Our trip to the outside of the reef for Robinson Crusoe Resort was smooth. The resort was a fun little anchorage with a rustic bar and outdoor restaurant. We arrived to see the guests in the middle of coconut jewelry making - kind of fun. The sun was dazzling. We had a hitch hiker from Musket Cove - a sea snake - quite poisonous. He was all curled up in the leg of the whaler's engine. It certainly surprised Abbie when she noticed it. A brave young Fijian rescued us by taking the snake away. We have a funny picture to prove it all! Dinner was an "order in advance" affair and served in Family style which was interesting as we met all of the resort guests.
Kadavu Group was an 8 hour cruise in slightly turbulent water - at least Cassie thought so - she ate our whole box of saltines. We parked up in Tavuki Bay. One custom that we are having a bit of difficulty with is that of "Sevu Sevu" . This is where you go ashore to the closest village and offer a gift of Kava roots and ask permission to anchor in their water, dive, swim, walk on their beaches and maybe visit their village. Which is a rather polite thing to do, But… somehow they manage to make it a time consuming effort by having to find the Head Man of the village, then rounding up some of the Elders and the Chief, then they want you to sit around and join them for a bowl of Kava. It definitely must be an "acquired" taste. We are so used to conducting business in a timely and efficient manner that we really have a tough time accepting that "Time" has no value for some places of the world. Now if this was something that you did once or twice in your visit to the islands, it would come off as being a very quaint traditional practice. But every anchorage you go into, there is a village and you must do Sevu Sevu each time you come to a new village….. All we want to do is dive. Now! Do you think this will teach us patience? We only have about 20 more anchorages to do in the next few months. That's a lot of Kava drinking!!!
We moved on to Ono Island after three days at Tavuki and we met Ase when we went in to do our sevu sevu. He is a nice young man and offered to take us out to the reef for diving and for a day of hiking on his island. So we take him up on it. He introduced us to many of his village people and people in the adjoining village, took us on a beautiful 2 hour (one way) hike through the island fields. His wife made us tapioca squares and lemon leaf tea - quite a treat. His cousin Seewah showed us the best dive site we have found to date in our travels, we dove it several times. We gave candies to the village children and scribblers and pencils to the local school, traded a gallon of gasoline for four green coconuts and gave another gallon away for free to a fellow giving the village children a ride to their boarding school and we gave Ase's cousin a ride to Suva (6 hour boat ride) so he could attend his brother's funeral. We are involving ourselves.
The weather has been pretty awful - when you consider that it is supposed to be hot, sunny and calm this time of year. It has been cool, rainy and windy - quite the contrast.
Cassie will go home with out too much extra color on her tan and not much sleep as the boat does all kinds moving around in the waves and wind at night. But we have done some awesome diving and we have seen some "inside" views of Fiji with her, so all is good.
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