September 2, 2013
One challenge of cruising is dealing with our trash. We throw food scraps overboard, most of which are quickly gobbled up by the fish that dwell under our boat. If we’re out at sea, we can also toss thin cardboard, paper, glass and cans, but near land those things stay onboard along with the plastic and foil, which never get tossed overboard. It’s a little dismaying how quickly those trash bags in the lazarette multiply. Generally they can wait until we get somewhere with trash disposal, but here in Fulaga there’s no place to get rid of trash. There came a time when we had to do it the old-fashioned way; we had to burn it like the locals do.
Today we teamed up with friends to go build a fire on the beach. We chose a beach east of the anchorage, well away from other boats. It was a place none of us had visited before; so it would be a sightseeing outing, too.
This is how we came to visit the bizarrely alien world that is the beach east of the sandspit. Fulaga has a bit of an alien-planet thing going on as it is, but this took it to a new level. Along the beach and the wide shallows offshore, boulders were strewn as though a giant hand had just scattered them around. The sand here was soft and white, the shallow water light aqua and white. Palm trees and a small bush-covered hill area backed the beach, and from over the hill we could hear waves pounding on the reef.
We gathered palm fronds, dried wood, and leaves to build the fire. We burned our trash, and when the fire was done we gathered any debris that hadn’t burned away. We still had trash, but a lot less of it now.
After our trash burning, we went to explore the area. Big boulders and rocky undercut ledges formed small headlands, but the tide was low enough we could walk around them to the next bay. I kept on going, always wanting to see what was around the next rock, and ended up in an area of knee-deep green water with really neat mushroom rocks.
This was a beautiful spot, but it had a sort of desolate vibe and wasn’t a place I’d want to hang out for longer than that afternoon. Still, it was neat to walk around and explore here. Fulaga never ceased to amaze me. Below a gallery of photos from the afternoon. Click to enlarge and scroll. –Cyndi
