Category Archives: Daily Lime

Fijian Rugby

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The Fiji rugby team has been a major force in the 2022 world rugby tournament.  It is a serious sport here in Fiji and is played on most of the islands.  We were lucky enough to be able to attend a tournament in the Mamanucas!

They started at 0700 on a Thursday morning as they had to get through 32 teams playing 11-minute games.  Each team does a prayer before each game.  One team recently lost their chief, so before their game, the entire stadium had a moment of silence. (top photo).

While 2 teams are playing on the field, the other teams are warming up on the side lines.

The teams do this fabulous thing that I call “hike the player up” when the ball goes out of bounds.  Each team raises one team member as high as they can go and those team members try to catch the ball that is thrown to them from offsides.  

To restart the game, they scrum, where both teams of 7 huddle together in a circle and one guy tosses the ball in the center.

I will tell you that these players are real men!  No falling down and pretending to be hurt (like in US basketball or soccer).  They take a hit and pop back up!  And I mean they really take a hit!  We heard them pound the ground and saw the dirt shoot up.  No pads or helmets!

Good or bad, I have no idea

A lot of “oops” moments where they just couldn’t hold on to the ball as they were pummeled to the ground.

But there were a lot of great moments and fast runners in this rugby tournament.

Most of the time, they held onto that funny football with all their might!

Almost every match had a score or more.

We were wondering what they used to mark the field and wouldn’t you know it, they use used motor oil!

The rugby players might have only played for 11 minutes, but they played harder than any other sport I’ve seen!  And it is no surprise that they played so passionately as the first-place team won $3000FJ, 2nd place won $1000FJ and the teams that lost in the semi finals each were awarded $300FJ (the entry fee).

We made lots of friends on the side lines.

After the game, we headed to their artisan market that they opened specially for us.  They had 6 rows of tables filled with local Fijian crafts.

RULES OF FIJIAN RUGY

  • No shoulder pads or helmets
  • The ball must be pitched backwards to your teammates. No forward passes
  • A team can pitch the ball back and forth to each other as many times as they like
  • There is no blocking to assist your runner
  • Everyone runs with the ball and tackles equally.
  • When you are tackled, you have 1 second to let go of the ball and purposely “fumble” the ball.  Don’t touch it again until you are up from the pile and standing on your feet.
  • When you tackle someone, you cannot touch the ball until you are on your feet.  You cannot dive on a loose ball.
  • Typically, there are 15 plays from each team, but in Fiji there are only 7 from each side.
  • When your teammate pitches the ball to you as you are running down the field, and you drop it, that is a penalty (called “knock down”)

The events from this blog occurred in early October 2022.  Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual events.  Wilson is back on Cast Away Island – did you read about it on our last blog?

Wilson is back on Cast Away island

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Monuriki Island is a small island maintained and operated by the chief of a neighboring island called Yanuya.  Monuriki is uninhabited and a nature preserve.  As an added bonus, this is also where the movie Cast Away was filmed in 1999 and 2000.  Tom Hanks as Chuck and his companion Wilson were the leading characters.

We wanted to visit Monuriki, but first we had to do sevusevu with the chief on Yanuya and pay a small fee of $20FJ which goes to the “maintenance of the island.”  After our sevusevu ceremony, we grabbed our friends Thomas and Mareike from Scooter and we dinghied the 1.2nm to the small island.

I took snap shots from the movie….to compare to the real thing.

The left corner of the island is where Chuck washed to shore on his inflatable life raft.  The highest peak (on the left) is where he attempted to kill himself.

Of course, the director removed all surrounding islands in the movie…

The corner of Cast Away island is also where he wrote “Help Me” in the sand.  Unfortunately for him it washed away with the tide, so the locals wrote it using coconuts.  My friends changed it a little to Help Me Tom and you can guess as to whether they meant Tom Hanks or Thomas from Scooter.

Hike to the Summit

The island is a nature preserve. Hikers have to stay on the marked trails (no off the trail exploring).  We wanted to go to the highest peak, but alas there was no trail. So, we climbed to the 2nd highest summit and were rewarded with a beautiful view of Cast Away island and her reefs.

On the way down, we found the famous rock where Chuck wrote his farewell after being on the island for 4 years!

We found Wilson!  After being lost at sea, he returned to Monuriki island.  One of the guides happened to be walking by with a tour group and we were able to borrow one of his props! 

We had a great time visiting Monuriki (aka Cast Away island) which had the softest sand, a picnic table in the shade, a lovely hike to the summit, and lots of Hollywood history.

We made lots of little friends who were the best tour guides you could ask for on Yanuya.

The events from this blog occurred in early October.  Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual events.  We attempt to rescue a stranded boat on the reef in our last blog.

Exploring Mana Island

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While waiting for our mail sail t be repaired, we decide to head to Mana Island, a small island about 10nm to the west of the mainland of Viti Levu.   We stopped by this little island while my sister, Kimberly and her family were visiting, but we wanted to come back to explore some more.

Mana Island has a small airport and is home to the 2nd oldest resort in the Mamanucas, Mana Island Resort.  This resort is owned by the Chinese who built a rather ugly fence down the middle of the island to separate its leased property from the backpacker resorts.

Mana is also where Survivor: Game Changers was filmed and we were determined to find its location.  So, it seems an exploratory hike is in order.

Hiking Around Mana Island

The Plan: find the Survivor set (which is on Maps.me), the bunker, and the cross.  It shouldn’t be too hard, just a little adventuring.  We should have brought the garmin to determine how far we truly walked and to show you the entire path, but we forgot it.  I did not think to turn on my maps.me app until we were half way through our hike, so I will walk you through our path.

Sugar Shack is at the blue arrow. We take the dinghy to the beach (left side of island, below “South Beach.”  We walk along the beautiful beach during low tide which gives us access around the entire bottom tip of the island (the yellow on the map indicates the beach area and the green is hillside).  

Once on the windward side (right side of island), we head up hill (start of the light blue dots) and make our way to through a very exclusive, 5-star resort, called Tadrai Dream Resort.  Oops, we weren’t supposed to be here.  However, the staff let us wander through the back of the small 5 villa resort to the top of the hill where the cross is located.  From here we walk the ridge to the bunker, then down to what is supposed to be the Survivor set.  Through the 4-star Mana Resort and back to the beach where we started.

Beach Walk

The start of our walk was super pretty along several long sandy beaches.  The hillsides are dry as we are on the dry side of Fiji, but the beaches are beautiful with untouched sands. 

Once we round the tip of Mana Island, we encounter beautiful purple rocks scattered around the beach.  I just love the beautiful art nature created on these rocks.

We reach the end of the beach where a giant cliff prevents us from continuing on (top left picture) so we turn left up the hill.  We get to a small road.  To the left is heli-pad (lower right corner) and to the right is the very exclusive, 5-star resort Tadrai Dream.  We did not know it was a 5-star resort until we got back to the village.  But it sure did look pretty with a negative edge pool and its 5 villas (yep, only 5 villas).

The trail is a combination of a dirt path and tree limbs lined up to make stairs.

The top of the hill rewarded us with beautiful views.  I did not take any photos of the cross as it was less than pretty.  Sugar Shack is the white dot in the dark blue water to the right.

We can see on either side of the island: the anchorage and the windward side.

Bunker and Survivor Set

We continue on to the bunker which is just along the ridge line.  It appears there was a controlled burn here and a very old antenna.  Can you see the bunker in the top photo (see the burn area and then a white box)?

As we continue along the path we head back down hill to the “Survivor” camp which is what Mana is famous for.  However, we circle, and circle, and circle and come up with the big donut hole.  However, we did find a large rectangle field that was cut out from the shrubbery.  Perhaps the “challenges” were held here.  But the actual spot where it says “Fiji Survivor Set” is nothing but leaves on the ground.

Well that was a bit disappointing – not sure what we expected to find, but nothing was not it.  Not even an immunity charm!

We continued on and ended up at the Mana Resort (another “exclusive” place) and we just walked right in all smelly and dirty from our hike.  They did not seem to mind and let us continue on.

We ended the walk at the village where we saw the most fruitful papaya tree – it had 7 growing branches!

Overall a great exploration of Mana Island.  We managed to walk around half the island which is about 4.2 miles. 

The events from this blog occurred in early September 2022.  Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual events.  Our main sail explodes in our last blog, Tired and Work Out.