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Date: 02 Jul 2008 03:12:57
Title: Lautoka, Viti Levu Island, Fiji
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17:36.002S  177:26.491E
 
As Don wrote, we arrived as planned in Fiji on Wednesday the 25th and immediately proceeded to the designated anchorage off the town of Lautoka, where we cleared in.  We started the process at about 2pm and finished around 5:30pm.  It wasn't difficult and the customs and immigration officers were quite pleasant, but bureaucracy is something that must be held in high regard here in Fiji because there is plenty of it.  The first requirement was notice of our estimated arrival in Fiji at least forty-eight hours in advance.  We took care of that via email from Tonga, so no problem there.  The second requirement involved filling in forms upon our arrival.  There were about a dozen forms.  Most of them had multiple pages with old fashioned carbon paper in between.  When the multi-page forms were filled out on one side, the customs officer assisted us in flipping the pages and the carbon papers around so that we could fill in the back sides of all the forms in triplicate.  It was quite a system.  I did all the writing while Don directed the flow of documents to and fro.  I can now write our names, birthdates, passport numbers and the boat gross tonnage in triplicate in less than ten seconds flat.
 
Once the paperwork was done, we brought the port captain and health inspector out to our boat in our dinghy so they could complete their inspection.  Before the rest of the story is told, it's important to understand the unique make-up of the Fiji population.  In the late 1800's, thousands of Indian indentured servants were brought to Fiji to work the sugar plantations.  In 1970, Fiji became an independent nation and British rule ended.  By that time, many of the Europeans had left, but the Indians stayed - after all Fiji was truly their home by then.  Native Fijians ruled until the national elections of April 1987, when a coalition of parties composed predominantly of Indians won.  As you might imagine, the Indians and the Fijians didn't always play well together and since 1987, there has been strife in Fiji and several military coups took place which put native Fijians back in power.  The political situation is still somewhat unsettled.  The population remains about 50% native Fijian and 50% Indian, although it is said that the Indian population is decreasing as some Indians are choosing to leave Fiji.  Most of the Indians live in the urban centers and near the sugarcane production areas on the two main islands, while the native Fijians live in the urban centers and throughout the whole of Fiji on the hundreds of islands.
 
With all that said, the port captain was extremely industrious, efficient (as much as he could be given the bureaucratic system he had to work within) and business-like.  The health inspector was less interested in health and more interested in where we were from, how big our boat was, where we were going, etc.  He was a fairly large gentleman, extremely laid back and was wearing a skirt.  So without applying any stereotypes, which one was the Indian and which one was the native Fijian??
 
Right.  The Indian port captain conducted a fairly intense search through the boat, lifting up floor boards and poking in almost every locker.  He didn't seem that interested in our collection of DVD's, although we had been told we would be searched for pornography because it is illegal in Fiji.  We thought about hiding our collection of Sex in the City DVD's just in case the officials found them to be offensive, but in the end we decided we would defend our favorite DVD's to the best of our ability if they became an issue.  The port captain did spend a lot of time looking at our collection of liquor, beer and wine.  He was particularly interested in our wine.  The amount of wine we claimed to have on all twelve customs forms in triplicate was exactly what we had, so we weren't sure what the problem was.  He pulled all of our bottles out of their tube socks (we explained our storage system to him - plain white tube socks for white wine and striped tube socks for red - he didn't seem impressed) and lined them up.  Eight bottles of wine.  He counted again.  Hesitated.  Looked perplexed.  Eight bottles of wine (which is nothing compared to what most boats have on board, by the way).  He sighed.  There was a long drawn out silence as the port captain continued to stare at our eight bottles of wine.  We had heard that other boaters gave a bottle of liquor to the inspector and as a result, the cases of wine they had stashed away in their bilges remained undisturbed.  But a bribe just isn't our style.  So we waited.  Don finally broke the silence by telling the port captain, 'If it makes you feel any better, we don't plan to drink all of this beer, wine and liquor while we are in Fiji.'  The port captain smiled.  Aha!  A crack in the armor. 'Ok then, I guess it's ok.' he said.  Success.  We got to keep our eight bottles of wine and paid no bribe or extra duty.
 
The native Fijian health inspector on the other hand, came on board, found a nice comfy place to sit in the cockpit, sat down and gazed around.  Don offered to show him the boat, indicated that he need only let us know what he wanted to inspect and we would be happy to oblige.  'Oh, I don't need to see anything.' the health inspector said, 'I just like to see the yachts.'  Seriously, that's what he said.  And that's what he did, although he never did go down into the cabin, or even take a stroll on deck, he just sat on his comfy seat in the cockpit and asked if we had any homemade cookies.  No exaggeration - he really did ask for cookies.  We would have gladly given him some, but I hadn't made anything in a while and we had none in the freezer.  Instead we offered him ice water.  He accepted, but we're sure he was quite disappointed.  He talked to us for a little while, told us a little about his family, a little about places to visit in Fiji, and then with a flourish, filled in our health inspection certificate, signed it, and asked for $40 Fijian (about $28 US).  No surprise here, we knew a fee was coming, but later after Don and Michael from Lady Kay were escorted to the ATM by the health inspector and the quarantine officer, withdrew cash and paid the officers, they wondered where exactly those fees actually went.
 
That's our Fiji clearing in story, although it doesn't end here - there's more.  In Fiji, you can't just sail around willy nilly, you have to tell the government exactly where you plan to go, and of course, obtain a permit to do so.  The cruising permit office is not anywhere near the customs office, so we decided we had accomplished enough for our first day in Fiji and retired to the boat to catch up on our sleep.  The next day we joined up with Jackie and Michael from Lady Kay, and hired a taxi to take us to the cruising permit office, the grocery store, the farmer's market and various other places.  Obtaining a cruising permit was fairly painless - no fees mysteriously going into pockets, only one form to fill out, but somehow it took close to an hour and a half to get it all done.  It's a good thing we have all mostly adjusted to island time and are no longer impatient about such things (mostly).
 
With cruising permit in hand, we moved on to the grocery store.  Wow.  This is the first time since Tahiti we have seen as the Brits would say a 'proper' grocery store.  This one was not quite up to Tahitian standards, but it did have chocolate (not a whole isle of chocolate like the Carrefour store in Tahiti, but at least a small rack).  The meat looked too scary to buy (good thing we have all that fish in the freezer), and we learned quickly to thoroughly inspect all packages that we picked off the shelves for cockroaches.  The store was literally crawling with them.  Not only that, but when I picked up a bag of rice to buy (we are short due to the beetle infestation issue we had a while back) I noticed that it was already full of little black beetles - all nice and snug with the rice inside the bag.  So - no rice for us.  Aside from the crawling things, the store was pretty good and we restocked our mostly empty food lockers.
 
On to the farmer's market.  It was huge, and dark, quite cavernous.  When we stepped inside, it took a minute for our eyes to adjust to the dark, then we saw row upon row of produce and spices and fish and other unidentifiable items to eat.  The smell was a mix of curry (lots of Indian vendors in the market), fish and kava (more about kava later).  After the scarcity of fruits and vegetables in Suwarrow, Niue and to some extent Tonga, this was quite heavenly.  And unlike the Tahitian farmer's market, everything here is at most 2 Fiji dollars (about $1.30 US).  We went to the onion guy.  'We'll take five.' I said.  'Five kilos? he asked.  'No, five onions.' I said.  The onion guy gave me a funny look, put five onions in a bag and said, 'One dollar'.  Done.  And so it went.  Tomatoes - one dollar.  Oranges - two dollars.  Limes - one dollar. Etc.  All the vendors were extremely pleasant.  All spoke English, and most didn't mind explaining what a certain unidentifiable fruit or vegetable was to a couple of dumb tourists.
 
Next - the search for a Fijian waters cruising guide.  We were unsuccessful.  Such an item does not exist.  Nothing in the book store.  Nothing in the tourist office.  It seems that it is not possible to find a Fiji cruising guide.  Knowing that our charts are not quite accurate, we were hoping for a cruising guide to help us navigate the waters and find appropriate anchorages.  It apparently wasn't going to happen so we decided we would just have to wing it while we are here.
 
Our trusty taxi driver took us to each of these places and waited patiently for us while we shopped.  At the end of our trip, he brought us to a clothing store and indicated we should go in and have a look.  Hmmm...we didn't really ask to go to a clothing store.  Suddenly the clothing store guy was outside the taxi indicating that we should come in for a look.  Ok, we'll have a look - just to be polite.  A couple of skirts for the ladies and an out of character, non-conservative shirt for Don and we were done.  We were escorted throughout the store, with several store employees looking after our every need.  Extremely attentive and extremely effective since we had planned to buy nothing and left with something.  Although, Jackie and I did need a skirt since we planned to visit at least one 'real' Fijian village on one of the more remote islands and we had read that ladies should not show up in a Fijian village wearing any form of 'trousers'.  No hats, sunglasses, low cut shirts or tank tops either.  Men are encouraged to wear long shorts and most definitely a shirt. Men with no shirts in a Fijian village is about as unacceptable as women in trousers.
 
Our shopping done, Ravine the trusty taxi man took us back to the wharf where our dinghy was ready and waiting.  Our plan was to unload and put away all the groceries as fast as possible, pull up the anchor and motor the short distance to a nice bay a few miles down the coast from Lautoka.  We were in a big hurry to get out of the Lautoka anchorage because a sugar factory with a giant smokestack was spewing huge clouds of black ash into the air that seemed to find our nice white decks to be a comfortable resting place.  When stepped on, the black ash turned into not-so-nice black streaks.  The ash that blew in through the open hatch in our cabin found our bed to be a good place to hang out.  First the fish blood and fish scales and now the black ash - will we never rest in peace?
 
Before we left Ravine the trusty taxi man, we told him we would like to go out to dinner that night and could he pick us up in the taxi on the Saweni Beach near where we would be anchored?  He said no problem, he would make a reservation for us and meet us on the beach at six that night.  More on that later.
 
That's the end of our stay in Lautoka.  Not a bad place from what we could see from the taxi window and the stores and market we visited.  Sorry, no pictures.  I thought we would get back to town to take some pictures, but when we discovered the blanket of black ash on the boat after our shopping trip, we decided not to stay a second night as we had originally planned.
Anne
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