After another vigilant night of anchor watch in 100’ of water near Sand Key, we got around pretty slowly on Tuesday, but nothing that a cup or two of coffee couldn’t remedy. Everyone but the skipper (he had charts to review) piled into the dinghy with our two spearguns and one Hawaiian sling and headed over to the tiny sand island in the middle of nowhere to check it out. The first thing I noticed was that the kids from S/V Imagine had done an impressive job of writing their boat name in the sand with shells and bits of coral. (I asked the 11-year-old about it later, and she said it had taken a few hours.) Aside from that, there was no sign of life on the island except for a bit of driftwood.

We donned our snorkel gear and headed out to the surrounding reef to spear some fish for sushi. Colin was a sushi chef back home, and we are all anxious to see him in action, but it was not to be that day. Colin and Ash discovered that our new spearguns had to be reloaded on the beach, which is kind of annoying for beginners, but in time we should be able to learn to pick our targets very carefully. I showed Ashley how to use the Hawaiian sling (a long spear with a bungee used to shoot), and she seemed to enjoy it. It has been really fun to introduce her to new activities such as snorkeling and sailing. She’s not too comfortable with the heat of the tropics or the motion of the sea, but other than those minor details, she seems to be a fan of the salt life.

Ashley x 2

From Sand Key we headed to the island of Wanuya to pay sevusevu to the chief and get permission to visit neighboring Manoriki, the island where Castaway was filmed. Not surprisingly, this is one of the most visited islands in the area, as was immediately apparent by the group of tourists waiting to be picked up. We found the chief sitting in a bure near the beach and presented our gift of kava to him. This guy could have performed the sevusevu ritual with his eyes closed and almost did. We walked through the village, and I did what has become my usual habit in these villages—exchanging shouts of “bula” and taking photos of just about every kid on the island. Dallas and Colin disappeared up the nearest mountain, and the rest of us got to know the chief’s family and checked out the handicrafts they were selling. When they returned, we shared some kava with the family and got a proper tour of their village, including the groundwater well (for cooking and washing only) and the school. It was definitely a wealthier village than the one in Yanuca, presumably because of the income they received from the two-month filming of Castaway and the $10/person that they have been collecting from tourists ever since.

Bula!

The chief’s daughter and her children

Too many photo-ops for such a small place!

A sweet young girl gave Ashley and I a tour of the classroom

We visited the Castaway island early Wednesday morning. It really is a beautiful, rugged island, and I can see why it was chosen for the movie. There are no inhabitants bar a few wild goats and land iguanas, but we weren’t lucky enough to spot any. Instead the guys climbed palm trees and replenished our supply of coconuts (Ash and Colin had already managed to nab several at Musket Cove), and James got his Castaway photo-op, complete with volleyball and shaggy beard.

Wilson!

The rest of the day was spent motorsailing to the large island of Waya in the Yasawas. We arrived in time to anchor in plenty of daylight in a large but not-too-deep bay, the only other boat being our new friends on S/V Imagine. The six of us on Pura Vida (I’d say that’s our maximum capacity) quickly went ashore to present sevusevu to the chief. This one was very friendly, although he wasn’t too keen on Ash and Colin’s request to walk around to the Octopus Resort on the other side of the island. His rationale was that it was a 2 ½ hour walk if they took the beach route (longer by mountain), it was getting dark, and the tide was coming up. After three whole days without going to a shore party, Ash was not about to take no for an answer and eventually managed to get permission. We discovered later that the chief knew what he was talking about as their path was obstructed by slippery rocks, and after a couple hours of tramping through the bush, they found themselves back on the beach a short distance from where they left it. I guess they had their own private shore party before crashing out on the beach for the night!

Meanwhile, Dallas, Ashley, James, and I had a quiet night on the boat. Dallas and I hired a guide ($5 US/person) the next morning to traverse up the steep (1700 feet) cliff face of the mountain. It was a challenging climb, and 23-year-old “Radz” kept a quick but accommodating pace. He had to hack through the thick bush so much that I was pretty sure that people didn’t do this every day. Sure enough, he said that the last time he had gone up was last year. The view from the top was amazing, and while taking it in and catching our breath, we got to know our guide a little bit. He spoke English pretty well but was mostly interested in what we had on board in terms of electronics and music (“can you charge my phone?”). I think this is an unfortunate side effect of having so many tourists coming in and out of the traditional villages, something that sets western Fiji apart from some of the more remote places we have visited where they just seemed happy to meet foreigners and maybe trade a few things. With that said, Radz was pretty cool, and when we get back to the mainland, I will try to print off a photo of him at the summit to send to him.

Piece of cake

Our guide “Radz”

We got back to the boat to find a very sick James, and after motoring around to Octopus to find the rest of our crew, we found out that Colin was pretty sick, too. There was a lot of speculation about what caused their symptoms (drinking kava in the village?), and I was starting to feel responsible since the common denominator between the two guys’ food intake was a meal I’d prepared on the boat, but we learned from the friendly Kiwi owner of the resort that it was probably a case of Fijian flu. The first person usually gets the worst of it (unpleasantness from both ends), whereas the others get one or the other. That sounds about right. Needless to say, it was a pretty uneventful night for the crew. I think we all crashed around 9, although with the intense gusts we were getting off the mountains, I was up frequently during the night to check on the anchor.

We decided to stick around the resort for another day to give people (now including Dallas and Ashley) a chance to recuperate. Of course there are other advantages of being at the resort as well. I had a really nice lunch of walu (white fish) seared in lime juice and served with coconut broth and rice (like the poisson cru in French Polynesia) and found some pretty large fish while snorkeling on the reef here (the Picasso triggerfish are my current favorite). I’ve also had a couple of local beers (Fiji Gold is not too bad for $2.50 US) while waiting for the chance to jump on one of the two computers with internet access here at the resort. Ash has been meeting people as usual. He used his medical skills to bandage up a tourist’s cut foot and got two boxes of wine as payment. Hopefully everyone will be able to rally by evening to check out the traditional island dance performance and imbibe a little more…