8 – 13 August

In 1989 Claire and Jonathan were most of the way through a year of extensive travel all around the world. They had purchased a round the world plane ticket which allowed unlimited travel as long as they kept going east. They visited Nigel and Sue in New Zealand after leaving Australia, spending about a month catching up with friends in South Island as well as discovering the Central North Island and Coromandel where Sue and Nigel were based. Sue was heavily pregnant with Graeme at the time and they had been tempted to stay longer in Tokoroa to wait for the birth. However, their one year ticket, and an itinerary filled with more places than they could possibly have time to visit, meant that they wisely opted to leave about fours week before the baby was due. (Besides, as everyone will tell you, the first child will be born late). As it turned out, Graeme was well over two weeks early. It was to be several years and five children between the four of us before they did finally meet!

From New Zealand, they went to Fiji and ended up on a supply vessel from Suva. The skipper gave up his cabin for them and said as soon as they saw an island they liked the look of they could get off. After one night they had arrived at Ono Island. They ended up living in the community for the next six weeks. It was a magical time in their lives and they had long dreamed of returning. Now we were on the way back.

Overnight to Ono 8-9 August

We left Savusavu’s Nawi Marina at 0900 and had a very bouncy day, close hauled in around 20 knots of wind. Things settled slightly overnight as the wind turned more easterly. Not soon enough unfortunately and we ended up motor sailing to make our waypoints and avoid long tacking detours.

Eventually, we anchored in front of Vabea Village in 7 metres of water on a sandy bottom. Claire and Jonathan were feeling slightly nervous as we prepared to go ashore for their return after 35 years.

Sevusevu on Ono

We had the usual friendly reception on the beach and were taken to the chief – Ratu Levu- to hand over our kava gift at the sevusevu ceremony. Formalities complete, Jonathan took out his laptop to show their photos from 1989. Levu, and another man assisting with sevusevu, had not been in the village at the time but were able to identify many of the people in the photographs (many had passed away). We arranged to come to church on Sunday and hopefully meet some of the survivors.

Very excited visitors

We were advised to anchor Taihoa in the next bay along from Vabea to get better protection from the wind and we spent most of the next day on the boat doing the inevitable boat jobs. Eventually, we decided to go ashore where we met a crowd of local kids who later confessed that they had been killing time hoping that we would come to the beach. Claire was reminded of the first time they had come ashore in Vabea when she was taken by the hands and almost dragged up the beach by a crowd of children.

Four of the children insisted on walking back along the full length of the beach with us. While we were walking a local boat had anchored near Taihoa and he began yelling at the children. It turned out that he had run out of petrol and wanted them to go back to the village to get some. We thought that it would be much easier for us to do it in the dinghy.

So four very excited children came out to Taihoa to wait while Nigel took the man back to the village for fuel.

The curious kids wanted to know everything about the boat and were especially impressed with our offering of ginger nuts. Later, when Nigel returned with the boat man he turned out to be just as curious as the children and was delighted to have a tour of the boat. The most impressive piece of equipment, as far as he was concerned, was the water maker. He could be heard telling the children about it as they all climbed into his boat to return to the village.

Church on Sunday

Claire and Jonathan recalled going to church in the village. They remembered the whole village attending the service at the methodist church and then everyone, including the minister, walking to the Catholic church for the next service (or was it the other way around?).

One church was a grand looking octagonal building with seats inside, the other was more traditional and had no seats. Claire and Jonathan couldn’t remember which was which so we opted to go to the Catholic service.

Big mistake. It turned out that the rectangular church without seats was the Catholic one. Worse still we were early. So we were brought inside and invited to sit on the floor to wait with a number of others who had also arrived early.

Thirty minutes later the service began. For some reason the priest was not there that day. It did not seem to matter. The congregation seemed to be more than capable of running proceedings themselves.

We were given a warm welcome in English and then the rest of the service was in Fijian. Lots of readings by a variety of people and the most beautiful singing with the men and women harmonising. Then we had the whole rosary with people taking it in turns. Nigel was completely oblivious as to what was going on and needed it explaining afterwards. We were all acutely aware that we had been sat on a concrete floor for about two hours by the time we were able to leave, however!

Afterwards, Jonathan’s laptop was the centre of attention. The first person to identify themselves in the photos was Romeo. We all moved into his house to get a better view of the screen. Romeo was a young man in the photos and was happy to accept all the friendly ribbing that came his way about how he had changed.

There were lots of memories for many people. Children identified their grandparents, aunts and uncles. Lots of laughter and even a few tears. It really was the reunion that Claire and Jonathan had hoped for (with one exception – more on that another time).

Back to school

When Nigel had returned to the village to collect petrol on Saturday, he met the principal of the school and had been invited to come and visit. He arranged that we would come just before the morning break so that we could meet the teachers and set up whatever we needed to do a presentation for the children.

Nothing went quite to plan. We arrived about ten minutes before the scheduled start to be met by the whole school minus the teachers and the principal. It turned out that the principal was down in the village (we never really worked out why) and the two teachers were busy working with individual students.

Not a problem. It was all reminiscent of yesterday’s church service. The fact that there was no priest did not phase the congregation and the fact that there were no teachers did not phase these children. We were warmly welcomed and invited into a classroom. We were given chairs (infant school size) to sit on (a big improvement from church) and asked to introduce ourselves. We did as requested and then the children sang us a welcome song (in Fijian) and proceeded to introduce themselves (in English) telling us their names, their age and what they wanted to do when they left school.

Then it was playtime and we finally got to meet the teachers. We explained to them what we wanted to do. We were told that there was no power so we couldn’t use our projector but other than that we could stay in this classroom to do our little presentation. Although it was playtime, the children were more interested in us than playing outside. So we rapidly got everything ready and the children filed back in.

We gave a short presentation showing photos of Taihoa and some of the equipment that keeps us safe (lifejackets and safety lines) and warm and dry (wet weather gear). All of this required demonstration, so there was lots of fun as some were dressed in full wet weather in 35 degrees while others donned lifejackets with double safety lines so that they could safely traverse the classroom clipped onto the jack lines that we had fixed earlier. A short physics lesson was then conducted to explain how the wind didn’t just push us but also pulled us along. Claire and Jonathan then presented their photos showing what the village looked like 35 years ago and the children happily identified various relatives.

The school principal showed up half way through the proceedings and was happy to have the children give us another rendition of what he explained was the school song which described all of the teachers and classrooms. The children then finished with a much more lively song (a meke) involving much banging on the floor and coordinated movements. They obviously enjoyed their singing and we loved it. What an experience.

Time to go

An expected change in wind direction meant that it was time for us to go. Having promised to say goodbye we felt obliged to return to the village. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we chose to leave just as a tourist boat turned up. This is an important source of income for the village so they were engrossed in an official welcome for the tourists as Claire and Jonathan went ashore to say goodbye. The ratu still managed to meet them on the beach to give an official farewell and the fact that more people couldn’t turn up made the goodbye so much easier.

And so it was back to our more normal boat life routines – baking, bread making and catching fish.