Hi All,
This marvelous cultural and cruising experience continues…..
The day after the fundraiser was Sue’s day to teach her art class in the school for 10 students with 20+ looking on. Kathy and I volunteered to help!! Sue makes prints which is a very complicated process but the kids caught on very quickly and made some very nice prints…..class lasted 3 hours…..then we socialized for another 2 hours (tea and scones)…..yikes….we were tired puppies that night!!!
Sue initially showed the kids how to make a drawing that would be their print. She had many books of various things to draw but what seemed to fascinate all the kids were the books and pictures of the reef fish. Peter, age 12, one of Joe/Tara’s grandsons that we have gotten to know pretty well, was in the class as an observer, and you could see his joy and concentration as they looked through all the books. The kids made some very good free hand drawings which quite surprised all of us!!
Next they used various objects to glue on their drawing to make the texture. While the glue dried, Sue showed the class various means of printing and again the kids made some excellent free hand drawings. Once the main drawing and all the glued objects had dried, Sue showed the students how to apply the ink and then press the drawing onto a clean sheet of paper and voila we had 10 excellent prints!!
After the class, George, the schoolteacher, and his wife Ma had us over for tea and scones….she had made lemon tea and fresh baked English type scones….yummers!! From there we went to the wood carving station to pick up our 2 wood carvings from Mini, Sue and Andy picked up their laundry from Jasmine and Kathy and I went to visit some with Tara. It was almost dark by the time we made it back to Mystic!!!
OK….that was enough village time for a while so we came over to the “sand spit” anchorage for some R&R and water sports. The 1st day we took a long beach walk and sea shell search…..the shells were a bit sparse but still found some interesting ones. SV Gliss, a very large sailboat w/crew and who we had met along the Crossing last year, had come in a few days earlier and the captain had gone out fishing outside the reef and came back with a 150-lb dog-toothed tuna…..whoa….they came around the anchorage giving out huge chunks of tuna then gave over half the fish to the village. We have never caught a dog-tooth tuna but the face looks a bit like a dog and the teeth were numerous and enormous. Buffalo Nickel had Spruce and us over for a sushi night and the the fish was excellent….a very light colored and light tasting tuna!!
The next 2 days found us diving outside the pass…..excellent diving….the wind had practically died and we timed the dive around slack…..Spruce, Buffalo Nickel, Bob from Charisma and us all went in 3 dinghies…..we dove in two sets with the ones not diving watching the dinghies as both dives were a slow drift dive. Not as great of fish life as we expected, but the corals and the variety of fish were quite stunning! Kathy had some digestive issues(we are not sure from what, nothing serious but certainly not comfortable) for a few days so she sat out one of the days of diving.
In the midst of all this Sue had a birthday and 5 boats went over to Spruce’s one night for a very fun filled night toasting the birthday girl and then roasting everything else!!
One day the boys stayed on the boats doing various things while the women, Kathy, Sue, Carole (Vision) and Anne (Charisma) all went to the village for a weaving session and to attend Ma’s birthday party (George’s wife). In addition to the Ladies’ Day out, the girls really seemed to enjoy the weaving lessons from the village ladies, and Kathy came home with a very nice table mat that she had done. Ma also sent a variety of cakes with each of them for the men!
Native Fishing: One day Andy and I went fishing with Tai and a young man named John, but appropriately named by us as Young John…..I was named Not-so-young John….oweeeee 🙂 ))) Tai wanted to show us how to fish Fulaga style. First we had to go net our bait fish. We took a 100′ net to some shallow waters and while Tai and Young John opened the net and then formed a circle, Andy and I used our dinghy paddles to make noise and hopefully scare the fish into the net. Well….we suck as fish corrallers…..after 4-5 times with the net we had collected 8 small bait fish…..Tai said they usually get 30 -50….ugh!!! Anyway, off we went to fish on top of the barrier reef near the pass and where we were diving. They use hand lines, you bait the hook, and then wind up the line rodeo style and let fly…..I did ok, but after a while Tai took over throwing the line because I could not get it out far enough…..yep, my cowboy days are over 🙁 (((( I caught 2 nice size long-nose emperor fish and Tai caught one, which was the biggest!!!!
Picnic: One day the village hosted a picnic/BBQ near our anchorage. Maybe 20 people came from the village. Several boats went out to spearfish while the women (all the cruiser women and the village women) went to net fish. Several of us men were drafted to carry the ladies in our dinghies and we all had a great time watching the women net the fish….the village women are a hoot…..lot’s of laughing, teasing and jocularity at one another and soon all the cruiser women were joining in all the fun…..alas, they didn’t do too well netting the fish but not too worry Andy and I had ensured there was lots of fish a little earlier…..and how did we do that you ask? Andy and I took Moon Lite out a few hours before the picnic with instructions not to come back unless we caught a mahi, wahoo, wallou or a tuna, although we all have been eating the tuna from s/v Gliss and some of us desired a change of fish. Well, it was Andy’s day….I was just the dinghy boy…..Andy caught a little mackerel, a crocodile neeldlefish, but then hooked, fought and landed a 35-lb wahoo….yes, from the dinghy…..wow…was that fun or what! Of course, the dinghy got totally trashed but who cared at that point……so, we both took a nice hunk of meat for ourselves and then Andy gave the rest to the village to cook for the picnic….wow, was that good tasting fish…..fried over an open fire…..yummers.
There was a lot of food….the villagers had made a lovo (underground pit covered with palm leaves) and cooked cassava with the head of the wahoo…..it was excellent…..there was barracuda (speared by Darrell on Donella), some parrot fish caught by the speargun guys, the small goat fish the ladies netted and of course, Andy’s wahoo….plus, about 11 boats were there and the cruisers all brought various dishes!!! Kathy made her now famous brownies and some of the village women snuck in early for some treats 🙂 ))
Boat Stuff: Well, we certainly are continuing to practice fixing things in exotic places. So far we have repaired a loose ground wire on the GEN as well as replaced the motor/vibration mounts as the noise/vibration was getting too much. I also found a loose cable on the windlass “down” side which so far has fixed that issue. The windlass would not operate the chain going down so Kathy had to free wheel the windlass to let the chain out…..we got a good anchor set but it’s a PITB to do it this way. I had to take a bunch of cables off and take the Maxwell windlass solenoid box out and of course, a cable I could not see was the one that was loose…..ugh!!!
But, the problem of the day now is our boom and dinghy winches. The last few times we have lowered or raised the dinghy the winches have slipped…..well, at least one is slipping and that is what we are thinking now. At first we thought it was a cable underwrap which occasionally happens but the last time I ensured there was no underwrap but the winch still slipped (or so we think it is one of the winches).
Today I took off the bottom winch (for the dinghy) expecting to find something broken….a gear tooth or something. I did not find anything out of the ordinary. So, I took off the top winch (for the boom) and also found it in good shape! Now what????
We do have a spare winch…but just one so which winch to replace??? Andy came over and we looked hard at the two winches as well as studied the parts diagram we have. We are not exactly sure how it all works especially the brake but the boom winch had a lot of rust/corrison in the gears and motor and a small nick in the brake assembly. The dinghy winch had a frozen drum bearing. If I had to guess I think the dinghy winch drum bearing slipped and now is frozen. So we are using the motor/gears from the dinghy winch and the drum bearing from the boom winch and use that assembly for the boom winch and the new winch for the dinghy winch!!
So, how did it turn out……don’t know yet as we haven’t put it all back together yet…stay tuned!!!!
Hope all is well!!
John
Mystic Moon
Fulaga Fiji
