Fiji time...

Time in Fiji is running short.  Probably a good thing.  I still haven't made up my mind past my first destination out of here.  There is one island, which is on the trophy list, that is only about 600 miles from here.  I will still have options open but it will be the absolute last stop before I am forced to make a decision with which way to go.  I know I won't make up my mind here on land so we will just have to see on that one.

Part of me thinks I enjoy hanging around the tourist scene, especially when I am treated like an exotic animal one has never seen before.  "You sailed all the way from California in that?"  "Well, not exactly, this is my second time here in Fiji in that..."  Sometimes the truth is too much for people and they just draw a blank.  "Do people really do things like this?"  Part of the dues of cruising is putting in your share of educating the masses.  Cruisers do this all over the world.  I remember being tied up to the international jetty in Richard's Bay in South Africa where local whites would come down on the weekend for an afternoon stroll to look at all the pretty boats.  The cruisers would roll their eyes at each other as they came towards the dock.  They would peer down at us and read the various home ports spelled out on the transoms and start to ask all the standard questions.  Some would get so curious that you felt obligated to invite them aboard so they could see what it was like down below.  It has been like this in Fiji.  At moments I understand why the yachties all stick together in Musket Cove.  Hanging out with the locals isn't that different.  Even with the aid of a world map, I have been unsuccessful in communicating what I have been doing for the past six years.  Most locals can't even get over the fact that I own the boat and just repeatedly ask for clarity's sake, "You own the boat?" Sometimes though,  I really break through.  It is as if can share the experience of what it is like to have single handed all those miles to someone who will never venture out on the water more than taking the ferry to the resort on this island.  It is a great feeling with something transcendent about it, like I haven't been doing this all just for myself....

The resort scene is as bad as ever as I have checked out a few more spots.  One resort actually built a fence between  it and the staff quarters and lower end backpacker digs.  Even Lonely Planet is in on the action describing the fence as a "mini Berlin Wall keeping out the ragged poor to the east". 

I will provision up and get ready to fling myself out there again.  I will post once again before heading out.