Commodore
July 14, 2024

Monday 15 July – Isaac the skabenger!

I forgot to mention yesterday that our enforced stay on the boat, because it was Sunday, was really quite magical. In the late afternoon the drums started beating, and the church singing started for a couple of hours, gently wafting over the water to us, as we soaked up the village scene from our comfy reclining chairs, in a blissful cool breeze.

This morning we woke up to the drum beating, which we assume was calling the kids to school judging from the noise the children were making. Such a lovely setting for a school with a playground right next to the beach. The island has no electricity or cars, nothing noisy except the boat engines. Last night there was just the odd twinkle of light, most probably from the few tiny solar panels we saw yesterday.

The weather forecast was for cloud and rain in the afternoon so we decided to go for a snorkel after breakfast. It is a huge coral reef running the whole way around the bay, off to the left is marked as good snorkelling, and it did not disappoint us. Lovely enormous boulders of coral and plenty of fish and some good sizes. We must have been in the water a couple of hours, it was idyllic, the sun really makes the colourful coral vibrant, plus there is no current and hardly any waves, so wonderfully calm waters to pootle around in. The ban on fishing in the bay really seems to be paying off as the fish life was so varied and plentiful, so nice to see.

Our route to Susui yesterday

Morning snorkel, vivid little turquoise fish in this blue tipped coral

This looks like a Crown of Thorns type creature, the black ones are devastating for the coral

We call these colourful little creatures Christmas trees, they completely close up when you get close.

I just can’t get enough of Nemo!

So cute, their relationship with the soft coral

We headed into the village at lunch time as the chief said he would arrange some fresh fruit for us. Quite something getting JeldiJeldi over the coral reef, luckily it looks a lot shallower than it is. We walked around the village until we met a very friendly chap who introduced himself as Isaac and said he would show us around if we liked. The next minute we were on a path through thick jungle and came out onto the beach on the other side of the island. Nobody lives this windward side, just a beautiful unspoilt beach. Isaac turned out to be a real character and said he would take us to his farm, after explaining that his father’s family owned all this land we were walking on. He is 47, married with no kids, and his wife lives on the main island. He was born here but left after school and has only come back 8 months ago, I think I understood because his dad had died. He is a reformed bad boy, we finally got it out of him later in the day, that he was a bad boy because he used to be into drugs and robbery, and his brother is in prison for life, for murder! In South Africa we have a Zulu word that sums him up perfectly, Skabenga – badass/baddy! Our kids (especially the girls) love this word and can often be heard saying….. so and so is a skabenga. Funnily enough there is a Kiwi company here making fishing lures called Skabenga, they must be South African. We have seen their catamaran moored somewhere and it is called Skabenga too, a good name for a boat.

We walked quite far in the dense vegetation and then started climbing up old coral cliffs and suddenly we were at a cave with two skulls outside, we went in, thankfully I had the dinghy torch and to our amazement found the cave filled with loads of human bones. We had just read that cannibalism was still a thing here in 1900! Rowan light heartedly asked if they had been eaten and he roared with laughter assuring us not! We returned to the village with him chopping down some coconuts for us to drink which was extremely welcome. We passed our chief’s house where we did Sevusevu (handing over our payment of Kava) and they had collected an enormous bag of fruit for us, filled with limes, lemons and pawpaws (papaya). We managed to get it all to JeldiJeldi including about 5 more enormous coconuts.

They make grass mats in this old house

On our walk to the other side of the jungle

Isaac and Rowan on the lovely windward beach

Not much of a path, where was he leading us to……

Main village highway

Onto his family’s farm

Incredible Rock outcrops

A cave where they kept pigs, enclosed by a fence

Fantastic trees

To our surprise!

A little apprehensive by the surprise

Definitely human bones

Isaac inspecting closely with his torch

More and more bones the further we went in

The roof of the cave was amazing – the circle of light is from my powerful dinghy light

Isaac then asked us if we wanted him to show us the Hidden bay, land belonging to his family, we had read about it, so agreed heartily as it looks a little tricky getting into it, requiring us to cross the reef with a small breaking wave. By this stage the cloud has set in which was sad, as the colour of the water was unbelievable and would have been even more brilliant in sunshine. Turns out Isaac had no clue where we should cross the reef as he hasn’t been here since 2008! We gingerly made our way in, navigating our way into two hidden bays with dramatic cliffs, really unspoilt stunning scenery, all to ourselves, not a soul about. He then told us to go to a little beach, we tied JeldiJeldi up and followed him, climbing up treacherous old coral rock, thank goodness we had taken our reef shoes. We scrambled up and over into the Secret lake, which he says is normally full of turtles, there is only one little access for the water to get into the lake and that is through a submerged cave. Really incredible although we didn’t see a single turtle…… but we have seen darting turtles both times we have crossed the reef in front of the village. I was a little worried I wasn’t going to make it out as I had a very high spiky coral wall to clamber up, with an extra push from Rowan below and Isaac tugging from the top I made it. We got back to Jeldi Jeldi and the rain arrived, good timing as we headed back.

We dropped Isaac off and he insisted we wait while he went to get us some Lady’s Finger bananas, which turned out to be the whole stalk, we will be eating a lot of bananas (lucky Han isn’t with us as she hates them!). Rowan dashed back to the boat to get him some money and old clothes. It was a grateful exchange. He was chatting to the chief’s family ( the village has a population of 87!) and they told us to come back tomorrow for passion fruit and Men’s Finger bananas! I love the passion fruit here so we will be back.

Rowan has work calls tomorrow morning, so we had a sober evening and an early night. Quite enough excitement for one day, and relieved that Isaac was a very likeable, converted skabenga!