Month: June 2013

June 26, 2013

Tonight Jack had arranged a lovo for the cruisers. A lovo is a Fijian feast prepared in an underground oven, the food wrapped in banana leaves and cooked over hot stones. Generally it includes seasoned pork or chicken, palusami (taro leaves, onions and sometimes corned beef baked in coconut cream), baba (green salad made with taro stems) and things like cassava, taro and breadfruit.

After sunset, we dinghied our way towards the beach and started to see a lot of shallow coral as we neared the shore. Just then a big Fijian guy appeared on the beach and waved us over to a clear spot. We made our way in, beached our dinghy and finally met the famous Jack, who we’d been hearing on the radio all week. He’s a very nice guy, and it was fun to finally meet him in person.

Other cruisers started to arrive, a big group because boats in the ICA rally had just come in. After being holed up for a week studying and taking dive classes, it felt great to just sit on the beach, drink wine, and hang out with the other cruisers! We also checked out the umu (the underground oven), and got a demonstration of how to open a coconut.

We were called to the feast and found it beautifully laid out, already served up individually on woven palm frond plates. On each plate was palusami in a half coconut shell, fish, grilled chicken with this wonderful BBQ sauce, green salad, potato salad, and taro, cassava, and breadfruit. Jack’s daughter, a professional chef, was visiting and had been in charge of this particular feast. The food at lovos is generally pretty tasty, but this one was especially good!

After the meal we finished our bottle of wine on the beach, enjoying the evening until the rain clouds started to come in, marking the end of the party. A gentle rain started as we dinghied back to our boat, but the light was so beautiful that we were glad to be out there. What a great evening!

Below is a gallery of pictures from our lovo. Click to enlarge and scroll.–Cyndi

June 20 – 26, 2013

My PADI dive course took place over six days. Helena and I would do the practical dive classes in the water near the shore, and when we weren’t diving I would study. (For anyone thinking of taking a resort dive course, I would recommend buying the PADI book and learning as much as you can ahead of time.)

It’s always nice to have a teacher who’s not only a good instructor but someone you want to emulate. Helena has such beauty and grace underwater, and I’d watch her all big-eyed as she’d move effortlessly around like an underwater Tinkerbell while demonstrating the next skill we’d be working on. Of course I was nothing like her. I was clumsy and slow and sometimes awkward with the gear. I was surprised to have trouble with buoyancy control, something I’d been good at in the past. Now when I attempted to float in balance, my butt would go right up over my head, leaving me floating upside down like an underwater vampire. I didn’t mind hanging upside down, but the idea was to float horizontally. It was something I had to work to master over the next few days. It was ironic the relief I’d feel when she’d signal me to remove and replace my mask: my former nemesis had now become my easiest skill.

Five days later I was thrilled to pass my final in-the-water test. Helena had picked a neat spot in the outer bay with lots of interesting things to see; so it was a nice dive, along with being a test. The day after that I passed my written test. I was finally a certified diver! Helena took my picture and e-mailed all my info off to PADI, who would issue me a card. I had a temporary card to use until I could get the permanent card mailed to me.

As it turned out, Viani Bay was a great place to learn to dive. The bay itself has some interesting things to see but not enough to be distracting. Within dinghy distance were areas with more interesting coral and fish, good for the final dive and test. Once certified, I was ready to dive the Rainbow Reef, one of the premier dive spots in Fiji. The best thing: being able to do all of this in warm water. California has some beautiful underwater scenery, but it’s just too cold for me! –Cyndi

June 26, 2013 in Viani Bay, Fiji

Cyndi is now a certified diver!  She just completed her course with Helena from Merilelu – a  wonderful instructor.  Now we can dive together.  Yea!

June 21 – July 6, 2013

One thing that becomes quickly apparent in Viani Bay is its lively summer camp atmosphere. That’s because of Jack, who lives onshore here in the bay. Jack’s a local Fijian who spent years working in the tourist trade in western Fiji, speaks English, and has his captain’s license. Now he works organizing outings and events for cruisers anchored in Viani Bay.

Generally the way it works is someone will volunteer their boat for a snorkeling excursion/dive trip or a day trip to the nearby island of Taveuni. Everyone piles onto the boat, and Jack, knowing his way through the reefs, takes the wheel and off they go.

For snorkeling and diving, Jack knows the locations of the underwater moorings and has permission to use them. For Taveuni, Jack organizes island tours and stays with the boat while everyone piles into a van for a trip to the waterfalls, markets, etc. If there are only a few people for the outing, Jack has his own small motorboat he can take. He also organizes lovos, Fijian feasts cooked in an underground oven. When we were there, pretty much everything cost $10 per person, earning Jack the nickname, “Ten Dollar Jack.”

The cruisers who were already settled in Viani Bay had formed a group and in the morning were often radioing back and forth about organizing the next outing. It was a little rude not to include the new people, and when they had moved on and our group became the mainstay, we always invited the new people in the bay.

Meanwhile, the friends we came in with were going diving with one of the dive shops operating out of Taveuni, the nearby island that has small resorts and inns. Taveuni is large and mountainous, but it has a small population and is more rustic and off-the-beaten-path than the mainstream tourist areas of west Fiji.

It’s a beautiful island, but the main reason people visit is for diving and snorkeling on the Rainbow Reef between Taveuni and Viani Bay on the island of Vanua Levu. These dive operations will come pick people up from their boats in Viani Bay for trips to the reef.

While everyone else was off on their outings, I was studying. I was finding out the accelerated scuba diving course carries a heavy workload! There’s a lot of reading to do, and so much to learn. For the next few days, when I wasn’t diving, I was studying. Sometimes the radio chatter and comings and goings of this social, festive place would drive me a little nuts–it’s not easy to focus on studying in a summer camp atmosphere.

Below, a gallery of more pictures of our spot in Viani Bay. Click to enlarge/scroll. –Cyndi

June 25, 2013 in Viani Bay, Fiji