun Divers, based at a nearby resort. It was straight in at the deep-end (pun intended) doing an extraordinary dive with a whole school of hammer-head sharks. Colin the owner and chief instructor knows where this school of awesome looking beasts like to hang out in the deep blue water. It is a definite "maybe dive"....maybe you will see something and maybe you won't but we were there on a good day and saw about thirty of them milling around below us. We have been lucky enough to dive a lot with sharks over recent years this is a very special memory and we can now say "We got Hammered in Savusavu!".

On arrival we decided to give Bamboozle an all over clean and polish. Sam and his team of workers came on board for two days and did a fantastic job returning her to showroom condition. Here they are all gathered in the cockpit for a well deserved hearty lunch. We thought we had massively over catered with a pot of rice that we thought would have fed an army but they ate absolutely every last scrap!

Sam's team not only work together but also sing and play music together and asked to borrow Lucy's guitar for the weekend. The next day, whilst we were walking into town, we spotted Stanley with Lucy's guitar playing by the side of the road waiting for a bus!

Sam invited us to come to their Sunday church service and here we are afterwards with his wife and six of his kids! I was even asked to address the congregation during the service which was a bit of a worry but I managed to get a few "Ameni"s and even a "Halleluiah!" from the crowd!