Category Archives: Fiji

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.

Rescue on the Reef

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Sugar Shack is anchored about 2nm from the main town of Denarau and 7nm from Vuda at a small island called Yakuilau island.  We had been here for a few days with our friends Mareike and Thomas (on “Scooter”) when we heard the mayday call.  We were in bad weather conditions which were not ideal for a rescue.

Mayday calls are for life-threatening emergencies where as “pan-pan” calls are for urgent situations that are not life-threatening.  So, we immediately thought the worst.  We listened to the VHF to try to determine where the vessel was to see if we could render help.

Within 5-6 minutes we figured out that the boat was on the opposite side of the island we were anchored behind.  The problem was the weather conditions were miserable.  Winds were blowing 18-20kts and the seas were about 1 meter tall with lots of white caps.  Not a time to be out in the dinghy, but we had to go see if we could help.

As soon as we turned the corner of the island we were smashing against the waves and were drenched.  But, we saw the vessel and quickly approached. 

Not sure what happened as the markers for the reef are easy to spot (as we rounded them to get to the boat). 

As we were trying to make a plan another vessel called “Coral Cats” came to help as well. 

1st Vessel Attempt

Coral Cats could not get close to the vessel because of the shallow depths of the reef so we utilized Sweetie to transport the tow ropes between boats.  Coral Cats has (2) 200hp outboards (much bigger than Sweetie’s (1) 25hp outboard).  They tried 3 times to rescue them from the reef before they had to stop because their stern cleat broke off.  Crap!

Bigger is Better: 2nd Attempt

Another roll on/roll off ferry approached while we were using Coral Cats to get the boat off the reef.  It is called BilliBilli and she had a full cargo load but still stopped for 2 hours to help try to rescue the boat.

This boat was much harder to maneuver, but had a lot more horse power.  We tried at least 5/6 times to rescue this boat off the reef.  Sweetie going back and forth multiple times as the lines had to be dropped each time the ferry repositioned herself.

We were able to turn the boat into the wind which was a huge win.  She no longer was side to the wind and waves which were pushing her further onto the reef. BilliBilli had to go as they were terribly late so we were left with this poor boat on the reef.

An Idea Comes to Mind

Matt has them drop their anchor and most of their anchor chain into our dinghy and we take it out as far as we can and drop it.  We tell them to winch in on the chain during each wave.  This will use the boat’s weight to slowly pull her off the reef.  But they had to wait for high tide at 1:30am to do most of the work.

We get a text at 3:30am that they are off the reef and anchored in front of Denarau. Thank Goodness!

What did not work?

We did not know that this is a ferro cement boat. Yep, you read that right, it is made of cement and super duper heavy.  There is or was no way our little dinghy could have done anything to help rescue her off the reef. 

We did try to use our dinghy to push her sideways while the ferry was pulling her out – that didn’t work.  We also tried to use their main halyard to pull them over and that almost flipped Sweetie – that didn’t work.

More Help

The next day, the owners asked us to help them bring the boat to the haul out facility and to be there to help assess the damage.

Why did they do that?  Well, I had texted my friend Dominique at Raiatea Carenage to see if he had any ideas on how we could help remove the boat from the reef.  He has a remarkably successful track record of rescuing boats in French Polynesia.  He actually knew the boat and the owners and told them that we would be good resources to help them.

Assessing the Damage

They haul the boat out and we were all shocked by the lack of damage!  It is a cement boat after all.  The keel is made of steel and had separated at the joint and curved in to starboard.  From the join down there is a curve but at the end there is a significant bend.  Had the keel been made of cement (like the rest of the boat), it would have shattered. The keel is made of metal because it is heavier.

The rudder also suffered some damage where it separated from the support and bent slightly to starboard.

The shaft and prop were untouched, the engine worked fine, and the hull didn’t appear to have any damage.

Overall, they were extremely blessed to have so little damage.  None of the three souls on board were injured and the boat can be repaired for a little money.

The events from this blog occurred in early September 2022.  Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual events.  Our last blog is on the beautiful Mana Island explored during low tide.