True to Capt. Rod’s words, the alarm clocks went off at 5 a.m. and we were underway at first light around 5:30. Winds and seas were much more moderate than yesterday and we made good time to Vatulele, arriving around 9:30 in the morning. Clouds were coming and going in front of the sun, which made the last part of the trip a bit tricky as there are a lot of coral and rock outcroppings at the entrance to the anchorage here, difficult to see except when the sun is shining.

The last part of our voyage we were accompanied by some large seabirds called boobies who soared only a few feet over our heads and I think even considered landing on the stays. I took quite a few closeup photos and you can clearly see them with their heads turned to peer at us.

On the shore nearby are limestone cliffs with large trees. We have seen relatively few birds in the So. Pacific our entire trip – there are no seagulls or pelicans at all which we find amazing! However this spot appears to be an exception as there are thousands of seabirds roosting here in the trees. There are frigate birds here, who don’t catch their own fish to eat, but harass the boobies to force them to disgorge the day’s catch. At twilight when all the boobies were returning to roost for the night we saw a lot of action as the frigates dive-bombed the boobies and the boobies flew evasive patterns.

Safely anchored, we soon organized a shore excursion to the local village to perform sevusevu and ask permission to stay for a few days. The hike to the village took about 40 minutes each way, a majority along a sandy beach aptly named Long Beach. It was low tide with lots of shells along the strand – I found an impressively large cone shell buried in the sand and snagged it for our collection – with some caution because cone shells have a very venomous (fatal) sting when alive and I was not absolutely positive this one wasn’t. The remainder of the trail followed a pathway that skirted a long string of plantations of cassava, banana trees and paper mulberry trees.

The village was a large one – most of the homes were shacks built of corrugated iron. At the center of the village was a huge church of modern masonry constrution, and also a large ceremonial bure, constructed in the traditional thatched manner. The chief met us in the bure, welcoming us and visiting with us a bit. It turns out he is not only the village chief, but chief of the entire island which has a total of four villages.

Rod was interested in the background of the sacred red prawns found in a lagoon on Vatulele, so the chief loaned us a book that related the legend surrounding them and volunteered to come later today to Raven and take us on a tour to visit the prawns, the lagoon, and a limestone cliff with mysterious petroglyphs of unknown origins. We have printed out some photos of the village children to give him, along with a Raven t-shirt in XXL. Legend has it that anyone who harms a red prawn will be shipwrecked, so we will treat them with great respect!

Vatulele is one of the last areas of Fiji where the women still know how to make tapa cloth in the traditional manner. As we approached the village we heard the sound of hammering which turned out to be the women beating the park of the paper mulberry tree into barkcloth with wooden clubs. One woman told us they start at 6 a.m. and quit at 6 p.m. It takes two full days of work to produce a patterned cloth about 2′ x 6′ in size – from harvesting the bark, soaking and beating it into barkcloth, and then printing it with stenciled traditional designs using black and brown dyes made from the juices of native plants as well as soot and island clays.

As we stopped by one woman’s home, she was just applying the very last stencil to a large cloth to complete it – I bought it from her for $30 (Fijian, which is just over $15 US – remember it took at least two full days to make!) and took her photograph with her artwork, which will make it extra special as a souvenir in years to come.