October 29, 2013
We headed ashore, me in a sulu toting kava in my backpack and prepared to do a sevusevu. I did suggest Rich not bother with long pants as this wasn’t really a village and the caretaker wasn’t really a chief. Frankly, I felt annoyed about having to do this ceremony at all but felt better when I realized it would be our final one this season. We pulled up to the pier and tied up the dinghy. (Below, a photo gallery of the pier. Click to enlarge/scroll though any of the galleries that follow.)
I found myself taken with the strange beauty of this place as we followed the tree-lined path towards the settlement.
We located the caretaker’s house and right away heard a voice calling us in. We were greeted by the caretaker and his wife, gifted him with our kava, and soon he was doing the sevusevu talk welcoming us here. He was so nice and appreciative that I felt bad for being irritable about this earlier, especially when he offered to take us on a tour.
He started our tour at the big cement tanks where they grow the clams. They ranged from tiny babies to bigger clams a couple of inches across. (When they get bigger they go into the bay.)
We also saw they were raising some baby turtles. Impressive!
We anxiously asked him where we could find the giant calms we’d heard about. It turned out the big calms were scattered not far from shore, and the biggest of them were right under our dinghy (see a photo in pier gallery above)! Naturally we were anxious to go in and snorkel with them, but first there was more to see ashore.
Our guide (unfortunately I don’t remember his name) next took us to the ruins of the leper colony. They were old enough to look like ruins yet not in so much disrepair that they were unrecognizable. We then walked down a beautiful path through the jungle to see the graveyard. (Below, a photo gallery of the walk.)
In all, this was was a really nice tour, informative and interesting but not so long as to get boring. Walking back through the jungle it started to rain, giving a sort of surrealness to the experience.
Our guide finished the tour by giving us two big papayas and inviting us to come in that night for a school fund raiser and party for a small cruise-type boat coming in. We knew the guys from Pancha planned to go and appreciated the invitation, especially since it implied no obligation—just come in if we felt like it. Nice!
When we got back to the boat we were tired and decided to hold off on snorkeling until the next day, which meant staying at least one more day. By now we were under the spell of this island and happy to stay a bit longer. This place had a quiet stillness to it that was very pleasant, and the combination of gray skies over jungle growth and ruins ashore gave it a sort of mystique. The sad history was offset by focus of growing new life and repopulating Fiji’s reefs with amazing giant clams, not to mention the turtles they’d be setting free into the local waters.
In all this place was beautiful, mysterious, and exotic—perfect if you’re in the mood for this sort of experience. Maybe not the place to be if you’re anxious for sunny beaches and waterside bars, but for the time being we’d had enough of that so this was just what we needed. Tomorrow we’d go seek out the giant clams. –Cyndi
