Frontier Fiji, Island of Gau

• Katetravel's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Naviavia Beach

Trip Start Jan 05, 2007 Trip End Mar 14, 2007

  Naviavia Beach, Fiji
Saturday, March 17, 2007

I arrived a day earlier that the group flying out of London, which was just as well as the humidity knocked me for six!  I met the others at the airport in Nadi & we travelled across the country to Suva.  Fortunately the Military Coup had finished the previous day - there were still checkpoints with Police & Soldiers everywhere, but they all shouted Bula (hello) & waved alot!  One night in Suva & a chance to do Health & Safety & Medical tests & we were on our way to the Island of Gau.  It was a rough crossing & lots of people were casualties of sunburn & sea sickness.

We arrived at our new home Naviavia Beach - 5 Staff, 2 Conservation Apprentices (unpaid interns) & 25 Research Assistants (RAs).  There was a race for the bures - traditional palm thatched huts.  Here we were to run the gauntlet with crabs, mice, moths & rats who all wanted to be inside our mosquito net havens, not trapped outside them.  We slept on the floor with a few people having the luxury of inflatable mattresses, but the rest of us were on mats or thermarests - in fact the whole expedition should have been sponsored by thermarest & lifeventure.  'Man Towers' was soon created - a hammock heaven & I had annex status there.  My hammock was one of the best things I took, as the camp only had 2 chairs & it was great to get out of the sand & look out to sea.  The beach was beautiful & it was ours, the nearest village was a boat ride away.  Most of the time the 3 phones on the island weren't working & we resorted to climbing through the jungle up a hill to get a mobile signal, until we were banned as it was too dangerous. 

Conservation training involved dive training for those not qualified & then we had to learn 120 species of fish, 26 families of coral & numerous algae & invertebrates, in addition to the survey techniques called Baseline protocol to measure all these things.  We put out 4-8 baseline teams of 4 each day until we started to have supply issues.  The supply boat was weeks late & it got to the point there there was not any fuel on the island, so we couldn't use the boats to go anywhere.  There were lots of challenges - we had compressor issues which curtailed our diving, so there were snorkel baselines too.  We also had a few injuries on camp - a dislocated shoulder & one of the guys was knocked out playing 'stuck in the mud' on the beach, which neccessitated a medivac back to Suva.  The supply issues got so bad that we didn't have enough food.  The local village agreed to take us in & we walked two & a half hours around the coast at low tide where we were taken in one RA per family.  Not only did these people take us into their homes, but they took us into their hearts too & they became our family.  We had a big meke (music & dance party) on our last night on camp & our Nanas (Moms) turned up with food for our journey & there were lots of emotional speeches.

We did collect lots of scientific data which should help monitor the situation on the coral reefs.  We also did some awesome diving, of which Nigali passage out at the Barrier Reef was the best dive (out of the 178 I have ever done!).

I am now revelling in the comparative luxury of fresh water showers & a proper bed & food with vitamins at a Backpackers called Tsulu at Pacific Harbour before heading off to the Yassawa Islands for a few days.

Slideshow Share

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Building The Ritz	Cooking bread	Dive deck	Dressed by our families for church
Em's sunburn	First sight of Naviavia Beach	Fuel shed & compressor	How many Nemos?!
Jewelery making	Last meal with FJM071	Making bracelets with Tobe	Man 'o' War jellyfish
My Fijian Family	Nawaikama village   Comments!	New home	No food left in the Village shop
Our beach	Our families made dresses for our final meke	R&R at a proper resort	Setting up home
Sunset	The 4 weekers leave	The infection nearly everyone got	Tropical rainstorm
Trying to air our stuff	View from my bed	View inside my bed!	View to the Barrier Reef
Water run	With my brother