Photos Backlog Part 1 - Fiji Small Islands > Yasawas
The Yasawas The time was right we had all mechanical problems taken care of and we were ready to explore some of the islands of Fiji. Imagine and Sea Mist were off to explore the Yasawas and our first stop was Navadra Island but - just before arriving at the island we were treated to a Dolphin show.
NAVADRA Navadra has a beautiful white sand beach just a little tricky to get into the beach in between the reefs and it is very rolly. Luckily we were up early as one of the big cruise ships needed our spot, unfortunately for us our anchor chain was wrapped around some coral heads, so it took us a while to get free, meanwhile Stuart was talking to the cruise ship as they had been calling us but John was in the water and I was on the bow so we didn’t know they were trying to contact us. They anchored and waited for us to get free and leave. Next stop Naviti Island where we would link up with Kilkea. We had not seen Kilkea since Whangarei so this was going to be a great weekend for all of us. We enjoyed our first evening catching up but we kept on hearing animal sounds coming from the island, cow, donkey? We met one of the locals the next morning he had just come over the mountain to tend his wild cows... He told us that he could make a lot of money allowing the soldiers to come onto the island, shoot his cows and take the meat away. They have food and water and roam free.
John had to clean the dinghy so we were happily cleaning barnacles and other miscreants off the bottom of our dinghy when Shelia and Stuart showed up along with Marion and David. We all agreed that this is Stuart’s best side... The fellows took over my job and we went hunting for shells, we walked along the beach from end to end. I have noticed that the small crabs that live in the empty shells of other animals are very vain - as they do choose the best looking shells. We tried to shake this guy out of this baby conch shell but he was in there so tight we were not going to get him out of there. Nice shell though.
Blue Lagoon Named for the movie, Brooke Shields was not there to greet us and we found out most of the movie was shot at a privately owned resort and at the Blue Lagoon in Vanuatu. We linked up with John and Pam on Passages, more Canadians, Stuart and Shelia felt like they were surrounded by Canadians! We ate dinner at the Blue Lagoon Restaurant, always nice to have a night off. Our Walk The next day we set off for the village on the other side of the island and this is Cat, he walked with us for a ways. Cat was a handsome fellow, but very, very lean, as all of the animals are in Fiji.
Fabulous Views This side of the island was getting windy.
Pretty flowers along the trail. We arrived at the village only to find it was deserted, we asked the only person there Lo, why it was deserted but it was very difficult to understand her. One reason might be the wind!
The buildings are woven with care and last for a very long time, all of the villagers live very simply, either in woven huts or manmade buildings, but they still only have beds, a small cooking area, remember they don’t have electricity on these islands, just generators that usually run for a certain amount of time each day. They may have a tiny two burner gas cooker but fuel is not always easy to obtain and very expensive. They have a community eating and cooking area, most of the food is cooked in the earth oven or Lovo and some islands have above ground stone ovens for bread. We always seem to be looking for salad vegetables, bread and eggs; we can usually find pineapples, mangoes and papayas, which is a bonus. The hens lay the eggs under bushes and the cats and dogs eat them, as they only use the chickens for meat. The building below was slowly falling apart, too bad.
Lo was busy cleaning fish but graciously stopped working to make tea and serve us serve us chocolate cake. We asked her how many customers she would see in a day, sometimes two, sometimes none, her only customers were sailors or guests from the resorts on the island that went for a walk across the island.
Back to the boat, we encountered this Mother and son duo, they were on their way to the restaurant, she had a big squid in the bucket, Calamari at the resort tonight.
Back to the calm side of the islands. Tomorrow we leave for the Kadavu chain of islands. |
