26th August- Gary's birthday,we couldn't sail as it blew 20 to 25 knots, and even though we changed to the little red sail, neither of us was willing to get soaked. Farnaaz brought Gary a cake that she had baked in a cake tin inside her electric frypan. (She doesn't have an oven ) Yum!!! She made deep fried donuts too!!!
Judy our neighbour made fried rice and a BIG salad for lunch. In the evening there was salsa (chopped tomatoes, garlic, lemon juice, coriander )and corn chips at our house.

For desert we took 8 small pills and one large pill....Yes!!! Everyone in Fiji should take these pills to stop the chance of the disease filariasis- that's when your joints, or some part of your body swell up like a balloon, you stay like that forever...it is also called elephantitis, cos you can end up with bits of you looking like elephant's skin...
Ypu can get many disgusting diseases from mosquitoes, but this is a bad one. There aren't mosquitoes around today as when the wind reaches around 10 knots, they seem to blow somewhere else.

Gary always finds jobs to do on the waka, he calls it the Gig list, from the days when he was in the Coastguard, On a new command ship they look for things the builder needs to change or fix. These days he has more time to relax, like me! He's building the hiking seats.

While we were in Savusavu, Susanna, who is an anthropologist, invited us to Sunday lunch. She and her husband built an island style house. Separate kitchen, separate toilet, they sleep on the floor in their main house. This is some of the guests filling their plates. Gary sold them plans for one of his waka designs ages ago, it was really great to meet a builder of his canoes.



On our "birthday walk" yesterday, we met these two boys who have the job of ploughing the field ready for the next crop, sugarcane, or perhaps vegetables. There are many bullocks like these, all trained for the plough. They are not in paddocks, as no-one can afford wire and posts. They are tethered by rope halters along the roads, and do you know? I have never seen one in a disagreeable mood, not like the bulls back home. I said to Gary, "They need a Fordson tractor around here."
"They don't need a Fordson, they already have a Fartson," said Gary. Get it???



I would like to say I have been out shell collecting and snorkeling, but it has been gardening and sailing and fishing. These shells are from Judy next door. That's a helmet shell top left, strong like a helmet. Top left is a murex. Judy has one that is as big as the head of an All Black. A fisherman knew she liked shells, he took her to the edge of the jungle and pulled out a huge murex shell."We ate the meat,"he said. That is her favourite shell. The cone shell is the black and white one. The shell has a tongue, if a fish sniffs it, a dart of toxins paralyses the fish. The shell can then suck the fish. There are cone shells that are deadly to humans (that's you)
The orange and white shell is a mitre shell, named after the mitre hats worn by cardinals in the Catholic church.

Kaimoana

Heliconias I pinched from Savusavu when we sailed over there two weeks ago, I mean, we went on a ship.
I lugged three sacks of roots from these plants back to our place for friends to plant. I just cant stop gardening. Someone said the vege garden at school has been replanted, that's great.


Lover Boy really goes nuts over fish, even when it is a toothy old barracuda. This one fed us many meals, the fillets were longer than a 30cm ruler.


Here's Toothy again. The first big wriggly fish we caught. Gary refused to put his feet down until he was safe in a sack.


Here we are with the waka, no sailing rig yet, Gary is still making all the numerous sailing parts.


This is a waloo, or Spanish Mackarel. We are having lots of luck trolling, we were only out for fourty minutes, and back home with this fellow. Got him 17th August. The day Murray B. gets his operation. You kids make a get wwell card for him, will you??? Make it funny.

Off to Suva

25th July we took off for Suva. Our local bus driver stopped the bus, flagged down the Suva bus, away we went. Transferred in the middle of the main road.
The road was like the 309, one speed for the driver, foot to the floor.Not much traffic, some mini busses and a few cars. he bridges were quite narrow and scary. Jungle and hilly.


Suva is the largest city in the tropical South Pacific, it's like Honolulu might have been like 50 years ago.Taxi was $1.60 to our hotel, South Pacific Private Hotel, budget, could have had a double room for $30, like a prison cell. We opted for the room with bathroom, it had louvre windows on three sides ($54) and the only bug I saw was a scorpion, I flicked it out the door...
Suva was colder than Rakiraki, I had to ask for a blanket. I also asked for a thin pillow, I hate fat pillows.
Sunday only Mc Donalds was open, so we had coffee there early. One mall was open, I found a whole rack of fishing lures and bought three. Everyone was at church, or resting. You don't work, fish, play, mow lawns here on Sunday.
The Fiji museum has an 80 year old drua (battleship, says Gary)There are anchor stones from the old canoes, and a huge stone that the warriors rested prisoners' heads on- then WACK!
Tomorrow we are off to Savusavu on the ship.