Day 61, Year 2: Sunday in Daliconi Village
Date: Sunday, June 24, 2007
Weather: Partly Cloudy Morning, Rain at Noon, Beautiful Afternoon
Location: Daliconi Village, Vanua Balavu, Northern Lau Group

I think it would be safe to say that we have gone to church more in the South Pacific than we ever did back home. The people here are pretty insistent that everyone goes to church on Sunday and then spends the remainder of the day at rest. So when you are anchored just off a small village, you go along with the tradition. And if you want to get to know the people, this is one way to do it. The church service is always an adventure. It is different every place we go. I think today’s Methodist Church service in this little village was the most beautiful we have attended. It started at 10 AM and ended at 11:30 instead of at noon. One and a half hours of listening to something in a language you don’t understand is enough, two hours stretches things a bit. We were met at the beach by Lako’s husband, Sam, and he escorted us to the church. As we entered, the women sitting in the pews on the left side of the church were chanting scriptures. It was truly enchanting. We sat down on the men’s and children’s side of the aisle as directed by Sam, and then he went to sit with the choir. He explained that Laco was cooking and would be coming along shortly. I was totally enthralled by the chanting. It was so beautiful. Then we heard the loli or drum beating as the call to worship. The ministers and village elders entered the church and took their places, and then one of the ministers started the service. The choir sang the Lord’s Prayer in Fijian and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Their voices sounded like angels. It was really beautiful–acapella, no musical instruments, just beautiful voices. Visitors are always welcomed and an elder came forward to welcome us in English and then Mark was prompted to respond. The visiting crew installing the new satellite dish was also welcomed and one of them did the response. He talked for a very long time, but unfortunately we could not understand what he was saying. The choir sang another song and Lako was the female soloist. It was then that I realized it is her voice that sounds like the angels. About 80 people were in attendance, so almost everyone in the village of 104 was there. The women were all dressed in ankle-length sulas and then a mid-calf length dress on top of that. This looked very similar to the dress we saw in Samoa. The men all wore sulas with a long-sleeved shirt and tie, and all of the elders had on dress jackets. Some people wear flip-flops, but many go barefooted. The first minister said many prayers and then a younger minister got up to give the sermon. He had lots of personality and was very charming. As he spoke, you could tell he was telling a story and then he would gesture and speak with a lot of emotion. It was not fire and brimstone but the sermon was delivered with, let’s say, a lot of enthusiasm. The sermon lasted about 30 minutes and was the story of Lazarus. The sermon in Vacaleya a couple of weeks ago was about Sodom and Gomorrah. One of these days I’m going to have to read the bible to see what these guys are talking about!

After church, we shook hands with the ministers and the village elders and then walked with Lako and Sam to their home for Sunday dinner. Laco’s marriage to Sam is her second. She has three children and he had three children, so they now have six but only one is still at home. Sero is in class seven and is probably 12 or 13. All of the other children are in Suva except for Lako’s daughter who is in England. Her husband is Fijian and joined he British Army. He signed up for 27 years so I guess they will away for some time. Lako has been to England to visit and her daughter and her husband come home at Christmas. While we were sitting waiting for dinner, neighbors came by and brought food for the kaitanis. They wanted to make sure we experienced real Fijian food. We had fried barracuda, boiled fish that tasted like mahi-mahi, taro, a type of boiled yam brought in by a neighbor, something like spinach cooked with coconut cream and fish brought in by a neighbor, and palusami (taro leaves cooked in coconut cream). Sam and Lako were were insistent that we eat first. It is the Fijian way. Their son, Sero, was then served as he needed to go to Sunday School class, and after we finished, Lako and Sam ate. Lako prepared a lemonade while we ate. She squeezed the lemons and just added water a very little sugar. This lemonade is better than any I have ever had before. The lemons look like limes but are orange inside. They are not lemons as we know them and I really like the drink. We ate on a cloth on the floor which is the Fijian way. There are no tables. There are stuffed couches and chairs, but I have never seen a table.

Lako and Sam have a washing machine and offered to do our laundry. I couldn’t take them up on the offer as I had just done the laundry before we went to church this morning. But I was impressed that they have a machine. They have a propane gas stove, a DVD player, a boom box, and a television. Lako said most homes in Daliconi have these things. The only income here is from fishing and copra (dried coconut sent away to be made into coconut oil). The fish and coconut are sent to Suva twice a month by boat. The village just south of here, which is next to the airport, is the storage area. I’m not sure how the fish is kept, but it must be frozen. Parents have to pay for their children to attend high school in Suva and they have to give to the church. Sam said that he only has to fish two nights a week to be able to pay for all of this, plus the sugar and oil and they need for cooking. All other food comes from the land and the sea. The government installs the satellite dish and provides the cell phone and television service. Lako says she buys phone cards that allow her to call Suva and anywhere in the world for $1.00 per minute. I’m not sure if the villagers have to pay for television service. I’m going to have to ask more questions about the television service and how much that might cost a village, if anything. At least people in this village seem to be able to continue to live a traditional lifestyle with the addition of a few modern conveniences and technologies. I only wonder how long they will be satisfied with what they have. I hope they are able to maintain it. I truly admire their lifestyle.

We spent a quiet afternoon on Windbird. Mark actually wrote a “Captain’s Ramblings” which will follow this log, and I baked bread. Tomorrow morning we go to shore at 7:45 AM to meet Lako. She will take us to the school so we can deliver some school books we have been carrying from school children in New Zealand. We hope to walk on the island and then return to Windbird by noon to move to an anchorage in the Bay of Islands. Evidently there are no villages there and there are no other boats, so we will have this beautiful place all to ourselves.

Captain’s Ramblings 1, Yr 2
June 24, 2007

I was just going through our recent photos that Judy has meticulously cataloged and labeled. My attention was caught by the photos of stakes in the water. They call them beacons here, but there is no light on the top. In fact, there is no sign of any kind on these posts. They are simply iron pipes stuck into the rocks and coral and sand. Some are canted over at an angle. Some that are listed on the charts are not even there. And there are some that exist but are not on the charts. These “beacons” are the only guide to navigation in these coral reef surrounded islands.

When approaching an island from sea you are looking for a pass – a break in the fringing coral reef big enough for a sailboat to get through. Some of these passes are a half mile wide or more. Most are much narrower, some as narrow as 50 to 100 meters. Back in the States electronic charts could lead you right to any place you wanted to go with accuracy within 50 feet. However, here the charts are mostly based on data that the military collected during the Second World War, so places of military importance may be pretty well charted. Other places (the kind of remote places we like to visit) may be based on data a hundred years old or more. Some of the surveying was done by Captain James Cook. So we have found that we cannot trust our electronic charts. In Moala, the charts were off by as much at three-quarters of a mile. Last year in Tonga it was more like a couple hundred meters. Here in Vanua Balavu the charts are off by about a half a mile. That doesn’t mean the charts are useless. They are still accurate depictions of the land masses, rocks, reefs, and depths of the water around them. It is just that they are in the wrong place. To some extent we can make a mental adjustment – if we know that the chart is off by a half a mile to the southeast, we just need to imagine ourselves being a half mile to the northwest. Of course, that is not accurate enough to assure that you miss submerged coral heads. That is where visual navigation comes in.

If you are from the northeast US, as we are, then you are wondering how visual navigation allows you to see what lies below the water. But if you have been to the Caribbean, or almost any tropical waters, you know that the water can be so clear that you can often see down 10 to 20 meters or more. It is easier to see down into the water if you are looking down on it instead of looking off in the distance when the surface of the water is at a sharp angle to your angle of view. Wind ruffling the surface of the water or the sun reflecting off the water can make visibility difficult. There are a few tricks that have been in use since people first took to the seas. If you get yourself high enough you increase your angle of view to the water. Some people climb part way up the mast for this. We tend to simply stand at the bow where we have a better angle than from the cockpit. We try to schedule our movement in reef strewn waters to times when the sun is overhead or behind us. And very windy days are better spent at anchor. After meeting these requirements, you need to know what to look for. Deep blue water is deep. As it gets shallower it gets lighter blue, finally turning turquoise. Bright turquoise water usually means sand. Darker patches are rocks and coral heads – or could be nothing more than sea weed there to scare you making you think that you are going to hit a rock. We like to sail (or motor) though areas of deep blue water. And we like to anchor in turquoise water with no dark patches close by.

So how did we get in here? Yesterday, after an overnight passage, we approached the island using electronic charts (we do have paper charts as backup should we loose power or if the computer stops working). We made allowance for the fact that the charts could be off by a great deal and stayed at least three miles from any obstacles. Then, about three miles from the pass through the reef, we sighted a white marker (beacon), one of the few that still have a marker on the top of the post. There were supposed to be two in a row that we could line up to be sure we were in the pass (called a leading line). They were both there. We followed them in through the pass. In addition, we were supposed to be on a heading of 105 degrees True as we headed toward the leading marks. That was a second way of checking we were on course. Finally, I stood on the bow looking for shallows and giving directions to Judy at the wheel through our walkie-talkies. We did have one other important aid to navigation. We had waypoints given us by another cruiser who had been here a few weeks ago. However, we knew that one of his waypoints was totally off so we used them with caution. We made an uneventful passage through the reef and then on around the island inside the fringing reed to the village where we are now anchored. Successful navigation in these waters, and anywhere for that matter, is the use of as many navigation aids as possible: electronic charts, beacons, GPS waypoints, and visual navigation. The person at the helm has to keep a very steady course and the person on watch has to concentrate totally. Coming in to an island through a reef is an exhausting experience.

I still feel a lot of anxiety when approaching a pass, but I also feel a great sense of accomplishment when we arrive safely at anchor. It takes team work and amazing amount of preparation. You have to check, recheck, and recheck again any waypoints you have. You stare into the water as you never have before. The person on the helm watches those electronic charts and has to stay “exactly” on course, no deviation. Fiji is challenging this way, but we are finding that the effort is certainly worth it. This is a very special place and we know we are very fortunate to be able to sail these waters and meet these incredible people.

070624 Day 61 Vanua Balavu Island, Fiji–Daliconi Methodist Church on Sunday

070624 Day 61 Captain’s Ramblings