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I am writing to you from my favourite table in Whalers Tale
in Luvoka on the island of Ovalau, the eastern gate out of Fiji. It is hard to
imagine that this desolated township once in its hay days in the mid nineteen century
had more than 3000 Europeans living here. At that time there were 52 hotels in
the town. Walking through the back allies I found houses from that time an
onwards. The Royal Hotel from 1862 is still up running and so is the bowling
club. Reading the history it is clear that Luvoka was a wild place, a watering
hole for traders and whalers regularly raided by the inland tribes. One story
goes that when a local chief died his followers erected 856 stones at his grave
site demonstrating the number of corpses the chief had consumed in his life
time! The Fijians believe that if they do not the soul of their victims will
haunt them in the afterlife! Interesting diet! I can hardly imagine that the
Europeans were sitting on their hands, but no one tells that story. Once Luvoka
was the capital of Fiji, but when moved to Suva it lost its importance, but
stories are still told at Whalers Tale!
We anchored off the township, the only yacht that has
cleared out from here in a long time. I had to row out the Fijian migration and
custom officers to inspect Aeolus. They were a friendly lot and the question is
always “When are you coming back?”. We got our papers and headed for the island
of Makongai anchorage to be met by friendly villagers. Once there the weather
turned nasty and we went on to Koro Island in strong SE winds and heavy seas.
In Koro we realised that our hope to reach Tonga via Wallis Island has faded.
We should have done this trip in April and now the Trade wind season is on and
new batteries and other repairs have kept us waiting. The wind went E
increasing to 25 knots so reaching Wallis in heavy swells would be tough. No
weather improvement was in sight. Facing Yadranka’s kitchen knife I realised
that Plan B was activated. We will leave Fiji from the east coast and go to
Vanuatu and New Caledonia.
