Calypso's Journal: Oops, we're at Rabi Island

After leaving Budd Reef, we headed out through the western pass towards Rabi Island, pronounced Rambi, (another quirk in the way Fijians pronounce things). Light winds took us to the Florida Reef where we had to drop the sails to wend our way through the intricacies of that maze to reach the north end of the island.

By the time we got around to the top to find our way into Albert Cove (led in by a pod of dolphins) and the little settlement of Motawa, the sun was in our eyes; something that is definitely not advisable when one is trying to negotiate complicated reef areas. The information that we had on our charts was far from detailed so, oops, we hit an unmarked reef lying across the bay in front of the anchorage area. We hadn’t been able to see it at all until it was too late. We were stuck!

Fortunately, we’d been going really slowly, just in case, but we could only see worse every which way we looked so had to get out of there. Somehow, Paul managed to spin ourselves around and, bit by bit, moved towards deeper water. We were worried about a falling tide but, in the end, we worked ourselves loose and away from it. A local fishing boat came by to show us that we had to head further over to the west end where there was an opening to in get behind.

Once we’d dropped the hook, Paul dived to see what damage we’d incurred and returned to report that, apart from the aft end of the bottom of the keel, the part that he’d just repaired whilst on the hard in New Zealand, all else was fairly intact. Just a few annoying scratches. Also, the reef we hit was fairly dead – I’d been concerned about the damage we’d done to that.

From the stories that are told at various gatherings of ‘yachties’ it’s fairly evident that ‘kissing the ground’ is certainly not uncommon and if one says otherwise, he’s probably lying. We’ve touched bottom several times but this is only the second time in seven years that we’ve hit something hard and sustained some damage. The first being as we headed into Cartagena in Colombia and hit the ancient underwater wall built to stop marauding fleets hundreds of years ago. We consider ourselves fortunate when we compare ourselves to so many others who have either lost their boats or received some major destruction. However, it’s still very nerve wracking at the time.

Marianna & Terry

Motawa proved to be a gorgeous little settlement with some incredibly wonderful and hospitable people. The first thing one learns about Rabi is that it is not inhabited by Fijians. All the people who live on this island are from Banabas otherwise known as Ocean Island in the Kiribati group (formerly called the Gilbert and Ellice Islands). The entire population of Banabas was removed after the British destroyed the island. It was discovered in earlier years that the island was rich in phosphate, in fact some 20 metres deep in guano. The islanders signed a 99 year contract at ₤50 per annum, to allow the collection of the phosphate but, before long, they had removed so much, there was nothing left of the island; they had dug down to bare coral rendering it uninhabitable. Through negotiations, Fiji offered them resettlement on Rabi Island. The greater percentage of the population was moved there in 1945. The last resettled as recently as 1983.

Despite living in Fiji, they maintain their own language (Gilbertese) and have a different appearance to the Fijians. There are some intermarriages but, unless through marriage, no non-Banabas are allowed to live on Rabi. We were still struggling to get past the hellos, thanks and goodbyes in Fijian and had to start all over again in Gilbertese.

We first met Terry and Marianna, with their daughter-in-law Bau, who immediately invited us into their home, a lovely tropical thatch-roofed dwelling with reed mats and bamboo walls. Later, after a bit of a tour along the beach to the hot springs, Terry took us to meet Banea, a very interesting character. Some ten years ago, Banea suffered a stroke that paralysed his legs. He was told that he’d never walk again but refused to stay in hospital, choosing to move somewhere where he’d be able to swim. He moved to remote Motawa and was carried into the water every day so that he could exercise. He now walks with a bit of a limp but his calf muscles are good and strong and he’s incredibly active. When we went to visit them on the second day, Terry was walking out of the water with an enormous stingray over his head and shoulders that Banea had speared. A most remarkable recovery.

Terry pounding the kava

On that day, we shared in another kava drinking ceremony and, feeling somewhat mellow and soporific, exchanged stories for many hours. It gave us quite an insight into the history of the Banaban people and the way that they are now living. Rabi is a beautiful island so, despite the fact that they have ostensibly been cheated out of adequate recompense for the upheaval they endured and the destruction of their original home, they feel very lucky to be living here. The land is fertile which enables them to grow almost everything they need and the surrounding sea is full of fish. Besides clothing, their only needs seem to be sugar, salt, rice and, occasionally, flour. They even make a flour out of the cassava that they grow. Nothing is safe though. As we were sitting there, a crab sauntered by, zap, he was soon in a bucket awaiting the pot.

A few days later, we said our fond farewells and moved on over to the next bay where we were able to walk to the village of Nuku. I was desperate for some flour as I hadn’t been able to make bread for a while. It was almost four kilometres to Nuku which wouldn’t have been that bad but it was an extremely hot day and the route offered little or no shade so we were somewhat warm by the time we got there. It had been our plan to buy flour, coke, beer and eggs but this was definitely not a hypermarket; they had flour but no coke, no beer and no eggs. Oh well, at least I could make bread again and will enjoy those drinks even more when we finally get to some form of civilisation.

We stopped at another bay on the south side but decided not to stay long as the waters were a bit muddy therefore no snorkelling. Several of the village children rowed out to us. They were fascinated with the way we lived and asked a million questions. Too cute, two of the boys dashed off when they heard that we liked drinking coconuts, climbed a palm and returned with two for us.

We sailed through more reefs towards another spot that showed an anchorage but, upon arrival, discovered that there was a pearl farm (a minefield of buoys everywhere) and nothing less than about 30 metres, far too deep to anchor. As there was still time, we chose to continue on to Viani Bay, the bay we’d stopped at after leaving Savusavu.

In Viani Bay, we met up with the local honcho, Jack, again who brought us a basketful of fresh fruit and vegetables. These people are amazing. We would have loved to stay longer but it’s time to get back to Savusavu so we only stayed the one night before moving on to Dakuniba Bay where we bumped into Auspice again.

Our planned one night stopover panned out to two as we went aboard Auspice for dinner and Jim brought out the rum and home-made rice wine. After that, an early start the next day didn’t appeal anymore.

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