Captain’s Log: Fulaga, Part 5

Hi All,

This will be last of the blogs about Fulaga. We had intended to stay 3-4 weeks and stayed 5 weeks, and we could have stayed longer. This experience has deeply affected us and is one we will cherish for the rest of our lives.

Bis and the solar panel: As it turned out, Bis could not find an inverter after we checked to ensure the solar panel was working. Kathy looked in our supplies and found a small 75 watt inverter that would be able to run Bis’ laptop. It took us many trips to/from Bis’ home and Mystic to be able to build the various connections from battery to inverter, laptop transformer, then laptop. Bis had an HP laptop and transformer with the 3 prong New Zealand style plug that would not fit our USA inverter. Kathy had an old HP laptop and we still had the transformer which was identical to Bis’…go figure!!!! So we just swapped out the cable and voila we had a connection!!! The battery Bis had was old and not in good shape so unfortunately we left him with a so/so situation but maybe another cruiser will have a better spare battery!!!

Medical Clinic: Batai, the local nurse, asked several of the boats to help him go around to the 3 villages to help do a health checkup…..taking people’s weights, height, calculating BMI, blood sugar, and blood pressure. Bravo, Maunie and us helped one day at the local village….we spent about 4-5 hours and almost all the villagers attended!!! I measured the height and then looked up their target weight and Kathy had the task of recording all the information…..no Hippa laws in this village. As in all towns, there was a range of very healthy people to obesity and diabetes…..not too many with heart or blood pressure issues. That led to a big discussion on how to improve the diet of fish and fruits (good) but too many root crops (carbs, bad). The soil is limestone and not suitable to growing many vegetables. We discussed hydroponics as we all had seen this being done in French Polynesia and Tonga. Batai was very wise to acknowledge that before he recommends a diet change he must have a viable alternative to replace some of the native food!!

After the clinic, Tai asked Adam and me if we could take the ladies crabbing to get ready for the fundraiser the next day…..they even provided us with some fuel!! So off we went across the lagoon with about 3 ladies in each dinghy….the wind was blowing hard so it was a very wet ride. It took several hours but the ladies found ~40 land/mud crabs of decent size and 2 large ones the size of a 2-3 lb dungenous crab but w/huge stone crab like claws. Adam and I attempted to help for a while but we gave up as we found the crabs were hard to find and we both were getting massacred by a gazillion mosquitoes….we had forgot the bug spray…..ugh!!!

Ladies Fundraiser: Tara led the village women in a fundraiser to raise money for more flushing toilets. We are not sure how many homes have flushing toilets…..maybe 20-30% and the women wanted all the homes to be outfitted. They also wanted more appropriate facilities for the cruisers. It also was an excuse to just have a huge party. Almost all the cruisers attended…..maybe 8 boats at that time and wow was it a blast. They did raise close to F$500 with about F$350 coming from cruisers!! The woman provided the entertainment with several dances, a very funny skit of wild animals and then they served a buffet feast which featured some of their best dishes……fish, crab, eggplant, several root plants, cakes, etc!!!! And, of course, we drank Kava, more kava, more dancing, more kava, more dancing…..you get the picture!!!! We had met a gentleman named Simone before and we think he is an elder or at least the Chief’s caretaker or spokesman. He sat near the front and wanted me to sit by him. He talked with me all night – a wide range of subjects from the village/Fijian culture, some of the Chief’s concerns/issues, and what the village could do to make the cruisers visits more enjoyable….wow, I felt very honored and tried to represent the cruisers as best I could…..of course, now that I look back on it, maybe he asked me to sit by him because I looked the oldest of the cruisers…..at one point he told me no more kava, you need to rest…..ouch!!!!!

Tours: Once we started giving tours of Mystic the requests continued to flow…..so for many days we were giving tours for individuals or maybe with 2 people. We started turning on the various instruments. We showed them the radar, echo sounder and sometimes a fish would show up and finally the chart plotter that had our tracks all the way back to the Caribbean. We had a good time as after the tours we would serve tea and trail mix (we ran out of cookies and other snacks so just down to nuts/trail mix). We got to learn so many people’s life history and of course, we would talk about our career and EVERYONE loves ice cream!!!!

One day we had Tara and the grandkids, Jone and Pita to the boat for lunch. The kids loved the tour. We were a bit nervous about what to serve for lunch, as we wanted it to be prefect for them….we served American hot dogs and a brat/sausage dish Kathy makes with potatoes, onions and peppers……they absolutely loved it all especially the ritual of putting the ingredients on the hot dog….Jone, the 9 year old, certainly does not like mustard or relish but Pita loved them both…..precious moments for sure. Kathy made brownies which were all gone by the time they left:)))) While we visited w/Tara after lunch, the boys watched a movie, Finding Nemo, on my laptop. They enjoyed the movie so much we gave them the DVD and told them Bis said come over anytime and watch it on his laptop now that we have it charging from his solar panel (later we made copies of “The Amazing Spider” and “Ghostbusters” and ensured them our boys loved the latter one). However, Joe did not make it…..he had gone fishing…..we think they all stayed up after the fundraiser and drank kava and then got a late start to fishing. Half way through the lunch, Joe and the panga crew came by/back from fishing and Joe excused himself from the lunch, but came for his tour with Akwila a few days later. Kathy sent Tara home with all the leftovers and Joe told us he loved the hot dogs and sausages. It had been many years since he had had sausages (when he lived in Suva) but these were much better he said (we bought these in New Zealand).

Cruisers at their best: Most of the cruisers were blown away by the friendliness and hospitality of the villagers, as were we. Many gave back as best they could – there were cruisers teaching various classes in the school, playing soccer and volley ball w/the kids at school, baking cookies and having water balloon fights with the kids, helping to fix doors and windows, fixing Batai’s VHF so he now has a very strong VHF and can talk to all the boats in most of the anhcorages, working on solar panels, and fixing outboard motors…..it indeed did the heart good to see the crusier’s at their best!!!

Saying goodbye: Saying goodbye was very, very emotional for us. Some cruisers choose not to do a formal goodbye but we learned that saying goodbye and shedding all the tears is very important to the Fijian people, and they may be offended if you do not say goodbye (one cruiser many weeks ago had chosen not to say goodbye and left the rest of us trying to explain to the village that it was not the villager’s fault). We did do the itatau…..this is a closing ceremony where you go to the Chief and ask his leave and say a few words about your stay in the village. Tara took us and Batai did the translation of the letter we wrote to give to the Chief….we also gave him a picture of the Chief, us and one of the elders from the first day we had the sevusevu. We had set it up with Bis and Tara but never found out why Bis was not there. In any event, Batai was great and the session was a big hit for us and the Chief!! When you say your formal goodbye, of course, it is done over a kava ceremony. Our kava ceremony was held in Joe & Tara’s home…..it started small but then grew to shoulder to shoulder people…..can’t know how many but just about everyone we knew or had just seen in the village was there…..maybe 30-40 people. Tara had made dinner but there was no where to eat….not sure what she was thinking so she finally just wrapped up the fish et al to send home to us. There was lots of singing and dancing and some joke telling and some discussions….Simone had me sit next to him again….it seems this was the protocol for the Joe/Tara clan and we talked most of the time….he was determined to teach me a lot of Fijian words and customs. Batai even came and he was instructed to sit by us. Finally Tara asked if we were ready…it had gotten late and dark by then….and we thought so….we both said some words fighting our composure the whole time….I would look at Joe and see tears, Tara, head down and hands over her eyes, Simone, tears, Bis, tears, Soki, tears, Soko, tears, Akwila, tears, Jasmine, tears, Koro, tears……Kathy and I did not stand a chance….then they sang Isele, the traditional Fijian farewell song…..lots of tears…..then we went around the room and hugged everyone individually and said “sote tali”, which means “see you later” as no one wanted to say goodbye.

One of our dilemmas all afternoon/night was how to give out our gifts…..Kathy finally went around the room and handed the pictures we had printed to various folks…..Bis, Soko, Akwila, Jasmine, Koro, Sena, Jiko, the weaving ladies and more. After we had said all our goodbyes, Batai offered his home for us to have a private time with Joe, Tara and the kids. We then exchanged our gifts…..Joe had made us this gorgeous kava bowl with our names and Mystic Moon carved on the top as well as a moon….he even carved underneath. Tara gave Kathy 2 very intricately woven purses…some of the best Kathy has seen!!!! We gave the boys t-shirts, more movies, some candy and a reef fish book, which they loved when they were on the boat. We gave Joe a MM t-shirt, a MM hat, and some new line for his panga. We gave Tara a MM polo shirt, some items for the house and then some personal cosmetic items.

We were just blown away, and we barely regained our composure by the time we got back to the boat. Bravo came over for a wee dram and it was great to be able to describe the event but sad to say goodbye to them also……when we finally looked up it was well past cruiser’s midnight and we were just both emotionally spent!!!!

So goes our stay in Fulaga. We got to know the people so well that it seems we both want to come back again next year. We shall see where our destiny takes us…….

Hope all is well!!

John
Mystic Moon