Monday 5 August – Sevusevu at Naqara village

It was a pretty rolly night with the wind and waves swirling PolePole about, so not the best night’s sleep. Rowan and Phil went for a snorkel n the reef near our anchorage and found the coral in pretty good shape. Midday we picked up the anchor and headed back to the bay where we hit the coral. The wind is swirling about and we knew it was wonderfully protected bay to go to. We saw a couple of Manta rays on our way to our new anchorage, they are so easy to spot when they come to the surface. They seemed to be rolling over and showing off their white bellies.

Another boat followed us in, which was unusual as there are so few boats about. It was very low tide so very easy to spot the offending coral! Once settled we called the other boat to see if they wanted to join us for SevuSevu in the village. They accepted but suggested we wait for the tide to come up a bit, as there is a lot of muddy sand to walk through to get to the beach. They are a kiwi couple onboard a cat called Second Wind., and her name is also Wendy.

We finally went in around 4:30pm, our Wendy and Phil did not come with us, Wendy seems a little overwhelmed by children and third world culture, so they opted to stay on the boat. We still had to walk quite far in the mud to get in, most alarming was the amount of sea snakes about, they all had a hole they were protecting. I had to google them later to find out more about them as they looked very poisonous in their banded black and white skin. Apparently they are shy and get out of the way but are poisonous! We asked the locals and they were very nonchalant about them. Google says ……’Three species of sea snakes reside along Fiji’s rugged coastlines, where they come to the shore to rest. The highly venomous black and white banded sea snakes are often found along Fiji’s shores or in lagoons. They are usually docile and will not attack people unless they are severely provoked.’

Very friendly village elders introduced us to the chief who took us to the village hall to do the handover of our kava. As usual disarmingly grateful to us for turning up, and welcoming us to walk around the village and use their bay. Lot of kids joined us in the hall on their beautiful hand made woven mats. We had a little walk around, we commented on how impressive their Primary school was, so they introduced us to the headmistress who invited us to look around the school at 2pm tomorrow and the kids would put on a performance for us. We have nothing to give the kids, so we volunteered to make cookies, turned out that there are 32 kids plus staff. That is tomorrow sorted! It is another beautifully maintained village, very neat and tidy with lovely gardens.

Back on the boat it was wonderfully flat and calm. It makes a nice change from the past 3 nights!

The rolly anchorage we left

Plenty of cloud about, as we carefully picked our way through the various coral outcrops, passing lovely beaches but not good for anchoring

Loads of these sea snakes in the shallow water…..resting!

Doing our Sevusevu in the village hall, on their lovely woven mats

Photos with the kids

This is the leaf they use for their grass mats

Heading back to the boat with Wendy and Mike from Second Wind, the kids are such a happy fun bunch, no begging whatsoever, a nice change from Africa, where the kids tend to have their hands out