Calypso's Journal: Dravuni, Kadavu

Eventually it comes time to move on and say farewell. We took a hike over the hill to the first village, said a sad goodbye to everyone, then strolled over to the second one to do the same. Our time on Oneata had been absolutely wonderful so it was with heavy hearts that we said our farewells. We had decided to leave in the morning to head for Kadavu (pronounced Kandavu), an overnight trip.

Setting off around 8 in the morning with two challenges: firstly as always, if there are two or more boats heading in the same direction, it’s a race! Secondly, let’s see who catches the most fish. The final score: one / one. Cooee arrived at our chosen destination a couple of hours ahead of us but we caught more fish. It turned out to be a rather rough passage – one of those we’d prefer not to repeat too often but we arrived safely at the island of Dravuni, another very pretty spot.

Preparing cassava

The following morning, we went into the village to meet the chief to perform sevusevu. He had gone to a church meeting on the main island of Ono for the day with all the ladies so the mayor, Isaac, welcomed us in his stead. While the ladies were away, the men were working together to make the food for the evening meal, grating coconut and cassava in preparation. We were invited to join them for their kava drinking ceremony that night. The entire village was there and Bronte met some of the younger guys and was able to make arrangements to go spear fishing the next morning.

Our time there was fairly relaxed just socialising, fishing and abit of hiking up the hill which offered a wonderful view around the northern reaches of Kadavu. But the weather was a tad rough for a while which kept us confined to our boats during those days. However, we did join in the church service one Sunday which, of course, was followed by a fabulous lunch spread with one of the families.

For a bit of a change, we spent a few day anchored at Namara, an uninhabited island nearby where the snorkelling was quite good but we were running out of food and Cooee needed to start thinking about fuelling up for their return trip to New Zealand.

Unfortunately, (isn’t there always something in this category) while we were lowering our anchor at Namara, Calypso was suddenly filled with smoke in the forepeak. We instantly shut everything down but the smoke was so thick we couldn’t see a thing. It just had to be our windlass – damn, damn and double damn! As I write this, it is weeks later and the smell is still strong.

This and the fact that we were really living on borrowed time with our batteries confirmed it, we had to get to Suva to try to sort things out. The trip to Suva was just over 40nm and the day gave us perfect conditions. And now comes another “unfortunately”. We had lost our chart plotter in Minerva so were reliant on our handheld GPS and computer but both these died on this trip so we arrived amid the reefs of Suva blind. Fortunately (yeah there are some of those as well) it was a calm clear day and we could easily see the reefs. We pulled into a little bay a few miles from the Royal Suva Yacht club where some kind sole has placed a few free mooring buoys- a Godsend when you have no windlass. And a much prettier spot than the grubby harbour of Suva.

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