Our walk with Tooey was on Tuesday. On Tuesday night, heavy rain began that continued through the next day. Local custom requires that you tell the chief in person when you are leaving the anchorage. It was raining really hard and we figured the chief would understand if we didn’t trek out in the rain to say goodbye.
We wanted to check out on Thursday morning, so the plan was Continue reading
We had a hard time sleeping last night. It was windy, rolly and uncomfortable. We were pleasantly surprised when we awoke to clear skies and bright sunshine. We couldn’t have ordered up a better day for a hike.
We met Tooey on the shore in front of the school at 10:00. We brought two of the crew from Flashgirl with us. We hadn’t explored the school yesterday, afraid to trespass. There is a large field in the center, lined with buildings on all sides. Some of the buildings are classrooms, some housing for the teachers, and some dorms for the kids.
According to Tooey, Continue reading
Continuation from yesterday”¦
We walked out of the chief’s house and the anticipated downpour began. A woman in a house a couple doors down from the chief called out to us to get out of the rain and come inside. We were quite grateful for her invitation. From the outside, her home was very similar to the chief’s, but inside it had a lot more furniture. She had three comfy chairs in a row along one of the walls, a table near the kitchen, and several different types of linoleum patterns on the floor. We could see a bed in the next room. She asked us to sit in the chairs. Her husband, Lai, sat in the third chair. She sat on the floor amid three big piles of fiber. She told us she was hand weaving a mat.
We sat and chatted with her and her husband for about 45 minutes, until the Continue reading
Lat 17.20S, Long 177.08 E, In Fiji, once you get outside the cities, most of the land is owned by villages. A village not only owns the land, they also own the water around the land. In this culture, it is of utmost importance to obtain permission to be in their territory. It is considered very bad form to not ask permission to stay. There is a special ritual that is to be followed in order for permission to be granted. The importance of Continue reading
Shortly after waking up, we looked out and saw a big cruise ship had pulled in. They were shuttling people to the two islands in their tenders. Then we realized that there were more than a dozen people snorkeling behind Kosmos. Boy, we picked an interesting place to anchor!
We decided to go diving first, then to the island. We loaded into our gear and Continue reading