Fiji- Phase 19- Week 6

Week 6 of our Fijian adventure has been strongly science orientated and great leaps forward have been made. We started the week with fish and invertebrate point dives, courtesy of Debs & Karen, where a big moray eel and a lionfish were spotted. By Thursday we were taking and mostly passing the invertebrates’ test, after some last minute cramming of lobsters, clams and nudibranchs. We moved onto coral (fire coral burns, don’t touch it!) and finally survey techniques, now practice surveys are practically ready to give way to real ones and the important work begins. Everyone is ready and raring to go surveying new and exciting sites. One of which, Gangster’s Paradise, we visited for our fun dive on Saturday, littered with fantastic coral formations and swim-through opportunities. The joint winner of spot of the week occurred on the return journey when Theresa saw a school of dolphins off the port side, Paul wheeled the boat around and we ended up with twenty spinner dolphins dancing around the bow of the boat, a magical moment for all. Sharing the limelight this week was Ben’s sighting of a 3m long Grey Reef Shark on a snorkel to the outer reef, which swam past us only 6m away, my reaction was simply ‘wow!’ That trip was topped off by getting a ride home in a boat from the Chief of Kubulau district’s brother. Other great underwater sights this week have included an octopus, a painted lobster, a lionfish and both green and hawksbill turtles.

On the human side of things this has been a week of parties with the Nu-rave party on Saturday night (most of the glow in the dark paint came off before church the next day) and birthdays for both Gemma & Eleanor. We celebrated Gemma’s with deep fried Mars bar doughnuts and a hand-painted card made by Hayleigh and Jade. For Eleanor’s 18th her mum in the village sent a flower decorated cake and she finished the day off with a girly sleepover (the guys slept outside, because we are manly). On the subject of food this has been another stellar week, I remain amazed by the dishes people can create from noodles and corned beef. Meal of the week was won by Swedish meatballs and spaghetti, although I must apologise as the identities of the chefs have escaped me. Bread creativity has peaked this week with a garlic flatbread and Siân’s onion and herb focaccia. Eleanor’s pineapple fritters were a mid-afternoon treat on Tuesday, our thanks to her mum for the pancake batter. Paul’s return from Savusavu on Saturday morning brought further merriment, as he brought not only fresh vegetable rations but also our personal rations (many bags of cookies, chocolate, coke the little and sometimes not-so-little luxuries we crave) and the gifts of sugar, flour and the like we brought for our village families who take care of us so well.

We were back in Navatu this Sunday for church and lunch, as ever we were glad to be back in our own village, where the great food & better company makes the day fly by. This is especially true when the early high tide meant we had to rush back if we wanted to remain dry (Helen G got back to the very last corner, within sight of camp). The new oven on camp (Paul got bored and 15 minutes later had decapitated the old one with a hammer and chisel) was thoroughly tested on Monday to create a taste of England in the form of fish and chips, although you would struggle to find Pacific Walu baked with lime leaves and garlic butter in any local chippy back home.

A sad moment this week was Ben & Adam’s discovery of dead hawksbill turtle in the shallows, although this was tempered by the sheer fascination of being able to examine such a fantastic creature up close. Walks up the hill behind camp have been the order of the week, with many people undertaking the actually quite easy climb to the utterly breath taking views one way along the main land towards Savusavu and the other out to sea with the reef laid out in front of you in all it’s glory every contour visible beneath the low tide. All made even more spectacular by the continued improvement in the weather, summer is defiantly here, the winds have dropped and the blazing sunshine has been the order of the week.

Finally our congratulation to our most injury prone volunteer Colin who is back in the water after dislocating his shoulder although on his first time back in the water he managed to swim into a jellyfish. Song of the week goes to Ryan’s rendition of ‘I believe I can fly’ which helped his quiz team the Power Rangers to victory on Thursday. We will give Rob the last word with his quote ‘I’m not scared of Triggerfish, I’m just ready to fight them’ (it was in fact 2 inches long).

Adam