For Christmas we went by boat to the island of Nagigia. It is a tiny island with one resort, known for best surf at breaks with meaningful names such as “King Kong” (in the first 1931 King Kong film, he climbed the mountain behind the island), kiting in the shallow lagoon and snorkeling next to the famous Astrolabe reef. The Fiji staff welcomed us with big smiles and “bula”.

From our bure we have had a stunning view of the rip curl of the waves at the close reef break and of some wonderful white sandy beaches lined by palm trees. Right in front of the bure we could jump into the water with our snorkeling gear and dive into an aquarium like underwater world. What a magic experience to snorkel along the edge of the reef together with Robinson, who has had his life jacket and goggles on. He followed Gerry on a rope along the reef like a baby dolphin next to his dad and was totally excited to see fishes he knew from his card game “go fish”.
In the morning when the tide was coming up, Pisa, our captain, was driving us with his yellow motorboat packed with surfboards and kiting gear to a nearby stretch of white beach. Stranded like Robinson Crusoe we were enjoying the day with Jiri from Prague at our private beach, It was the perfect beach for our toys: a mellow wave inside for surfing and a gentle breeze onshore for kiting.

Gesine cruising

our kite paradise

playing in the waves

xmas play time

Bikini on, kite out and cruising through the turquoise water up to some gentle waves out to the reef. After several unforgettable rides suddenly the wind died and the kite was falling out of the sky. Within minutes the kite ended up on the reef at the beach, being ripped into pieces like a pirate flag….
At least we still have had surfboards to play around in the waves a bit.

Robinson surfing with Daddy

On Christmas Day we have had a beach session with kiting (with our other kite), surfing and snorkeling.

Jiri from Prague, the only other guest on the island

When we came back to the resort, Santa Claus was already there and left some presents for the kids. It is amazing how the kids were full of excitement, that Santa found them here on Nagigia. This year, there were only very few and small presents, but the kids gave us their biggest smiles.

Sienna and Robinson partying

Their attitude changed completely. They do not expect a lot and appreciate what is. And Jiri from Prague, the only other guest in the resort, surprised us with a GPS based treasure hunt, revealing 4 necklaces with beautiful shells.

For us there was a terrific christmas dinner followed by a Fijian style Christmas party…

Fijian xmas party

Instead of decorated christmas trees, the staff decorated us.

Nagigia is a unique spot, mainly unforgettable by its location and the warm hearted staff, Lina, Mariah, Brian…., that fulfill (almost) every wish. From kava ceremony to Fijian party, from earth oven food to lunch packages, from snorkeling trips to kids’ day care, from massage to beach volleyball.

Instead of white snow we have the white sandy beach and the white crest of the waves breaking at the reef right in front of us. We are not sure, if Santa Claus will find this island, but the most precious gifts are with us, no matter where. Especially at this time of the year we miss you all, all the love and laughter, caring and sharing.
We wish you a wonderful christmas time full of happiness and harmony.

Merry Christmas from Fiji

Our “bure” was only a few meters away from the turquoise bay. A hammock in front of our new home was the perfect spot to watch the stars at night. Especially after some bowls of cava and the wonderful dancing and singing of the Fijian people.

Singing beautiful fiji songs for us

In the morning we woke up from the sound of the waves or we slept until we heard the wooden drum, which let us know: breakfast is ready. Friendly smiles and a happy “Yandra” welcomed us at our breakfast table loaded with papaya and pine apple, muffins and pancakes, eggs and toasts.

Gentle winds and endless beaches offered the perfect setting for an unforgettable kite session. Gerry was crossing the lagoon while the three dogs at the beach were constantly barking at this yellow-and-green-object in the sky.

Gerry - the only kiter in the bay

Robinson and Napoleon (Poli) on a boat ride

For the kids it was paradise as well, they collected the most beautiful shells and build mobiles with shells, coral pieces, wood and fishing lines.

On Sunday, Tulala and his four girls – beautifully dressed in white – picked us up with a boat to go to church. We drove along the beautiful coasts to another little village.

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Salomon, the minster and husband of chief Kelekele, was preaching with such passion, that even we got the message although it was in Fijian language. The rest of the time, everybody was singing with the most beautiful voices.

Kids enjoying Sunday morning church

Friends holding hands

We spend the rest of the Sunday walking through lush gardens and the remote village of Sogosevou to a waterfall, where Fiji boys played in the water, jumped off the rocks and filled the air with laughter and happiness. From there we embarked to a wonderful bay, where we could see the most beautiful fishes snorkeling right from Vesi beach. The Astrolobe Reef definitely offers one of the best diving experiences in the world. Sienna and Robinson were also drifting over the corals watching the beautiful fishes, well equipped with life vests and goggles.
Back at the beach, Poli gave them fresh coconut juice and coconut pieces as snacks.

On the way back, Gerry was gliding over the glossy waters behind the boat on the kiteboard.

Wakeboarding on glossy waters

This was definitely a wonderful way to get around the island…

Gesine enjoying the ride

Finally, it was time to say good-bye to chief Kelekele and her family.

Chief Kelekele with minister Salomon with family and friends

When successfully landed with the water plane, some small motorboats approached and picked us up and drove us to the beautiful beach at the shoreline.

There we waited in the shade and adjusted to Fiji time, which means that nothing really happens and you do not know when something will be happening. There was another stage called Kadavu time, which meant people were even more relaxed and things happened usually sometime between sunrise and sunset. Our captain Tulala loaded the boat with petrol and food and took off towards the East on a ride along the coral reefs of the North Coast of Kadavu to Lominikoro village.

Captain Tulala, powered by 60 horsepower 4 stroke

Reaching the village, we put on our sulus for the welcome, and ensured that we wore nothing on our head or back as this is not permitted in ancient Fijian tradition.

There are about 400 people living in this village, Kelekele is the female chief of Lominikoro and 3 other villages.

Warm welcome!

We relaxed in front of a house and tried to cool Sienna’s fever down. We entered into a different world full of caring and sharing. They built a bed for Sienna, Kelekele’s sister gave us a room in her house, about five women were cooking day and night to surprise us with wonderful delicious food, there were always friendly people around us, sharing their stories and listening to others.

There were more than 50 kids of all ages in the village.

Very quickly, they came over to us, looked at us, gave us smiles and started playing with Sienna and Robinson.

Warm welcome of the kids

playing soccer in a sulu is fun

final stage of Gerry's exercise games

They showed them their little world.

ENTERING A NEW WORLD

But mainly they were running around, giggling, talking in a creative mix of Fiji-English.

And Robinson and Sienna shared their pens and games

SIENNA AND HER NEW FRIEND

Later in the afternoon chief Kelekele arrived and Gerry was invited in the main bure for the sevu sevu, the welcome ceremony.

chief Kelekele and her beautiful granddaughter

In the chief bure there were about 15 men sitting on the grass mat, all dressed up beautifully with their sulus.

Everything was prepared for the kava ceremony: the big bowl, the coconut shells for drinking, the long strings of the cava root, that had to be squished extensively in the spring water until the water gets a grey and muddy colour. Cava tastes a little bit bitter and is supposed to have an effect like alcohol.

One after another got a coconut shell full of cava. When they ask “low tide or high tide?” you can easily go for high tide (full cup) on your first parties as the effect of the kava is only felt after drinking kava over a longer time.

When you empty your bowl, there is the clapping of the hands and a “ matha”, which means “empty” …
In between Zak and the others played on their guitars and Ukulele and sang Fijian songs with strong beautiful voices.

The sevu sevu ceremony went on for hours and hours, the air was filled by the beautiful sound of the songs and the clapping of the hands when the next round of cava was served. In Hawaii you only drink one bowl each, on Fiji you can easily drink more than 10 bowls…By now we were accepted in the village and all of our family will be always welcome.

In the meantime I was sitting with the women in the kitchen, while they were preparing delicious bread, chicken soup, cooked tarot, sausages, fresh fruit, tasty coconut cakes,…. The kitchen was filled with joy and laughter, a hen was laying eggs next to the warm stove, kids were having a sleep on the grassmat nearby.

love and fresh local ingredients for delicious food

This was the beginning of a cooking marathon. These wonderful ladies were cooking day and night for us, the house was filled from dawn till midnight with sensational smells from sweet to savoury.

delicious meals 24 hours a day

We were eating and eating until the stars were shining bright and we felt deep fatigue, so we cuddled up in one big bed and slowly drifted into dreamland while listening to the songs from the chiefly bure.

The next day we visited the school and enjoyed some time at the refreshing river. Kids were swimming around in transformer t-shirts and billabong shorts, women were sitting and washing the colourful sulus while talking and laughing. The men were working on the fields growing mainly kava roots and preparing the kava for the upcoming farewell ceremony.
We got the most beautiful leis with colourful flowers and Robinson even got a new shirt to wear for our farewell ceremony.
We were invited into the chiefly bure as a family.

Gerry and Robinson

FAREWELL CELEBRATION

The boys were showing us their MEKE MEKE warrior performance while the kava bowls were circling around and being filled over and over again.

high energy meke meke

Within 2 days we felt as part of the village, friendly smiles and big hugs everywhere.

GOOD BYE

Our Boeing 737 wore the name of our destination, the island of Kadavu

The pilot decided to stop in Samoa for some extra fuel so he could circle around Fiji for some time and return back to Samoa, if required (we were in a Boeing 737). Mick – like most cyclones – was very moody and had a mind of his own and decided to strike more rapidly: by the time we had refuelled it had reached the East side of Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji. So the pilot made a quick decision to disembark us into the transit area, and half an hour later he concluded that any effort to reach Fiji that evening would put any suicide kamikaze roller coaster ride to shame.

The first terms you will learn in the Pacific are related to time, in this case “Samoa time”. This basically means that there is no rush, you should go with the flow, and patience of unfathomable extent is required to have a good time – a true challenge for most travellers from the Western world. Samoa was our first true test.

Samoa Airport

It took an eternity for the immigration official to arrive at the airport (we were the only plane on the airport and as we were not scheduled to come in, the airport was not really open or operational). In what seemed like hours later, a nice lady arrived who then instructed all passengers to throw their passports onto a big pile on her desk.

173 passports and one immigration official

She then personally filled out 178 two page immigration forms with a pen. There was an amusing scene when one bored Tongan rugby player started grabbing packs of 20 passports and flipping through them with apparent interest, probably looking for inspiration for naming his 7-11 kids which were likely going the fill his home in the next few years. This was fine with us, but some frantic American ran to the desk and started complaining loudly, finally located the customs lady and made it clear that the world was just about to end, well at least the data security world. The customs lady was clearly under the impression that browsing through passports was ok in the pacific, but to keep peace she kindly asked the strong Tongan boy to engage in an alternative activity.
She then randomly called out names and handed passports and forms to the ones who would respond to a name. On we went to the immigration officials, and to retrieve our 14 pieces of luggage. Three were not there and we were told that they are still on the plane, with no apparent logic to this, but also not much we could or wanted to do about it. We moved the luggage straight from the belt to the curb side where they were whisked from our hand into a large van. Clearly, it was best just to give up any form of control of what was happening with or to you, the state that is usually induced by alcohol or narcotics. On we went for a half hour drive along the North end of the island, along beautifully painted houses right on the sea, with ladies dressed in beautiful white walking home from their church service. We arrived in the nation’s capital Apia, at Aggie Grey’s hotel where we were treated very pleasantly, but only for a few hours. It seemed the captain had an appointment back in Fiji as he informed all passengers that wake-up time was 2 am, with a 2:30 am departure from the hotel and a 5 am scheduled plane departure. Needless to say Samoa time struck again and we spent a few hours going through Samoa departure processes. Any junior McKinsey supply chain consultant would have a dream project here, making the airport run more efficiently. But honestly, Samoa – and the entire Pacific for that matter – does not really want or need efficiency! They love their slow life and it shows. You will be hard pressed to find stressed people here, people love the spontaneous and happy life here in paradise. Besides, it is way too hot to work hard. Man is made to chill on these islands.

We arrived in Nadi, the only international airport in Fiji in the morning of the cyclone aftermath, and Pacific Sun, the only local feeder airline, managed to get 1 out of 43 scheduled flights to its destination this day. That was expected and fine. Our destination was Kadavu, the fourth largest Fijian island, located about 45 min flight to the South of Nadi. The next 24 hours we experienced the classic small country transportation / communication chaos which requires a large dose of calmness and endurance and hope as the best coping mechanism. At my 11 visits of the Pacific Sun airline check-in counter (they did not seem to have an office) it took incredible sociological skill to figure out who is in charge (to this day I have no idea). This resulted in me speaking with about 15 different representatives, and not surprisingly, depending on the time of day and who I spoke with I received vastly different answers. The airport in Vunisea on Kadavu seemed to be closed, that was a fairly consistent message. Why and what was done to fix it was unclear. The most frequent answer was that it was going to be closed for the next two weeks, which would have resulted in a complete abandonment of our plans for Fiji. The only other option to reach Kadavu was to hire a waterplane for 2500 US$ one way or to take a ferry from Suva (3 hours from Nandi by car) which takes 5 to 14 hours to get to Vunisea (again no clear answer here) and leaves only once a week but no one really knows when. Towards the end of the 24 hours the “mild persistence” strategy paid off: I picked three guys who seemed to have some idea about what was going on (they ran around with walkie talkies), made friends with them, presented my family (making them look exhausted) and pleaded nicely but with increasing frequency that the airline should find a way to get us over to Kadavu. Within an hour I received a call that we were four of the lucky eight passengers ready to head over to Vunisea on an amphibious seaplane (starts and lands at normal airports or on water). One hour later we sat in a Twin Otter and headed South (we even managed to get our kite surfing gear on board), across the Viti Levu mountains and turquoise atolls, and touched down in Vunisea Bay where we transferred onto a boat to get to shore. What seemed completely impossible only 24 hours earlier had become reality: we had reached the shores of Kadavu…

Inside our Twin Otter amphibious plane

Cyclone MICK left his colours

typical Fiji view, reef with waves, atoll, island with picture perfect beaches

first beach view of Kadavu

no chemicals here, these reefs are alive!!

Captain Jack made the seemingly impossible reality: getting us to our Fijian destination Vunisea on Kadavu

This morning we left Honolulu airport bound for Nadi, Fiji, in a 737-800. Well, we were just ahead of tropical storm / cyclone NICK which was supposed to hit Fiji just 12-24 hours after our scheduled arrival in Nadi. Just to make sure we did not have to test the life rafts of a 737, the captain decided to head for Samoa for a quick fuel stop, as this would give him enough fuel to hover above the Fijian islands and return to Samoa or another tropical island of choice. Well, we crossed the equator and the date line and got to Samoa, where we found out that NICK had accelerated a bit and was actually hitting the Fijian islands hard just as we set foot on Samoan soil.

Desctruction path of Cyclone MICK

The captain contemplated delaying tactics for a while, and then decided that sitting by a pool at sunset beats landing with 50 knots of tailwind on a runway filled with a 10 cm layer of water from torrential downpours. Maybe he was just ready to have a drink. And he clearly stated the pure facts to some stressed out complaining passengers: “There is only one plane on the island, and I am the pilot of it, so it is flying where and when I decide.
One dedicated customs girl filled out 150 applications by hand, and an hour later we were on a bus, driving on the left side of the road along the North coast of Western Samoa, on a gentle road by beautiful colourful beachfront homes, with kids playing in tidal pools and ladies dressed in full white emerging from massive churches after Sunday mass. (Western Samoa, a small spec on the world map with 182,000 inhabitants has always been very popular with me, as I got this right 100% of the time in the German game called “Stadt, Land, Fluss” where you had to write down geographical terms which start with a letter that is randomly chosen, as quickly as you can – Western Samoa happens to be the only of 192 countries that starts with the letter W). After 30 minutes we arrived in the nation’s capital, Apia, and were deposited at the very unique Aggie Gray’s family hotel. Within minutes we were immerged in the pool with a cocktail, surrounded by the 150 other passengers, a very international and diverse crowd, including the 28 man Tongan rugby team. After local mellow guitar tunes and very pleasant barbeque food made with lots of taro and coconut, we are ready to watch the stars and dream of heading South to new adventures in the morning…