Day 38, Year 2: Village of Naiseuseu
Date: Friday, June 1, 2007
Weather: Wind and Rain, But Clearing
Location: Vaga Bay, Beqa Island, Fiji

The strong winds we had yesterday continued through the night. I have this unbelievable ability to sleep through almost anything, but thankfully Mark does not, so he was up about six times during the night to check our position. Our anchor held through the night, but just about the time we were getting up this morning, I heard the anchor alarm go off. The anchor had slipped and we were yet even closer to the reef. That woke us up quickly and we spent the morning in the cockpit reading and watching.
As low tide approached in early afternoon, we realized just how close to the reef we were. That made us even more anxious, but after the hard time we had getting an anchor to set yesterday, we just let things be. We felt like we needed to go into the village of Naiseauseau to present sevusevu and ask for permission to be here, but we were afraid to leave the boat. If the anchor slipped again, we would be on the reef. So we decided that Mark would go in and I would stay aboard.

Basically. we are nestled between two arms of the inner reef that extend out from the shore. Mark headed toward the beach between those two arms in the dinghy and found his way around the rocks to the muddy shore. A young man named Toni met him there and waded out to pull Mark and the dinghy ashore. Toni was in his upper teens and escorted Mark into the village. I was watching from the boat, and an entourage of young children followed them. Mark said the little ones wanted to carry his shoes
and carry his backpack, but he convinced them that he was able to do this on his own. He asked one of the children to spell his name and he couldn’t, but I believe these children were of pre-school age. School is on the other side of the island, and this little troupe had been playing on the beach all morning. Toni took Mark to his mother’s home. It is one of the homes we can see on the waterfront from out here. Toni’s mother talked to Mark and said that she was the grandmother of the young
child in the home. Mark said the small home was neat and clean and the living and kitchen were one room. On one end was a couch and two soft chairs, and on the other end was a stove and work counters. Soon after arriving at Tony’s, the turaga ni koro’s (chief) son came to welcome Mark. Evidently the chief was off-island, so the son was to do the honors. Mark presented the yaqona or kava and the chief’s son accepted and went into a long dissertation in Fijian. Mark, Toni, and Toni’s mother
all joined the chief’s son on the floor during the acceptance which ended with exclamations from the chief’s son followed by a single clap of the hands by Toni, his mother, the chief’s son and the young grandson. Mark wasn’t sure what was hapening, but he was glad he didn’t have to drink kava. Basically, we were welcomed and have permission to snorkel, fish, and visit the village while we are here. Everyone seemed to speak English fluently. Mark explained that I had not come ashore because we
were both afraid to leave the boat at one time. They understood and invited us to come when the weather moderates. Toni mentioned to Mark that the villagers could use D-cell batteries for their nighttime fishing lanterns and his mom promised to gather bananas and papaya for us. With that, Mark returned to Windbird.

While Mark was gone we got closer to low tide, and it became very evident just how close we really were to the reef on our starboard side. The stern of the boat was probably 75 feet from the nearest rock that was not exposed, so we decided to pick up anchor and try to set one more time. We drove straight toward the reef on our port side and set anchor there in 25 feet of water. The winds started dying down about the time we moved, we now feel that we are in a much safer position. If the weather
stays settled as it is now, we will both go into the village tomorrow to visit.

We spent the bulk of today reading and “watching”, but we did rearrange things in the v-berth and in our main cabin closet. We have our two collapsable bicycles in the v-berth, but the way we had them stored was severely hindering my access to the anchor locker. I have to flake the chain when we are bringing in the anchor, so we rearranged things so that was easier. We used to keep the bicycles on deck, but when we arrived in New Zealand, we had rusty bicycles. We did our best to clean up the
rust and are now trying to keep them below to prevent the rust problem. Toni and some of his young fisherman friends came out late this evening with bananas and asked if we could help them by providing D-cell batteries for their evening fishing foray. We only have two packages of 4 batteries each on board, so we have them one pack. We have one flashlight that needs D-cells, but they probably need them more than we do. Wish we had more to give them.

Tomorrow is Saturday and we hope to visit in the village. If the weather stays settled, we will sail to Kadavu Island and the Astrolabe Reef on Sunday. I’m actually beginning to feel like I’m on vacation!

070601 Day 38 Beqa Island, Fiji- Mark Visits Naiseuseu Village