Channing and Sarah come to Fiji - Again

29 Jul, 2025

We are very behind in our blogging since we arrived in Australia in November 2024. It’s near the end of July 2025 now, and this post dates back to August 2024 when we were still in Fiji and Channing and Sarah came to visit for the second time.

Sarah and Channing were our third set of guests and like I mentioned this was their second time coming to stay with us. (We love having guests!) We were excited to immerse ourselves in the local culture with them. The plan was to take them to visit David’s house in Dakuniba. He was our guide from our walk to the hot springs in Fawn Harbour with Sam and Alison in July. He lamented that very few yachts visited his bay even though it was a great protected anchorage with friendly residents. (We visited Dakuniba later with Glenn and you may have seen it in his post since we are posting out of order these days.) Also on the agenda was a trip to a manta ray feeding station near Rabi island in hopes of seeing these magnificent creatures. We left the plans beyond that open since there are too many variables and factors that could conspire to lay waste to the best of plans.

Channing and Sarah flew into the little Savusavu airport and our first stop even before the boat was a bayside lunch at Copra Shed Marina, our favorite marina in Savusavu. This being their second time there they settled right in. After a few days of hiking, shopping, meeting our new friends, dinner at Planters Club, and getting the new dinghy(!) we set off on the day-long sail to Dakuniba. The wind was off its usual northeast pattern (which would have put it right in the way) and we had a cracking day of sailing. The pass into the reef is narrow, but posed no problems nor worries since we have done that many of them. Since we arrived late in the afternoon we stayed put on the boat and had a swim and made plans to head into the village in the morning for the Sevusevu ceremony.

Dakuniba sits at the end of a long narrow and shallow mangrove-lined cove. As the tide was pretty low and we had to leave the dinghy a long way from shore which meant the locals knew we were coming long before we got there. Later on we learned that they had seen us come in and that they can see the anchorage in the other bay from the hill between the two bays. One common question wherever we anchored was why don’t more yachties come ashore? Unfortunately we never had a satisfactory answer since we also don’t understand why they don’t show the courtesy to visit the villages when they are quite literally parking their yachts in the locals’ front yards. Not only that, the Fijian cruising permit we are all required to obtain and carry clearly states that we must go ashore and do Sevusevu at every village (with a very short list of exceptions).

“Bula Vinaka!” “Bula Vinaka!” We shouted and exchanged greetings with Anna and Lala. Anna’s husband Nang is the Chief’s nephew and Lala moved to Dakuniba after meeting her partner Drex on a bus ride across Vanua Levu. They are best friends and we quickly learned that they pretty much run the village. After Sevusevu, Anna and Lala along with Anna’s daughter Julia took us on a beautiful hike through the lush hillside and across the creek to their local tourist attraction, the written stones. After a nice walk we came upon some large flat slabs of rock with petroglyphs. The villagers take great pride in them and the fact that the although many scientists have come and studied the stones, no one has yet solved the mystery of their meaning and origin. On the way back we all enjoyed a quick swim in the pools carved in the rocks and then we headed back to the yacht for a rest.

Shelby and Mike took some supplies into the village later in the afternoon. Anna and Lala were quite thankful and also rebuked us for not bringing Channing and Sarah along because they wanted us all to come to a fundraising party that evening. All was forgiven when we agreed to go back and get them for the party.

The event was in the village community center which is roughly the size of 2 or 3 typical American elementary school classrooms. It was quite crowded and everyone was seated on the floor, as is customary in Fiji with separate groups of men and women. The children played together inside and outside. There were 2 or 3 tanoas (kava bowls) scattered around the room and the kava mixing crew outside worked continuously to make sure tanoas never ran dry. Not that we didn’t all do out best to try to drain them… As vulagi, we were given some cultural leeway and we sat together on the border between the men and women and Anna and Lala were excellent cultural guides. In addition to kava we were introduced to suki, which is also called bush tobacco. The Fijians hand roll the suki into long thin cigarettes using whatever paper is at hand. None of us are smokers, but Mike, Channing, and Sarah all partook in the ritual and it was much appreciated. And quite fun. The music was a thumping mixture of Fijian pop and dance music and we danced our bare feet off. Fijian men tend to be shy about dancing and the the women take the lead and drag the men onto the dance floor or just dance with each other. We enjoyed a nice long night that stretched way beyond “cruisers’ midnight” and we danced, and smoked suki, and drank lots of kava. “Taki!” “Please give me another bowl of kava!”

It was such a wonderful day and night. Even though we had just met that morning, we felt like adopted members of the village by the time we left to go back to the yacht. We learned a lot more about how amazing Bula Culture really is. What a blessing. We left the next day in search of mantas happy in the knowledge we would be back soon to visit our new Fijian family.