Tavuki Bay

We are now around the corner in Tavuki Bay, just south of Namalata Bay and Vunisea, and it has been raining non-stop since late yesterday afternoon. We now have full water tanks (yay!) and are getting ready to go into the village of Soladama for the wonderful veggies we ordered. After arriving yesterday noon, Ricky, David and I jumped into the dinghy and headed for what seemed to be the largest of the villages in this bay, with our papers and kava bundles; the tide was coming up so we got stranded by shallow reef, dropped the anchor, and waded the rest of the way in. We were met by a wonderful welcoming family who invited us inside a beautiful big house and proceeded to hold court with the grandmother, a beautiful 73 year old woman in a wheel chair. She had visited Seattle in her 40's, so she an Ricky had much to talk about, and her late husband had been a government official for many years, before he passed away. Tavuki Village is the home of the most important chief in all of Kadavu, but by the time it came to doing sevusevu, the weather was so bad that we just gave the kava to the headman, who blessed us and welcomed us to the village, and he will take it to the chief today. Before the rain started, we were guided by the daughter, an elegant fiesty woman who said she would stand in for the chief (with a smile :)) through two other villages so that we could get some veggies and some more grog (kava).

David here to finish this as we had to go into the village to do another Sevu Sevu with ( a different village than the one we did it with yesterday)  as well as pick up our veggies. After we made the wet dingy ride in and did the Sevu Sevu we were sitting in the meeting house when we noticed that Riata 11 seemd to be moving. The wind had picked up big time ( 25-30 knts ) and Riata 11 was dragging her anchor. A mad dash for the dingies and off we went in chase of the run away boat. Riata's crew got there in time pull up the now dangling anchor ( 120 ft. of anchor chain out and now in 180 ft. of water ) and motor back to our anchoring location where they dropped the old hook again and this time it seemed to really set. Like I've said many times before, never a dull moment around cruisers. So here we are hanging out in our warm and cozy Sidewinder waiting for the rain to stop so we can venture out and get ourselves into some other trouble. We'll let you know how that works out.....see ay,  David & Suzi