Sunday 28 July – Church with our host lady Ba

We have sat nice and cosily in our anchorage, the winds are blowing but we thankfully have not felt it too much. Sundays we are not allowed to snorkel or do any water sports, so a good day to got to Church, and our host family, Ba will give us lunch. Church started at 10am so we had to leave the boat at 9am which is rather an early Sunday start for us. We had a twenty minute dinghy ride, then a twenty minute walk to the village on the windward side of the island. We left at the boat house a whole lot of old wine bottles with lids, plus jars with lids on, they use them for storing their coconut oil.

We arrived with a few minutes to spare but everything seemed so relaxed, people drifted in long after the service started. Frances had told us to sit on the right of the church as the pews were wider and more comfortable. All was good, we sat near the back and Rowan had his Sulu (skirt/kikoy) on. Twenty minutes into the service we realised that we were sitting in the middle of the men’s section, and I still had my flip flops on, two social faux pas. When the priest/elder started his sermon full of wild gesticulations and bashing of the podium, I hoped like mad that it was not directed at me! The singing was lovely and sitting among the booming male voices was particularly moving. Ba our host did a reading and the priest, dressed very formally in a jacket and tie over a sulu, said a few words in English thanking us Yachties profusely for joining them. I’m sure our contribution to the collection plate, is very welcome. There were 10 Yachties including ourselves.

After the service we went with Ba to her house for lunch. Her husband is on the main island, the only transport off the island is the supply boat that comes once a month. He is due back on Wednesday when the boat finally arrives. So if you visit the main island you have to go for a month, nothing else you can do, there is no ferry. Ba has two boys in their 20’s who joined us for lunch, one was the boy who had a terrible cut from a barracuda that Frances had stitched up. Her kitchen was rather amazing with an enormous big fire place. She had cooked everything before church, she said she was up at 6am cooking. We sat on the floor as they always do, we had reef fish with spinach, kasava and some coconut dumplings. All washed down with a drink from a jug of water that she added 3 sachets of dried Tang to (those old fashioned fruit drinks sachets, that are 99% chemicals). Her neighbour brought around a bowl of octopus for us, which is the luxury dish here. All very awkward as Rowan and I don’t eat octopus anymore and we really didn’t want to eat the reef fish as there is so much ciguatera (fish poison) about. Apparently the locals build up immunity although it can cause them spasms, which was happening to the chap in front of us in church, which looked rather uncomfortable. We managed to eat a little of everything and I went back for seconds on the spinach which was delicious and welcome, as we have not had much green veg recently. The boys left and we headed off shortly afterwards having made an arrangement with her and her sister Salote to come to the boat tomorrow for tea in the afternoon, and they would bring us a basket of eggs, fruit and vegetables.

It is such a lovely walk back to the dinghy at the boat house, the path has lovely thick bush on either side with swallows dive bombing us as we ambled along. At the top of the hill is a little bench in the shade which must be very welcome for these big local ladies trudging up and down. We headed back to the boat making our way through the maze of islands, luckily it was high tide so we could get through, the lava islands and blue waters were dazzling.

Rowan dressed for church

Village houses

Ba in her kitchen, look at her enormous ash pile under the kettle

Look at her array of cooking pots

The meal with her boys

Reef fish, and pink octopus on the right with stodgy coconut bread and Kasava, delicious spinach in the middle

The windward beach at the village

The village path, those are not vehicle tracks, they are foot paths. No vehicles on the islands anywhere

The boat house with the beach in front littered with clam shells, which they call oysters and is a main part of their diet

Stunning cliffs, that photograph so much better in the sun

Pootling back to PolePole wiggling our way through hidden bays

Water getting shallower, but we made it though

Little beaches everywhere

We had a restful afternoon reading the Sunday papers. We waved good bye to Alia Vita, with Rob and Frances as they head to the bay of islands. We plan to stay on until the 31st and then head West to an island called Kadavu, not part of the Lau group and closer to the main island.

We had a crowd around for evening drinks, both crew from the motor launches and then two kiwi boats who were doing Wing Foiling today. Rowan had bumped into them earlier in the day, and had invited them. It was a very jolly evening, but with only one ear for hearing, I found it quite a struggle if I was on the wrong side of anyone talking to me! The kiwis have come for 6 weeks Wing Foiling here in Fuluga, their second year of doing it, they just sail up for the season. They are about our age maybe a few years younger, very impressed with them on their boards, whizzing up and down. Which strictly speaking they were not meant to be doing today as it is Sunday!

We had a lovely end to the day managing to speak to Luke to wish him a happy birthday. He was celebrating in Bath with his uni friends, having spent yesterday with Han in Bristol. He and Milly were just off for a Bath Spa. His life is action packed as he has to get to Heathrow by the end of the day to fly to Brazil for work.