A second entry of the day, but we saw so much in relative comparison to a day at sea that I thought it worth recording. We made it over to the town of Lovoni, in the centre of the island, nestling snugly in the crater of the volcano which created Ovalau in the first place!
We were given a guided tour by a local chap, Epi, and his English wife, Joanna from Sunderland! Quite an incredible couple raising a family of four in a reasonably sized detached house on the outskirts of the town!
The tour began with lemon flavoured tea and a marvellous lunch, prepared at short notice by Epi’s 80 year old mother: it involved a lot of taro leaves - a South Pacific speciality - and other treats like fried aubergines with coconut milk.
They even made a non-fish option for myself and another member of the crew, not so taken with marine edibles. Saying that, I did try some of the fish dishes and they were pretty good.
Following the lovely lunch, Epi took us on a tour around the hills - read volcano crater - surrounding the village, where he guided us through various plants and their medicinal purposes, everything from cures for headaches, diarrhoea, eczema to more outlandish claims such as a cure for « slow » children, and perhaps more realistically, something to induce labour! All in all pretty impressive.
The part I found particularly interesting, though, was Epi’s descriptive narrative on how the island came to be populated in the first place. Essentially, his story was that two African families found their way to Fiji, fleeing a terrible plague on their home continent, travelling across the Atlantic and through the Pacific - some feat, even more so since it is not historically correct.
In any event, the larger Fijian island of Viti Levu was supposedly inhabited by two groups, one in the interior and one on the south coast. A chap with a fiery reputation and a tendency to find himself in trouble, was eventually expelled from the community and, legend has it, swam across to the neighbouring islands until he came upon one which was uninhabited - Ovalau. Setting up home here with his wife - a woman he had somewhat expropriated from one of the previous communities - there were eventually 16 grandchildren, around which the clans of the island developed, and which still exist today. Apparently, the clans and their lands spread out in star like design from Lovoni and the centre to the coast. A pretty impressive story.
A less impressive story perhaps, but no less important, is that of the arrival of European traders. The story goes that following somewhat initial difficult contacts with the locals (the islands were also known as the Cannibal Isles), some Norwegian whalers were told by the King of Tonga to present gifts to the local Fijians and say they knew the King. This worked and soon European trading centres for whaling were springing up, including Lovoni. The practice of exchanging gifts for concessions grew apace, with the local Chief on Ovalau developing a taste for whiskey which was ruthlessly exploited by the Europeans. All in all a very interesting tour.
On our return from the crater and the delights of Lovoni to Levuka, and the sweet smell of its industrial fish processing plant (!), we retired to the old colonial hotel, the Royal Hotel, for gin & tonic, Fijian beer and cava - and a round of billiards on a very old full size snooker table. As a beginner, I won 3-0, but this may have had more to do with my opponent’s consumption of G&Ts than any real skill on my part!
The weather is still not great, but it looks like we do depart tomorrow morning. The preferred option is to go south, but the prevailing winds and rough sea may not allow, in which case we will go north around the northerly coast of the main island, Viti Levu.
Levuka, 08h30 23 August 2008
The weather is still not great this morning but the Captain has decided that we will sail this afternoon to a place south of Viti Levu. This morning we have decided to scale Mission Hill, with its 189 steps (or so) - there is debate as to whether it is 189 or 199 - no doubt we will check.
Rob
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