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Firefly - Experiences on Beqa



Firefly was anchored in Vaga Bay on Beqa for just 2 days but during this time we had some interesting experiences. In the previous posting we described the Sevusevu ceremony at Neiseuseu Village and Rosy's day of teaching at the adjacent Nacema Village.



While Rosy was teaching Paul was invited by Seroe, the villager who had clearly been appointed too look after us, to walk to Nacema Village. At low tide it was possible to walk along the beautiful beach out around the headland, passing a couple of small resorts. Throughout Fiji we have seen a lot of idyllic holiday locations but there often seems to be very low occupancy - possibly as there are so many. These were no different with just one Aussie couple staying at the first and no guests visible at all at the second. A '5 star' resort on a small off lying island was clearly more active as there all manner of small boats milling about of the beach. Although some of the villagers work at these resorts they are small, self contained and seem to have very little impact on the traditional life these Fijian's are living.



Some other villagers joined us and during the walk Paul met Ben who was the operator of the brush cutter they share between the 2 villages - the brush cutter is obviously well used as the villages are kept very tidy. On arrival at Nacema it was school lunchtime and Rosy and Paul were invited to lunch at Ben's house. The hospitality was amazing - Paul had only just met Ben and soon after we were guests in his house - Paul and Rosy being given the only chairs while Ben and his Mother, Aunts, Grandmother... all preferred to sit on the floor. The walk back was over the top of the headland and was a steep climb up and down. En route, despite the steepness there were numerous garden plots planted by the villagers for growing all manner of vegatables and fruits plus we walked through a grove of large mango trees.



In the evening we went ashore to have dinner with Moses and his family, another Neiseuseu villager we had met during the Sevusevu - again the hospitality was amazing and the fish supper very good. Our arrival ashore had been eagerly awaited as the day before Susie had announced she would be bringing ashore a large collection of glasses to potentially give away. Before we left the UK back in 2013 we collected about 40 pairs of old prescription, reading and sun glasses from friends - with the intent of giving them away, if suitable, in more remote, less well off places during our trip.



As Susie stepped ashore with the glasses she was ushered into the nearest house and soon the villagers started to arrive. The house filled up and it was chaos for about 15 minutes while glasses were all tried on - gradually the crowd reduced as delighted villagers left, most of them clutching a pair of glasses and extremely grateful. Susie had been unable to assess whether the glasses were suitable or not but we hoped that the villages would swop them around if not.



From Vaga we moved to Yanuca Island from where Rosy surfed at Frigate Passage, getting out to the break in the surf shuttle from the small island resort. Yesterday, we sailed the 40 mile passage to Ono Island just east of Kanduva. Fortunately, the Trade winds have been non existent for almost a week and we had a useful south westerly wind, getting up to 25 knots, to give us a fast broad reach to Ono.



Paul, Susie and Rosy

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