S 17° 34.266
E 178° 40.601

These days my narrations are more catching up stories then real time or same day written.

The reason is simply the wealth of things experience and the normal boat work. Planning ahead, contacting marinas, answering emails, and talking with loved ones over Signal, my main and safe messenger. In the evening I’m simply a bit tired and sometimes fall asleep before my head hits the pillow.

I started my daily fitness program again. Altogether it takes an hour every morning. However, it feels so good.

As mentioned in my “250828 Naigani Island at Anchor” blog, I’ll now catch up with story about the village.

Let me add that the next day 3 cats and a monohul dropped their anchors in the bay. We said hello to them before we took off for the village. They also wanted to come to the village doing their ‘sevusevu’.

It takes about felt 15 min to go by dinghy to the village. The first time we had enough water to make it over the large reefs at 3 corners along the shore line. Thereafter I went further outside around the outer edges of the reef. A safety measure.

I knew already in advance that the bay in front of the village is filled with a huge reef. However neither the Navioncs map nor satellite images indicate where the pass through that reef is.

This final reef I passed very slowly while standing in my dinghy to have a better view into the water. At a certain point I tilted the outboard motor to have less draft but still enough propulsion. Close enough to the beach that we can stand in the water, I anchored the dinghy with a stern and bow anchor. This way it was safe.

Kids playing with an old surfboard and a sea kayak or just swam in the warm water, watched us coming in.

Walking up the narrow sandy beach we met immediately a Fijian lady. It almost seemed she was waiting for. It was Sova, with whom we had our first chat. “Where is your boat? Where do you come from?” Etc. These conversations are good because they built a feeling between us and the people of the island. It’s their island and we are only ‘intruders’ because we want to see their island and their village for curiosity of a life so different to ours back home in European and Japanese cities. We want to peek into their lives in a natural paradise.

While talking to Sova, the people from the other boats arrived as well. Sova explained that the head of the village is in Levuka but she will bring all of us to an elder of the village who will do the ‘sevusevu’ with us.

Before that, Sova brought a piece of cloth for Joe to wrap it around her body as a skirt, needed in Fijian culture. How thoughtful and helpful.

Then all of us foreign sailors were sitting in a circle with the elder of the village on the ‘ibe’, the palm tree leaves mat, which is the normal floor cover in all Fijian islands. The material, leaves from the pandanus palm tree also ‘screw palm tree’ called, is abandoned here, and there are always people around who have the skill to weave such mats and other things for daily use.

We foreign sailors placed the yaqona roots in front of the elder and asked for permission to anchor in the island’s waters and walk on the island.

He asked a lot of questions about our countries, where we were before and where we want sail next, etc. He really was interested to learn about us, but also talked about the island. At a certain moment he changed to Fijian, to me it appeared like ceremonial phrases in which he welcome us to his island. It’s always nice** to be part of a sevusevu.

During the sevusevu Sova and another lady where sitting in a corner of the big room in the background.

After the sevusevu the elder asked me not to wear my cap while walking in the village. I removed it immediately and thanked him for his advice. Later I went to him again to thank him again for his cultural advice. It ended up in an longer conversation and I could take pictures of him and his granddaughter.

With the group of the other sailors, I walked up the hill hoping to get a great view down to the village and the bay o maybe even into a neighbor bay. I got the view.

On top of the mountain there is an about 50 – 60 m2 solar power plant with storage batteries and a diesel generator as a back up system. However, it’s not for the village but only for the mobile phone antennas as well as radio link antennas. The village doesn’t get power from there and the mobile phone network seems not to be that stable.

The houses have only rather small solar panels on their roofs. With them they can charge their mobile phones and have one LED light for the night. It’s a pity that the government doesn’t equip the villages with proper solar systems and maintain these installations.

The village has 2 churches, a catholic one and a methodist one for about 20 adults and their children. The latter one is still under construction, the catholic church was the refuge when in 2016 the cyclone Winston hit the village.

While I talked with Birgit, a German lady who lives in the village with her Fijian husband. She met him on the island when she traveled as backpacker in Fiji during the that time coupe d’état and took refuge in the resort on the other side of the island. The two of them live mainly in Germany but spent every year longer times on the island. Her husband, unfortunately, was for business on the main island Viti Levu.

Joe in the meantime found a group of young people to whom she talked under a big tree. A young man called Solo and two young ladies. They are on the island because of school vacations. Normally they live in Levuka and Suva, where they get their education. It was again nice to sit on the ‘bose’, a community platform under the big tree and talk.

Suddenly, Solo asked Joe and me, if we want to have a popo, a papaya. As we did not have much left, I said yes. When he came back, it was not only one Papaya, but 7. One we ate immediately altogether, the others we took back to MaRe.

Then it was time to leave the village because the tide was rolling out and the water gets too shallow over the reef. Solo and two other younger guys helped us to get the dinghy in the a bit deeper water. Solo also explained my their pass through the reef. It is marked with 2 floats as they are used for pearl farming on other islands.

Happy and filled with all we experienced in the village with its wonderful people living a simple and happy life in their paradise we arrive back at MaRe.