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Naiviivi bay is the home of Vatosogosogo village.  When we first arrived we went and found the village Chief and gave him a gift of Kava root that we bought in the Nadi market.  The event of Kava giving is called sevusevu and is a very old tradition in Fiji.  The idea is that you are asking permission to anchor in their bay and if they accept the gift then we are their guests and they are responsible for our well being.  After the short ceremony and prayer we sat and got to know the family alittle.  We were interested to know how  we could go across the passage to Taveuni and where to leave our dinghy while somehow catching a ride to see the waterfalls of Bouma.  Jerry (the Chief…probably his name to foreigners) told us we could just go across to the village and ask for Viti and he would watch our dinghy.  The issue of a ride we would just have to figure out as we went along.  So we took WW across and then dinghied to the beach but it really looked desolate.  Maybe 5 houses and a lot of cattle.  We walked towards the only people we could see to ask for Viti.  The man replied that he had never heard of Viti and how could he help us.  We explained what we were trying to do and he said to walk over to his house and he and his wife would see what they could do.  The couple we came to learn came to Fiji in 1988 from Denmark to start a farm.  They owned quite a big area that they used to raise cattle and grow pineapples and taro.  They were very friendly especially considering the fact that we just pulled on to their beach and started walking around their property asking questions.  They called a guy from the next village over to give us a ride out to Bouma to see the falls.  The ride out took about 45 minutes along a dirt road.  The bottom falls of the three were a short hike away and very beautiful.  We decided to hike up to the next falls about a 30 minute up hill climb.  These falls were alittle smaller but very nice as well.  We decided not to brave the hike to the next falls and to return back to swim in  the pool under the first falls.  After a nice long swim in a really dream like place we headed back to see if we could catch a ride back to the ranch.  To our surprise the guy that gave us the ride out waited 3 hours for us and gave us a ride back.  We then visited with the Danish couple for a while and the wife kindly gave us some lettuce, pineapples, onions and various herbs from their garden.  We couldn’t help as we got back in the Dinghy with memories of waterfalls and bags of fruits and veggies that we just had a perfectly serendipitous adventure.  That night we were invited back to the village to have Kava with Jerry.  At Jerry’s house we sat and the floor and drank Kava with all of his family and many more visitors stopping in to say ‘Bula’.    After many hours of visiting we explained to them that we had to leave and head back to Savusavu so Zanovia could catch her plane back home.  After our goodbyes we agreed that Fijians are the most friendly people on earth and adopted one of there most popular phrases ‘Senga na lenga’ meaning ‘no worries’ .

AP