Kadavu... Part 1

Welcome to our Blog. Our latest entry always comes up first... 

Click this link if you want to start at the beginning:
FIRST BLOG ENTRY
If you want to start at the beginning of our trip:
START OF TRIP
If you want to see the story of our trip from South Carolina
(where we bought the boat)
 to Lake Ontario Click this link:
  SOUTH CAROLINA

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In our last few days in the capital city, Suva, we toured a landmark hotel, a museum, and had an excellent experience at the market where we finished our major provisioning before we set sail to the southern Islands of Beqa, Ono, and Kadavu.

The Royal Suva Yacht Club...

The Nation Fiji Museum

Art on a whale tooth

 Then on to the market...

KAVA!

The run to Beqa was only 20 nautical miles and we caught another nice Mahi Mahi.  Tucked into a long bay, we anchored beside SV Swiftsure.  We spent a week here diving and exploring the bay. 

It is required that as we visit different places that we do what the locals call Sevusevu.  This involves giving the village chief a bunch of Kava root which is a mild drug, that gets mushed up and drank.  Before Cyclone Winston Kava sold for $7-14 per kilo.  Because much of the crop got wiped out in the storm, it now sells for $100 or more per kilo!  

That said, we have been here since April, and it has always been accepted.  However, this first time that we have received an actual Sevusevu ceremony in return.  It seems, that at $100 a kilo, the locals are hesitant to waste good Kava on yachties....

Tema and her daughter, Suru, showed us around the village

The village well.

They are building a new village community center...

The school bus....

 The villiage children leave every Sunday in this boat with a mom from the village.  They live at their school on the other side of the island during the week, and the "mom" from their village feeds them and looks after them until they return home for the weekend...

I repaired one of the ukuleles in the village then played some songs for them... They politely clapped...

The village elder MEN ONLY perform the ceremony....

Fresh chicken for dinner.... he's not even dead yet....

The taste of Kava is like dirty water with a hint of pepper.  The taste is not horrible, but it's not fine wine either....

Our dives were good, but not spectacular, so we moved farther south a few days ago to Kadavu Island.  This is the southern most island group in Fiji and suppose to have the best diving...  They also missed the worst of the cyclone so hopefully it will be good....

These photos belong to Ginger (SV Swiftsure).... Thank you....

A white tip shark...

A Remoura thought Lanny would make a good host to live on.... 

Shelley and I on our safety stop...  

 We drift dive with our dinghies on a 100' reel....

We arrived at Ono Island and were given a tour of their village.  Sadly, our last camera (our good Nikon DSLR) has failed, so we had to rely in Ginger again.... Thank you!

The village bakery!

The view from SV Swiftsure....

More soon!