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.
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.
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.