Stravaig's Travels

FIJI After a very nice but very wet 6-day trip from American Samoa to Fiji, we arrived early morning on what we thought was Friday the 30th of November. Crossing the date line As we came in to Savu Savu a friendly Fijian man came out in his little boat from where he worked at the Copra Shed Marina and assisted us in getting tied safely to a mooring. The local officials came out to the boat and checked us in and all the paperwork formalities were completed in a friendly atmosphere. The only down side to our arrival was that we had failed to remember that by crossing the date line on 180⁰ longitude, it was now Saturday and at weekends we became subject to overtime charges of about $200! With formalities behind us we were now at liberty to go ashore  and explore Savu Savu. The village is a wonderful mixture of Fijian and  East Indian culture, the Indian population being the principal small shop owners and almost anything can be fo

Tiki in Nuku Hiva After a very long silence on the blog front due to slow internet connections or none at all, we will now try to bring you up to date with the happenings of almost a year! traditional tattooing Pretty painful!!!! During the few weeks before the festival began about 40 yachts turned up from all over the region the see the dance and cultural exposition and the sleepy town of Taiohae came alive with drums and dances, practicing for the big events. We soon became aware that the festival was not tourist orientated but was very much an event for Polynesians, local and visitors. These included delegations from the other Marquesian islands ( Hiva Oa, Fatu Hiva, Ua Pou, Ua Huka and Tahuata) and  Easter Island ( Rapa Nui) , Australs, a delegation of Canadian Indians and many more. Some of the dancers from Nuku Hiva Great effort went into preparing three beautiful sites for all the cultural presentations, the different venues ensuring that