The Yasawa Group
NORDLYS
David and Annette Ridout
Fri 13 Aug 2004 22:04
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'BULA' from
Fiji
Musket Cove
Mamanuka Group
13th August 2004
Every country has words of greeting or expressions
that are used a lot when dealing with ones fellow men. Some of these have
become well known, such as the Australian gud'day or the
American 'have a nice day'. There is one word that is used above
all in Fiji and it is Bula. As far as I can tell it is a mixture
of 'good morning', 'greetings' and 'hallo'. All I know is that it is
impossible to walk down any street without people constantly
saying 'bula' to you. Any passing Fijians
in a dinghy will shout it at you. It is a much used and usually very
friendly greeting. In many ways it sums up the Fijian people who we
have found to be nothing but pleasant, warmly outgoing and welcoming to
us.
Nordlys left Yadua Island with the usual, for us
anyway, twenty to thirty knots from the SSE. As the first two miles
was to windward we left with the usual two reefs and many rolls and were
soon wet and salt covered as water crossed the foredeck and
flowed aft through the scuppers. Bearing away once outside the reef we
reached off with small sails and knocked off the thirty something miles towards
the northern end of the Yasawa group at a great speed but with little
comfort. The channel through the northern most bit of land and the
continuing reef was narrow and marked 'only partially surveyed' on the
chart. With the wind up our chuff and by now being mid afternoon the sun
in our eyes we reluctantly decided to reach another five miles north, round the
reef end and five miles back rather than tackle the pass. Our rewards were
great however as rounding the western side of this island we found smooth
water of a magical blue and miles of pristine uninhabited beaches. Nosing
in between two coral outcrops we anchored off a small cliff to get out of the
wind. The sundowner was one to remember. Our 'mooring fees'
were collected when the local village chief appeared in an old battered launch
to welcome us to his waters and to ask for his sevusevu. The bunch of
roots were given and everyone was happy. As I said in my earlier chapter
Annette and I just regard this as a custom that at least allows us as visitors
to add something to the local village life.
Days came and went as the weather was kind
and we anchored off several villages and one resort and sometimes off deserted
beaches. One slightly frustrating thing was that the hills looked as if
they would provide the most magnificent walks. From a distance they
appeared to be mild climbs covered in grass and not the usual impenetrable
scrub. Alas the grass was five or so feet high and quite
impenetrable. We have discovered that this grass is in fact used to build
the local houses. There were no paths across the hills as the locals do
not farm them other than for the afore mentioned house material and are
not known for their love of walking. The ridge down the island's centre
should have provided a memorable hike but it was not to be.
Approaching the south of the Yasawa group we were
anchored on our own in a large bay with Soso village at its head. By now
we were out of fresh food as fruit had been unobtainable. We are not into
taro and breadfruit. Soso came up trumps. Five nearly ripe paw
paw, a bunch of bananas and in the late afternoon a local paddled over in his
canoe and offered to sell us a fish. He had three fairly sizeable
ones. We chose a Trevally that gave us two very tasty meals when
BBQed. Our BBQ is known as Christabel after the donator of this
piece of equipment. For most of the first two months of this
cruise we felt like throwing it away along with our new solar panels as
every time we tried to use either items the rain came down.
Recently we have been very glad to have both.
We are at the moment doing something that for us is
very rare. Do not get excited you are not about to have some juicy Ridout
expose. It is simply that we are sailing in waters that Captain
Cook never visited. Some time ago we heard about and purchased an
excellent book called Captain Cook's World, maps of the life and
voyages of James Cook R.N. This marvellous book shows in detail
all his ships tracks with much information. He only once came to Fiji and
that was one isand in the very south. He saw but never talked to
thepeople. Up to now it seemed as if every difficult passage through
the reefs had been done before by a man in a ship that had little windward
ability, no engine, no GPS, in fact no or very few charts! He did of
course have a large crew some of whom were always at the masthead and others who
rowed in to survey in the ship's cutter. All very humbling. The
thing that comes across most strongly is that he must have had the patience of
Job. The number of times that we with our high performance yacht would
have had to wait at least a day and sometimes several before getting in to an
anchorage if we had not had an engine. Also unlike most early
yachtsmen in these waters he was not afraid to try the difficult bits. His
various voyages through the notoriously difficult waters of Tonga are a good
example. I once read a description of the man by Alan Villiers who himself
was no mean seaman. Cook he said 'is the ultimate seaman's seaman'.
I could not agree more.
I digress. In Soso bay we heard that the
weather was about to break so deciding to leave the rest of the Yasawa and the
northern Mamanuca islands till another time we set sail for the resort island of
Malolo Lailai. Namely Musket Cove. We have now been on a buoy for
two days and the winds are howling and the rain is falling but who cares.
We have enjoyed a tremendous last two weeks and this was for me ended by two
really good dives on the outer reef here. Three of us only with one
instructor enjoyed two forty five minute sessions of being suspended in
space as turtles, sharks, myriads of smaller fish of every hue imaginable
and the odd crayfish swam around us. Below and to one side were
always the cliffs of coral. Too numerous to describe in detail I can only
liken it to an underwater garden the colours of which are breathtaking.
Especially as the best part of these dives was that it was not
necessary to go below twenty meters thus the colours were not
lost.
Our plan is to stay here for a few days, let the
weather settle hopefully, and after restocking with fresh food we will probably
go north again a little way back to the peace of anchorages to ourselves.
We will then sail over to what the locals call the mainland but is in fact the
main island of Viti Levu. Here in Lautoka we will check out for Vanuatu
and our first brush with the peoples of Melanesia.
Happy times to you all
David and Annette
 After the sevusevu ceremony the wife appears and we
chat.
Kava roots are in paper wrapping
 Carving in church roof. Soso village.
 Nordlys off Soso village. Yasawa group
Since I inserted the above photo the grey skies and 20
knots with rain has turned into 40 knots plus of screaming fury and
we, that is our buoy started to drag. Motoring to take the strain I waited
for a gap in the fury and we managed somewhow to get tied to the only
other mooring still free. Well done Annette in the bows. The
anchorage is full with some thirty plus yachts here. The wind has just
gone round into the SW, the only direction this anchorage has a fetch. The
seas are some two to three feet and bows, including ours are plunging. I
see others motoring up on their buoys and anchors. Ho Ho life in the
'Pacific'.
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