The Fiji Bounty!

Our first Fijian visitors

Finally ready to leave the city life and start our island hopping. The 27th of December we set sail to Ngau Island. A night sail to our very first Fijian rural experience. Once entered the reef we approach the main village of Nawaikama, where we are welcome by a large group of children and a few adults. We invite them all aboard to listen to their stories and start learning their culture. The locals inform us that we have to do sevusevu, a ceremony in which the visitor must bring some gift – usually kava root – to the chief and ask permission to stay and be allowed to wander around the island. The night after performing sevusevu we are invited for dinner, everybody is very nice, but after a while we feel some sort of pushiness. They expect us to take a major part in a fundraising which we don’t want to take part to, and while they try to get money from us they are also planning our next day, and the next: Not good, not good at all.

Francesco the day after...

A bit disappointed with our first real Fijian experience we decided to move on to Wakaya. The island is privately owned by David Gilmore of Fiji Water. The water is stunning and the island looks just amazing, we want to go ashore but a big “No trespassing” sign puts us off. We decide that this will not ruin our mood, it is New Year’s Eve after all. We are four aboard and we are going to have our own “private” party. After few drinks and the rising tipsiness, Francesco has a brilliant idea: “There must be some very cool party on the island, let’s put on our best clothes, and let’s bring the rum and wine. I am sure they are going to welcome us”.

Fiji Bonty Rum!

We row our tiny inflatable dinghy to the beach and then we start walking up the hills of Wakaya. Everything is so well hidden by the luxuriant vegetation that we don’t see any fabulous villas or even hear any music. Drunkenness fueled by the Fijian Bounty Rum is growing, so we decide to go back to the beach. While we do so we encounter a couple of big SUVs. The first one stops and tells us that we shouldn’t be here at all, we reply that we are going back to our boat. The second one stops and tells us very rudely: “You go back to your boat, NOW!”. Once back on the beach we decide to stay there, no one can send us away, the three meters of beach from the water cannot be owned by anybody. The security guard comes over telling us to go back to Keturah, but instead Francesco tries to involve him in our personal party offering him rum. He smiles at us and he leaves us there. At midnight we jump in the water all naked while we enjoy the rich people’s fireworks. The water is warm, the sky is full of stars and we are all very happy.

N'gau coastline