Calypso's Journal: How does one describe such generosity?

We had left Savusavu with another boat, Cariad, with Wattie, a Kiwi, and Diana, from South Africa, aboard. Wattie’s daughter is married to a Fijian from Ovalau so they wanted to visit his family there. Upon arriving in the town of Levuka on the Saturday, we were all invited to their village, Navuloa on the west side, for lunch and to watch the Rugby World Cup final the following day.

That first night spent in Levuka was in poor holding with a lee shore, a type of anchorage that does not inspire much confidence. Even though we knew we’d have to check in there on the Monday, we needed to get closer to the village we were to visit so we left to sail anti-clockwise almost three quarters of the way to the south west corner. It wasn’t possible to get through the shorter distance down the east coast.

Several of the chaps came out to meet us in their skiff to show us to a good anchorage and then, once settled, took us on an amazing trip through the mangroves up a river to their village.

Upon arrival, we were introduced to the chief to perform sevusevu and drink kava before sitting down for lunch. Lunch – the ladies of the village must have spent the entire morning (if not the previous day) preparing this feast for us. There were all sorts of interesting vegetable dishes prepared with coconut milk, curried wild pig, crabs, fish, sausages, cassava, taro root and yams and I’m sure I’ve missed a few. They insisted we eat before them which always makes me a tad uncomfortable but they really do seem to enjoy watching us enjoy the food first. Once we’d finished, they (and ‘they’ consisted of at least a couple of dozen adults and children) dug in.

The game wasn’t until later in the evening so we wandered around this delightful village with all the children as our guides returning for more kava later on. We’d mostly given up by this time but they drank the entire afternoon, evening and night. Kava root is their main source of income in the village so I guess they have plenty for their needs.

While we waited for the game to start, the ladies made tea with dozens and dozens of doughnut –type balls that were excellent and, again, they wouldn’t touch them ‘til we’d had our fill. I won’t go into details of how many a certain husband of mine consumed but they delighted in his appetite.

The following morning, our amazing hosts were there to collect us so we could catch the truck (no such thing as a bus) into Levuka to clear in and have a wander around. Levuka is the original old capital of Fiji and, as such, has some interesting history and old buildings. In some respects, it looks a bit like an old town out of the American wild west.

When we checked in, the officials politely told us that we should never have moved around to the other side of the island and that we must bring the boats back in order to check out. Had we done that, we would have wasted two days, one to get back to Levuka and one more to go out and around the reef to head southwards. We ended up checking in and out at the same time even though that supposedly meant that we’d have to leave within 24 hours. Well, we didn’t but the chances of them finding us way down on the south side were fairly remote so we stayed for a few more days before going south from that vantage point – a much more practical route.

Saying farewell to the villagers was somewhat wrenching – they had been amazing, overwhelmingly generous and friendly hosts and had obviously thoroughly enjoyed our visit too.

PHOTO GALLERY: (courtesy of Diana Cariad)