07.30hrs Aileen, Margaret and Skipper hopped out of the scratchers and got ready to go to the church for a musical top up, and of course Mass for Aileen. We ordered a taxi for this trip, as the church was a good few miles away. The Church was very basic, with a corrugated iron, blood red roof. It only had the back half of the church with seats, the rest was floor seating, and you had to take off the shoes at the door and leave them outside. The choir was very good, and the singing excellent, but, very much more raspy than Vava'u. Vava'u definitely took the biscuit for their singing... As I said before, earth shattering stuff.
After Mass, we got a lift back to the town in one of the organized busses that carry the locals to and from the Villages. A great service, in pretty worn out busses.
The one thing that really stands out here is the friendly people. So gentle and friendly. It reminded the skipper of our lovely country and how it used to be, before we lost the plot and got rich. However, we are poor again. The question is .................. Will we become a friendly race of people again. I'm sure we will !
Its amusing to see all the children and grannies waving to the visitors as we drive along, they even hang out the windows of the busses and wave at us as they pass by.
These Islands, including Tonga, the Cook Islands, and the French Polynesian Islands are generally known as the "Paradise Islands" good what !! thats what we referred to them in the blogs so far....
The bird life here is better than other places, and we even saw squirrels (or Mongoose's) plus kingfishers, hawk's, swallows, parrots, lots of doves, and of course thousands of mynah birds (better known as Mocking birds). It seems that these mocking birds have displaced a lot of indigenous birds, especially the big colourful pattots.
12.30hrs The skipper took the scooter and drove across the Island to labasa, 100 km away, so round trip 200km the journey took skipper through Valleys, and mountains, Vale's and Plains, and the scenery was awesome. Trough pine forests and then the Sugar Cane fields.
go belly up, then it all got blamed on this foreign sugar cane stuff. Now, here we are looking at it straight in the face.
and whats more, Yeah !
They plough the fields with a pair of Oxen, harnessed to a plough, and whats even more interesting is, ploughed ground
smells the same the world over... a lovely sweet earthy smell..............
Meanwhile, back on the boat, Fats & John are having plenty of excitement with our neighbors and the anchor chain. As mentioned yesterday, they dropped their anchor across our anchor chain, and now they were trying to untangle the mess.... Both boats had to let go the marina and go to sea, and then return and drop anchor and back up to the marina again, as every thing here is stern on mooring.
Aileen and Margaret escaped all the fuss, and had taken off to the beach.
Meanwhile, back to the scooter, and skipper was returning from Labasa, bombing along the road, flat out, (as you should do) when suddenly the scooter died and skipper was left scratching his baldy head.... Cripes ! whats gone wrong here ? and skipper was still 60kms from Savausavau...and the bike, dead as a door nail........ God, am I going to have to walk! 60 bloody kms Ohhhhhh hold on, we went to Mass this morning, surely, the man above will sort this out. And then, believe it or not, yes yes, along came a pickup truck, stopped and enquired if I had a problem, 10 minutes later we were bombing along the road again, skipper sitting in the front seat of the truck, and the scooter in the back..... and chatting away to the granny and the children.......and 1 hour later, we arrived at the Y.C. in Savausavau..
THE LUCK OF THE IRISH, OR THE HAND OF GOD!
Shortly after, skipper got very ill, and actually had to go to the scratcher, god getting his own backs for rescuing skipper? Terrible stomach cramps, so just had to take it easy.
Meanwhile, the girls had lunch in the "Cousteau Resort", so were not interested in any more food, so while skipper lay dying in his scratcher, Fats and John beatling off to the local Chineese restaurant for a nosh. They related later that they got so much food, they almost burst.
Most dinners here would cost about 50 $ fijian, and there are 3 F$ to 1 US$ so it must be nearly 4 to the euro
and makes good value for us.
That's it for now.
Signed :- Stephen Hyde ( Skipper )