Passage to India

We have our first medical problem going on aboard Avante.  Neither of us can remember when it started exactly, but somewhere along the way, The Captain started suffering the pangs and throbs of a toothache.  He has been treating it with regular doses of Advil, but when the tenderness and pain keep getting worse, The First Mate suggests that the tooth might be infected.  An abscessed tooth needs antibiotics.  Like all conscientious cruisers and maybe better than some thanks to help from the Telluride Medical Center, we have a well-equipped pharmacy on board.  Out comes the stocked medical kit.  Azithromycen is chosen from our supply of antibiotics.  It’s a 5-day regime of tablets, but whether it works or not, The Captain is still determined to see a dentist in Labasa, our nearest city, and that is where we are heading.

A dentist in Fiji?  We had learned from sailing friends in Savusavu that Fiji has excellent dentists.  They are Indian dentists, or Indo-Fijian dentists to be exact, having gone to and received their education in India.  We actually have the name of a dentist in Labasa who was recommended to us by a New Zealander.  Because Fijian dentists are quite cheap, this New Zealand sailor tries to get most of his dental work done here.  So, like it or not, we are going to see what going to the dentist in Fiji is like!

(NOTE:  Labasa is pronounced Lambasa just like Nadi is pronounced Nandi.  Some missionary, when he took it upon himself to put the Fijian language into the written word, decided the “B” was to stand for the double sound of “M – B” and “D” would stand for “N -D”.  Where did he come up with that idea?  Who knows?  Does it make sense?  It did to him, but it sure seems to be much more confusing than necessary.  Apparently others in the printing world have thought so, too.  Charts will show Nadi as Nandi, etc.  Obviously, not everyone is in agreement with spelling around here, but to be perfectly honest, we have found spelling to be a highly variable entity throughout the whole Pacific!)

Friday, October 14th – We enjoyed our stay in the beauty and quiet of Albert Cove, but we must get to Labasa and the dentist.  Leaving Albert Cove, we head back out through the passes.  It will take us two days to get to Labasa, so we need to anchor somewhere for the night.  We decide to head in through Tilagica Passage and anchor off Tilagica Island.  The passage is wide and deep and easy to navigate at first, but soon the water becomes murky and shallows, so we have to slow down.  Slowly, painstakingly, we wind our way through the shallows to the island.  The guidebook indicates that there are some hazards, but few of them are marked.  Those that are have mere sticks to indicate their position.  The Captain is back and forth, up and down between scanning the waters from the bow and studying the charts below at the Nav Station.  The First Mate is at the helm following The Captain’s every command.  10° right, 5° left, slower, coast.  It seems endless, and it is.  Over 1 1/2 hours from the passage entrance to where we are now anchored!  We look around us in dismay.  What an uninspiring anchorage!  We are securely anchored in only 30 feet of water, but the bay is so large and unimpressive, we might as well be in the middle of nowhere!

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By mid afternoon, we are turning into Mali Passage, the entrance to Labasa. The guide book states that “the reefs on either side are steep to and there are no dangers in the fairway”, and that is exactly what we find.  All reef passages should be this way!  We anchor off Vorovoro Island for the night.  There is a small village nearby with about a dozen houses. 

In a little while, we are visited by a family in their panga.  It’s either a mother and father with their young child or a grandmother and grandfather with their young grandchild.  We cannot tell.  They ask us how long we are staying and invite us to visit their village.  The Captain explains that we are only here for one night because we need to get into Labasa to see the dentist.  He caresses his jaw in the classic tooth ache pose.  They nod and grin in understanding each adult showing startling black gaps where teeth should have been.  The First Mate later suggests to The Captain that we should be more circumspect with whom we talk about going to see the dentist.  These poor people have obviously never seen one.  Cheap though a Fijian dentist may be by our standards, the inhabitants of this town can only achingly dream of seeing one.  Later that evening, we realize just how poor this little town must be.  So close to the city of Labasa, yet in the darkness only one small light bulb shines dimly across the water.  All else is black.

Sunday, October 16th –  Labasa is one of the larger cities in Fiji, and though technically it is a port city, it is really several miles inland up a shallow river from the bay.  We spend most of the morning at anchor and then later in the day motor the final distance to anchor in the port area of Labasa.  We have positioned ourselves to get into town first thing Monday morning.  A major Fijian port this may be, but the channel to the port is not marked and is very poorly charted.  Visibility is not good as the water is murky from rivers flowing into it. We rationalize that with medium-sized cargo ships coming in here to the sugar and timber mills, there must not be any hazards.  Fortunately, we don’t find any except one uncomfortable spot where The First Mate saw the depth meter hovering at 11 feet for several seconds. 

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Monday, October 17th – To get to Labasa itself, we know only that it is still some distance away. Hopefully, we can find a taxi or take a bus from the dock.  By 0730, we are heading ashore. We are anchored a fair distance from the dinghy dock.  In fact, we are so far away from the dock that we are not exactly sure where we are to go.  We head off in the general direction of shore, and ……. the engine dies.  It will not start no matter what The Captain does or says.  Couldn’t the gods just once look down on the poor man who is already in some pain?  Out come the oars.  We take turns.  In the distance, The First Mate sees a panga.  Is it coming towards us?  Is this possible?  It is!  The kindly fisherman offers us a tow to shore, and he knows just where to drop us off, too!

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We drive past many acres of land that were obviously once farmed but long since let go to seed.  We both wonder at the number of fields we see that are untended and unplanted.  We may have limited knowledge, but it just does not feel right.

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The office is simple, bright and clean.  We do not have an appointment.  Can they see The Captain?  Yes, but not for an hour.  That’s fine.  We head off to do a ittle sightseeing of Labasa ever so relieved to have an appointment today and in an hour, too!

Labasa feels like a city in India.  It is in the sugar cane region of Fiji, which is where the Indian workers were first brought to work the sugar fields, and it is where most of them stayed to work leased fields when their indentured time expired.  The predominant dress is Indian.  The predominant language is some form of Indian with some form of English second.  Most of the establishments are Indian.  Everything is kind of rundown, dingy and dismal.

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It turns out that the dental appointment was a bit of an anticlimax.  Dr. Kumar thoroughly inspected The Captain’s tooth and determined that he appeared to have an infection under the tooth. The dentist was happy with the antibiotic being taken.  He declared that the tooth would be quite tender for a while but that things should continue to improve as the antibiotic did its work and the swelling subsided.  A hairline crack in the tooth was found which The Captain was counseled to have fixed.  There was nothing more for him to do.  The Captain is relieved that it is nothing more serious.  We pay the $5 bill and take our leave.

Besides the dentist, Labasa also offers us the opportunity of internet access, and that is our next goal.  After that, we will get some lunch.  We had already walked up and down the main street of the town so we knew where to find the internet.  That we do.

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Our taxi driver is an Indo-Fijian who speaks enough English for us to understand.  As we drive past the lines of sugar cane-loaded trucks, we ask him about them.  How long do the drivers wait?  Why are the lines so long?  The drivers wait because it takes that long to unload the cane.  These lines are not long at all!  You should have seen them when sugar cane production was at its highest. It’s not high now?  Looking at the long lines, we find that hard to believe.  Why is it not high?  We are now approaching an area with miles of untended, old fields.  See those fields out there?  They used to be good farms run by Indian families of many generations.  Their 100-year leases expired.  The Fijian owners of the land refused to renew the leases for the Indian farmers.  The Indian families were forced to leave, but the Fijian owners have no interest in working the sugar cane fields.  Our taxi driver is an example of this.  His family had a farm where they grew sugar cane and several other crops.  It was a good farm, but their lease could not be renewed when it expired.  His family was forced to leave the land.  The land has gone to ruin, and he now works as a taxi driver in Labasa.  This is happening all across the sugar growing area of Fiji.

A few weeks later upon our return to Nadi, we see a newspaper article about the government needing to take action because sugar production is declining at an alarming rate, and sugar is a major export for Fiji.  They need sugar, but raising sugar takes a lot of hard, hot work.  The Indians are willing to do it, but the Fijians?  It’s their country so they claim.  Will they do the work? No! Interestingly, back in Nasau Bay with that delightful Fijian family with whom we spent an afternoon, both of us remember them lamenting about the world economy and how the cost of everything has been rising, especially SUGAR.  No wonder!

We arrive back at the harbor.  Pay our informative taxi driver and head down to the dinghy which more than ever is earning The Captain’s nickname for it:  The Dingbat.  Will it start?  Will it get us across the harbor and back to Avante lying out there so very, very far away.  It starts!  Off we go!  It stops and will not start again.  With great dejection and flagging spirits, we pull out the oars.  Maybe another nice fisherman will come to our aid, but there is no one else out here on the water.  Just us alone and a lot of water between us and home.  To add insult to injury, the wind is blowing down on us.  Rubber dinghies were not designed to be efficiently propelled by oars.  We row on.  Another hour of rowing added to The Dingbat’s shameful tally.  Exhausted, we reach Avante and climb aboard.

While The First Mate stows her produce, The Captain begins to take apart the motor for what seems like the 100th time.  The Captain can take apart, clean and put this engine back together with his eyes closed, but it is still not a fun or a quick job.  He knows what is the cause of this outboard’s poor reliability.  A carburetor jet on this uptight, straight-laced California emission-controlled 4-stroke engine is clogged.  Tolerances were made extremely tight to meet California’s stringent emission control requirements.  The engine will work just fine on high quality gasoline from the United States and Canada.  It started having problems when we began feeding it Mexican gas.  Now that it is getting a steady diet of “island” gas, it is really rebelling.  It only takes one molecule of water to clog a jet, and “island” gas almost always has some water in it.  To fix it requires removing the carburetor and cleaning the jets.  It’s a job that requires tools and extra care to avoid dropping any part into the ocean.  This is not always easy on a bouncing boat.  However, it must be done and so it is before we weigh anchor to leave Labasa.

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