“Kids, there’s lunch”, we called out over the water.
The boys didn’t turn around. They were bent over something in the water, peering out over the side of the kayak.
“Come back”, we shouted. “Lunch is ready”.
Lukie reluctantly turned, causing the kayak to wobble violently.
“We’re fishing”, he shouted. “We caught stuff”.
“Well, bring it back”, we replied. “And come and have lunch”.
After another ten minutes they started on their way back, Matias heaving the paddle, Lukie and Noah bent over the seat of the kayak.
“We caught seahorses, and baby fish”, they exclaimed as they came closer to the boat. “They’re in the seaweed. We made a habitat. It’s in water in the bottom of the kayak. Have a look”.
And there it was, a thick wad of seaweed in a pool of water at the bottom of the kayak. I brought out a container and helped them transfer their treasure safely into it. There were indeed baby fish, including tiny pipefish that resembled seahorses, feebly swimming in amongst the bulbous seaweed floating in the bucket.
It was Noah’s first day on the boat, and he’d settled right into it, gamely jumping in the kayak to go ashore with Matias and Lukie, the rest of us following in the dinghy. Our old friends from Australia, Alexis and Cara and their children Noah (6) and Kai (3) were visiting for ten days. They had arrived in Fiji a couple of days previous and had relaxed at a resort, snorkelling and windsurfing, before we picked them up at Mana Island in the Mamanucas and headed north.
This was our first stop, Yanuya Island. We had just been ashore visiting a village where we had done our sevusevu, presenting kava to the chief. We had bought some shell bracelets and the kids had had a play with the local children, jumping off the kayak again and again in the shallow waters. It was on their way back to the boat that the boys had captured the seaweed and the juvenile fish hiding in it.
The next nine days was a blur of activity. We visited the islands where famous movies like Castaway and Blue Lagoon were filmed and swam in the crystal clear waters of turqouise lagoons over white sand and colourful coral reefs. We saw huge Napoleon wrasse and swam with gigantic manta rays, Noah excitedly snorkelling right next to the huge creatures, his eyes wide with wonder.
The Berthot-Craigs took to the water with relish, the kids eagerly jumping off the boat at every opportunity and playing involved kayak chasing swimming games on every beach we visited. When not expertly driving the dinghy, little Kai snorkelled up a storm, impatiently waving away his parents on his first go, eagerly kicking ahead, keen to see more and more of the colourful fish.
The kids spent hours playing on sandy beaches and exploring rocky tidal pools, finding crazy crabs, slimy snails and shiny shells. They played rugby with Alexis and attacked each other in the shallows, pretending to be seamonsters. When we could cook out they collected mountains of firewood for bonfires on the beach, and we cooked sausages and freshly caught fish over open fires, the kids gingerly toting huge sticks with dough wrapped around the end to cook smokey damper the way it should be, burnt on the outside and slightly raw on the inside.
Alexis had brought along his windsurfing gear all the way from Australia, but unfortunately we didn’t get much wind on their stay on the boat, so he limited his efforts to a gentle breeze blowing on a misty morning.
At Sawa-I-Lau we visited the underwater limestone caves, thought to have formed hundreds of metres below sea level only to be uplifted over time to their present location, where they are accessible to man. To enter the caves we had to climb a set of stairs to the entrance from where we proceeded, bent over to avoid hitting our heads on heavy rocky outcrops, down another set of stairs descending steeply into the waterfilled cave. We jumped into the cold water, our snorkelling gear in place, enjoying the magnificent view of the orange vertical striated walls extending to 20 or so metres above the water surface to the bottom about 6 m below it. The outer cave is lit by a small opening to the sky above but beyond it is the inner cave, which is almost completely dark. The inner chamber is accessible only through a partially submerged entrance, but the kids showed no fear, diving bravely through to the dark interior. The inner cave was a spooky place, full of friendly white eels which undulated around our feet in the beam from the underwater torches. Our speech echoed loudly through the chamber, and with all the shining beams from the torches it was near impossible to see the exit. Thankfully our friendly local guide showed us safely through to the well lit outer cave, where the kids dived for treasure before exiting in a flurry of screams when the sealice residing on the rocks started biting them.
“That was amazing”, said Noah once safely warming up on the beach outside of the cave.
And indeed it was – but then the whole nine days were amazing, good times catching up with old friends, our kids meeting their wonderful children, quickly setting up a repertoire of games, interrupted by brotherly fighting, sharing exciting experiences. Hopefully it won’t be long before till we catch up again.
SV Bob The Cat 