The flipside of dealing with the harder parts of the Simple Cruising Life (™) are exquisite moments of learning from the local people and communities. Cruising folk themselves are a wonderful community: a binding common experience and shared goals forms a wide network of friendship amongst cruisers. But is is the local people of contrasting lives that really teach us.
We visited the local village at our Yasawa anchorage to request sevusevu from the chief, who welcomed us and invited us to use of the island’s beaches and fishing grounds. His first man took us for a tour of the village where we saw the impact of Winston, and then visited the island’s school in the nape of a soaring mountain.
Some basic school donations were appreciated: books from Australia, a soccer ball provided by a friend, and an old laptop. The head teacher’s passion for the school was wonderful and he clearly has a huge impact on the lives of local kids - with resources that would astound an Australian school in their modesty. That meagre laptop doubled the number for the whole school. The school welcomed the Dolphin and Squid into their classes with wide arms for two days, which are times they will remember forever.
As we caught the village boat back in a village boat powered by the ubiquitous 40HP Enduro, we passed a 180ft superyacht that had been cruising the Yasawas and was moored nearby for a few days. The disparity with their surroundings felt slightly grotesque. We had seen the crew prepping the local beach for the owner’s lunch for 3 hours beforehand, complete with water toys, meticulously laid out snorkelling gear, drinks, a hanging wardrobe on the beach, and the ship’s monogram carefully created in sand art and shells. And because the pristine sand of Fiji was not quite perfect enough, the crew raked the whole section of beach in front of the towels to remove any impurities, and sent photos back to the mothership for quality control. We didn’t really need to see the owners; that indication of what they felt was important was enough.
I wondered though if they had any knowledge of the lives of the community just 200m away, and wanted to constructively tell them about that in case they could help, but the deployment of black security jetskis was tight. When I mentioned the superyacht to local villagers, their happiness and lack of material ego was wonderful. I try not to fall into a tourist’s trap of romanticising the reality of their environment, or to pretend they have opportunity. But the generosity of their spirit was a lesson to us, and a wonderful demonstration of dealing with people from different backgrounds with cheerful grace. Learn from those days, Squid and Dolphin.
Aubrey