Hibiscus III, Bay of Islands, Fiji 18 October 2011

What a week!! We had Pete, Ben, Kaiafa and some of the other Fiji Islands Voyaging Society members doing lectures at USP on drua, traditional navigation, Uto ni Yalo and their voyage, awesome footage and great lectures – heaps of people turned up for the series of 4 lectures – lots from outside of the uni too! Hopefully they will be able to put links to their presentations on the website shortly. Ben and Kai were pros and no-one would have guessed it was the first time they’d ever done a public lecture! Well done boys – inspirational talks!! Check out Professor Ben’s blog about his latest adventures.

camakau race 2011 - 3Then on Saturday the boys from Korova took part in the annual Pacific Blue sponsored Veitau Waqa (the boat lives) camakau race on Suva waterfront. Earlier in the week Jack had spotted that one of the camakau was sinking and he was so worried about it he interrupted Bera in the middle of the meeting finalising the race details. Bera was impressed at Jack’s concern for the boat so promised that he would take him onboard for the race. getting ready for camakau race

Jack ready for camakau raceJack was all dressed up (as it was the first time he had sailed on a camakau) and then went on “Cumu” (“triggerfish”) the largest of the camakau with Bera, Tui and the other crewman out around the navy boys in their inflatable (acting as marker buoy) and out to the reef and back. Cumu - 2Of course Cumu won the race, and since Bera and Tui are from Moce and the other crewman was from Fulaga they decided to give Jack the trophy! Camakau race 2011 - trophy

What a day Jack had – he has done a powerpoint of his day so check that out. The kids’ model camakau race was hilarious with several of the models heading out to sea at speed with the kids swimming after them in vain – Tui won second prize – so big celebration in Korova that night. Tui and his model camakau - check out the crew and drua image galleries for more photos of the race.

Since the trophy is so large (we haven’t got anywhere onboard to keep it) we’ve asked Marty from the USP library if he can look after the shield for Jack so that everyone else can see it as they wait at the information desk.

Of course the rugby has been almost all-consuming and providing regular excuses to hang out at the yacht club (big screen and free keg of Fiji Bitters could not be refused!) – I’m sure should have been a Wales-NZ final and proudly wore a daffodil and waved the red dragon around for their matches! Interesting to be sitting surrounded by Fijians watching Wales slaughter their team!!!! So fingers and toes all crossed for next Sunday’s final – the French had better not win!!!
Until next time.... moce Ali