SOUTH PACIFIC ADVENTURE – PART III

Our third stop in Fiji was Dravuni Island. Barely three kilometres long and five hundred meters wide, it’s a pocket paradise. Two hundred or so call the island home and benefit greatly from regular cruise ship visits. Unlike Tabuaeron however, the crafts for sale are not locally made. We enjoyed our day there, starting with a morning hike to the highest point on the island from where the view is incredible. In the afternoon, I rented snorkeling gear and spent an enjoyable two hours doing something I used to enjoy when I was a young gaffer, swimming.

There are no vehicles on the island, so people travel walk along paths to get from place to place. Some islanders fish, some tend small fruit tree orchards; all lead a simple life and seem quite happy. The contrast with Suva on Fiji’s big island could not be more pronounced. It’s nice to know there are still places like these on our crowded planet.

Known as “Sugar City”, Lautaka is Fiji’s second-largest. It boasts one of the southern hemisphere’s biggest sugar refineries. After three busy days, we’d decided to take it easy by walking into town, checking in by wifi with family and friends, and doing a bit of shopping. A narrow-gauge railway runs through the heart of town transporting sugar cane to the expansive mill.

Since we left Hawai’i, wifi has been hard to come by, and when we did find it, very slow. The slow speed is due to infrastructure deficiencies. Most annoying is that we had to pay for it, one way or another, wherever we went. While it’s a modest building, Charlottetown’s cruise terminal offers free wifi, a blessing to visitors and crew members and one I’m sure they appreciate.

After a sea day, the ship docked at the western-most point of our journey, the small city of Luganville, population 13,000, second-largest of the Republic of Vanautu. During World War II, the US built a base on the island of Espiritu Santo, second only to Hawai’i’s Pearl Harbour in terms of size and importance; 500,000 Allied troops passed through there at its height. Author James Michener wrote Tales of the South Pacific based on his stay in Luganville.

We’d decided to visit a traditional village and were welcomed by a friendly woman, Celia, our tour guide, and by fierce young men who challenged us as we entered the village of Loweton. Like the Maori of New Zealand, they tried to scare us away. Once inside the recreated village, we learned about the old ways. Celia and her family moved to Santo from the nearby Banks Islands for better health care for her diabetic husband and better education for their four children.

We watched as Celia’s son prepared kava, the traditional island beverage. Someone asked him what he wanted to become when older. Without hesitation, he replied: “I want to become the Chief!” Women and young girls performed the women’s dance; men and young boys performed the men’s version. Finally, we attended a performance of water music, a unique form of entertainment by eight women who, with only their hands, used water as a percussive instrument to make sounds that had to be heard to be believed.

Vanuatu became an independent country in 1980. It consists of eighty-three islands with a total land area slightly larger than Prince Edward Island and a population of 260,000. The economy is based on export of coconut products and tourism; flying time from Brisbane, Australia, is only 2.5 hours.

We spent a day in Port Vila, walking into town 3 kilometers or so from the ship on a Sunday. The city looks and feels like the capital of a poor country. There are nice places along the waterfront, like the Grand Hotel and Casino and the Iririki Resort, and a few Australian tourists walked with us along the seaside promenade. But, look a little closer and you see signs of questionable choices, like the empty and over-the-top convention center (constructed with the aid of Chinese money) and the very quiet Parliament Building shown in the photos below. Still, Vanuatu has a couple of claims to fame: it became the first country to outlaw the sale of single-use plastics in 2018, and its people are said to be among the happiest in the world.

Our third stop in Vanuatu was a beach day on Mystery Island. As with several other stops on this cruise, we traveled from the ship to the dock on tenders, the ship’s lifeboats doing double duty. The tiny island is bisected by a grass airstrip, built by the US in World War II to serve as a refueling station. It was another nice beach day.

Nuku’alofa is the capital of Tonga, the only place in the South Pacific islands we visited that has never been colonized. The country is made up of 176 islands, with a total land area about one-tenth the size of Prince Edward Island, and is home to just over 100,000 people. While Tonga is run by a government elected by the people, the monarchy, 1,000 years old, still plays an important role in Tongan society. Over one-quarter of the country’s population lives in the capital city. We spent most of the day walking around the city, and Elva found some nice Mabé pearl jewelry. The beautiful house in the photo is the Royal Palace.

Our next stop was Neiafu on the beautiful island of Vava’u, Tonga, a place pretty close to paradise. The ship anchored in a channel surrounded by tropical forest and we tendered into the town jetty. While not rich by any means, it’s a comfortable place with friendly people, surrounded by the most beautiful water vistas one can imagine. I could see myself spending a month here, immersing myself in the local culture, doing a little fishing, a little snorkeling, and generally just chilling out. We walked all around the town, talking to some of the locals like these two women preparing material for mats and a man working on Mabé pearl jewelry.

 

It’s interesting to hear experts talk about the history of the islands and island countries we’ve visited so far. They use terms like “discovered”, “took possession of”, “colonized”, “evangelized”, and “captured” in reference to Europeans, Japanese and Americans. In reality, all of the South Pacific islands were discovered and colonized by people who became today’s Micronesians, Melanesians and Polynesians. They certainly didn’t give up their homelands willingly. Thankfully, the traditional role of the chief has been retained in this part of the world, regardless of the form of central government. Modern forms of government alone do not work here.

Four of the five countries we discovered on this journey—Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, and Vanuatu—chose to cut ties with colonial powers and go their own way. Tonga never was colonized and was ruled for 1,000 years by a King. American Samoa enjoys a certain degree of autonomy, though the US would not likely give up its right to such a strategic harbour for military purposes. Niue and Rarotonga are self-governing islands with ties to New Zealand. Residents of New Caledonia, a nearby French possession we didn’t visit, are voting on the question of sovereignty right now. French Polynesia remains an overseas department of France. And then there’s China, its expansionist aspirations casting a shadow over the whole region.

I’ve always been fascinated by how people are governed, to what extent they make their own societal and economic choices, and how successfully they do so. My all-too-brief experiences in the South Pacific have shown me once again that there is no “right” way.

During this phase of the journey, we crossed the International Date Line three times and sailed across the equator. We lost a day between American Samoa and Samoa but get it back between Tonga and Niue. I realized as I examined the world atlas that we’ve now traveled in each of the world’s twenty-four time zones, either by land or sea. Not bad for a snot-nosed kid from Wellington!

SOUTH PACIFIC ADVENTURE – PART II

Draw a line between Hawai’i and American Samoa and you won’t hit much other than water. The tiny island of Tabuaeron lies about 1,800 kilometers south of Kona and about 2,000 kilometers northeast of Pago Pago, our scheduled stop in American Samoa. It is one of thirty-three islands that make up the tiny Republic of Kiribati (pronounced Kiribass) and lies some 3,500 kilometres from the capital of Kiribati, Tarawa. That’s roughly equal to the distance between Halifax and Regina. Imagine governing a country like that! Taken together, the islands have a land area about one-tenth the size of Prince Edward Island and a population about two-thirds of ours.

If you haven’t heard of Kiribati before, don’t be dismayed; few people have. One of the reasons it turns up in world news stories these days is a rather sad one. Due to sea level rise, the country, made up almost entirely of low-lying coral islands, is disappearing slowly but surely. The highest point on Tabuaeron is only three meters above the high tide mark.

Kiribati gained its independence from Great Britain in 1979. It relies on foreign financial aid from the UK and Japan, as well as own-source revenue from fishing and agriculture. Tabuearon, also known as Fanning Island, is an atoll, basically a ring of coral surrounding a shallow lagoon. It’s home to about 1,500 people who live a very simple life. The MS Amsterdam is one of only two cruise ships to call there in 2019. Needless to say, the islanders were glad to see us. There isn’t much for visitors to do on the island as it has no restaurant and no bar. Also, there’s no electricity, no running water, no wifi, and no Wal-Mart. It reminds those of us of a certain age of Gilligan’s Island. In fact, the closing scene of the old sitcom includes an aerial shot of Tabuaeron atoll!

We spent three enjoyable hours on Tabuaeron, walking along the atoll’s only road, meeting the locals, buying a few souvenirs, and taking in the beauty of this very special place. The photos tell the story better than I can.

 
 
 
  

As we sail across this trackless ocean, I can’t help but wonder how the many islands that dot the Pacific were colonized, many of them thousands of years ago, long before the Vikings stumbled upon North America. Imagine having to leave your home island where your family has lived for many generations. Maybe there wasn’t enough land for everyone; maybe all the trees were cut; maybe the fish ran out; maybe a volcano erupted. Whatever the reason, a family decides to head out over the open ocean, not to a nearby island that might offer no better prospects, but into the unknown.

They spend many months building a ship, rigging it with hand-woven sails and shelters for animals and people. Down through the generations, sea peoples learned through trial and error how to build the best ship for a long voyage. Family members climb aboard with all the food and supplies they’ll need for a voyage of undetermined duration. They bring pigs, chickens and dogs for food and companionship; rats tag along for the ride, unnoticed! The navigator waits until the wind and the tide are just right. The community turns out to see them off; friends and relatives cry to see the family leave.

How did they manage to find an island, perhaps 1,000 kilometres distant, and survive the trip? Was it luck, divine intervention, skill, or a combination of all three? Those who study these things believe a skilled navigator would steer by the stars and, that way, at least keep the ship sailing in one direction. He’d watch for signs of land: changes in currents; the appearance of certain birds; the type of clouds that you’d only find over land; maybe drifting vegetation. Some certainly perished from lack of food, storms, sickness, and maybe even conflict among passengers. But, unless you believe we were all put where we are by supreme being, there’s only one way to explain how the many islands of the Pacific were colonized. It’s an amazing story; one that keeps the mind occupied on sea days.

After three days on calm seas, we reached the southernmost territory belonging to the United States of America, American Samoa. We docked in the town of Pago Pago on the main island of Tutuila. American Samoa is a bit of an anomaly, belonging to the USA but having an inferior status to that of the fifty states. Other independent territories include Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Guam, Midway Islands, Wake, Northern Mariana Islands, and a few others. Residents are not US citizens, cannot vote in presidential elections, and have little formal representation in Washington, although they can travel to the mainland and work there.

American Samoa consists of seven islands covering about 200 square kilometres (less than 3% of the area of Prince Edward Island) and is home to about 60,000 people. Most live on a narrow strip of land along the southern shore of Tutuila. All of the islands are volcanic and quite mountainous. American Samoa’s main claim to fame is that it produces more National Football League players per capita than any other part of the USA. The rate of enlistment in the armed forces is also the highest in the country. They count more churches per capita and more local buses—like the one shown in the photo below—than any place we’ve ever been! People bury their dead in their front yards. During our visit, we took a tour on a local bus and walked around town. While glad we called there, it’s not a place we’d return to.

Our next port of call, Apia, is the capital of Samoa, a sovereign country that gained its independence from New Zealand in 1962. Everything about our experience there was excellent. People were friendly and welcoming wherever we went. Although it was a very hot day, we strolled into the center of the city, checked in at the tourist information office, and took in the Saturday morning downtown sights. The highlight of the day was a cultural event featuring key elements of the Samoan culture: music and dance, tattooing, cooking, coconut tree climbing, and the making of coconut cream. Lunch—taro, banana, tuna, and coconut cream covered in leaves; all roasted over hot rocks buried in leaves—was delicious!

Our first port of call in Fiji was the small town of Savusavu on the island of Vanua Levu, second-largest of the more than 300 islands that make up the country. The theme for the day was cultured pearls and we learned how they’re produced at J. Hunter Pearls, a local company based in Savusavu and one of the few companies outside French Polynesia that produces salt-water pearls. From spat collection to final grading, the process is complex, lengthy, risky and, most of all, fascinating. We saw a technician brought in specially from Japan open the live oysters just enough to insert a small “seed” into the meat, recognized by the oyster as a foreign object that must be covered with “nacre”, the material that becomes the pearl.

Next, we boarded a company boat for a sail around the harbour to see where the oysters are grown, hanging from ropes not unlike our own cultured mussels, or suspended inside specially-made cages. They even opened one to show us the end product. I borrowed snorkeling gear for my first close-up view on this trip of the endangered giant clam, some at least one meter across, with beautiful green fluorescent dots on the fleshy parts that line the shell. Elva bought a black pearl necklace, a fitting reminder of our very special visit.

Fiji gained its independence from Great Britain in 1960. The country has a land area about twice the size of Prince Edward Island and is home to some 900,000 people. Unlike most of the other islands we’ll visit, the population of Fiji is multi-ethnic. Indentured labourers were brought to the islands from India by the British to work the sugar cane fields in the early days of the colony. Local chiefs decided the foreigners should not be allowed to own land, so they instead became shopkeepers, wealthy ones as it turned out. With wealth comes power, and the struggles that followed split the country, leading to several coups, the latest in 2006.

Our second stop in Fiji was the capital city of Suva. We’d decided to rent a car and get out into the countryside. We drove along the southwest coast to the Fiji National Park to see the Sigatoka Sand Dunes, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, protected because it’s one of the country’s earliest recorded prehistoric sites, probably about 3,000 years old. It was a hot day for a hike but we got a good cardio workout. The drive there and back gave us a better feel for the country. There is much poverty in rural areas and the idleness that seems to go along with a country that’s not doing too well. We’ll call at two more ports in Fiji before sailing west to the next island country on our list, Vanuatu.

SOUTH PACIFIC ADVENTURE – PART I

It took thirty long hours to get from our hotel room in Baku to the Best Western in downtown San Diego, across ten time zones. Traveling from east to west always seems harder for me than going in the other direction. We’d been to San Diego before, in 2003, during Elva’s March Break. A city of 1.5 million, it’s clean, modern and very walkable, and has an excellent public transportation system. You can ride the LRT and buses all day for $6.


During the four days we spent in the city, we returned to places we’d liked, such as the beach on Coronado Island, Balboa Park, and Old Town. Elva found a nice shopping mall and we visited a car museum that featured a nice classic car and motorcycle collection as well as the baddest lowrider I’ve ever seen up close. I celebrated birthday number 66 with a crab bucket at Joe’s Crab Shack.

We were glad to board the MS Amsterdam on October 28 and settle into the familiar Holland America surroundings. Our cozy inside cabin looked just like others we’ve stayed in on previous voyages on the Rotterdam, the Zaandam, the Volendam, and the Prinsendam. Five days at sea may seem like a long time but it went by fast. There is always something to do aboard ship and, if you want to do nothing, you can do that too!


We landed in Honolulu on November 3, a Sunday. Elva and I had planned out our day, deciding that we’d buy day passes for public transit, go to Pearl Harbor in the morning and Waikiki Beach in the afternoon. While many passengers opt to take the Holland America shore excursions, we find them outrageously expensive, ranging from $100 US per person for a half-day tour to $250 and more for a full day. We’ve been on the tours before and have found them to be a disappointment for the most part, too often featuring only photo stops and visits to souvenir shops. Not the best way to spend precious time and money.


The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 resulted in the deaths of some 2,400 military personnel and civilians. It forced the USA to declare war on Japan and enter World War II. It was a sort of coming-of-age for the Americans, not unlike the World War I battle of Vimy Ridge and what it meant for us Canadians. 


We’d watched the movie Pearl Harbor onboard ship on our way to Honolulu; the story prepared us well for what we saw. Standing on the USS Arizona Memorial, built atop the sunken hull of the battleship, brought powerful emotions: 1,177 men died on the ship that day and some 900 bodies remain inside the hull. Their names are inscribed on a wall of remembrance. Some survivors, 43 of them, decided to have their remains interred in the hull as well when they passed away, in order to share a final resting place with their comrades. 

Waikiki Beach is not as nice as Basin Head, but it’s right up there! When I think of some of the really shitty beach resorts we’ve seen, Myrtle Beach being the worst, I have to say I was impressed. The hotels are first-class, the beach is beautiful, the oceanside parks are immaculate, and public transit is very convenient to use. Our total transportation cost for the day: $5 US. Entry to Pearl Harbor was free! Remember, we don’t mind spending money, we just don’t like to waste it…

On our second day in Hawai’i, the ship called at the port of Lahaina on the island of Maui. After getting our bearings with the help of a guide at the tourist information office, we rode the local bus for about an hour to Kapalua, a major resort area on the northwestern tip of the island. The vegetation is lush, Eden-like, and the resort hotels very high-end ($1,000 a night!). The beach at Kapalua Bay is small but incredibly beautiful; same goes for its neighbour, Napili Beach. After a nice lunch at the Napili Kai resort, we took the bus back to town and strolled around Lahaina until it was time to return to the ship. We find cruising to be an excellent way to scout places we’d like to come back to. Maui is definitely a keeper!

The third island we visited, Kauai, is said to be the second-wettest place on earth. We rented a car and drove west and north until we reached Waimea Canyon. We stopped at several lookouts to take in the canyon’s features: the many colours of the rock faces, the river far below, and the waterfall on the left of the photo. The road ended at Kalalau Lookout, shrouded unfortunately in a thick fog. On the way back down the mountain, the heavens opened. 


Not pressed for time, we decided to drive east and north to see the rest of the coast and take in a couple of recommended sights. Wailua Falls was a bit of a disappointment but the lighthouse at Kilauea Point made the drive worthwhile. In the seven hours we had the car, we circumnavigated the island. Kauai is quite different from Oahu and Maui. It’s much less touristy; more laid-back and natural. 

 
 
The town where we docked is called Lihue; not a big place but it has enough for the determined shopper. We overheard one passenger whose plan for the day was to take the free shuttle to a second-hand clothing store and spend her day there. Can you imagine paying good money to take a cruise to Charlottetown just to spend your day at Value Village? Another guy spent the day at a golf course… Looking for lost balls! “Found twenty-seven,” he told me proudly. Go figure!


Our last two ports of call in Hawai’i were Hilo and Kona on the Big Island. We had high expectations for Hilo, thinking we’d be able to use local transportation to get around. But when we got off the ship, everything was chaos at the “cruise terminal”, nothing more than a warehouse really, with people rushing in every direction. Shuttles to take us downtown, four kilometers distant, were few and far between, so we walked. Downtown is run down and public bus service is very limited. It was even hard to find wifi. We wasted $42 on the hop-on-hop-off bus that took us to places we could have walked. Lesson learned: if a place doesn’t look interesting at first sight, it probably won’t get any better. Trust your instincts and save your money!


The Big Island is slightly larger than Prince Edward Island and contains Hawai’i’s two tallest mountains, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Our second stop, the town of Kailua-Kona proved to be far more interesting than Hilo. You may have heard of Kona coffee; it’s of course grown there on the slopes of a dormant volcano. The last ruler of the Hawai’ian people, King Kamehameha, spent his final years in the area and one of his palaces, Hulihee, is shown in the photo below. 


Our ship anchored in the bay and passengers were transported to the pier by tender. We enjoyed walking around the town, taking in the sights. A pocket beach next to the pier was perfect for a dip (the temperature was 32 C). We watched dolphins frolic in the harbour as they joined a group of snorkelers. Nearby, swimmers trained at the very spot where the Kona Ironman World Championship starts and finishes.

We know many people who’ve visited Hawai’i and loved it. We met passengers on the ship who’d been there several times. Now we know why they decided to go back. Each island has its own particular charm. Although they look and feel a lot like the Caribbean islands, they have much more to offer.


The MS Amsterdam will set sail from Kailua-Kona and head south. We’ll have five days at sea before reaching our next stop, American Samoa. Half-way there, we’ll stop for a few hours at Tabuaeran (Fanning Island), a coral atoll that forms part of the small island nation of Kiribati (pronounced Kiribass). In an interesting coincidence, the island was named by the British in honour of Edmund Fanning, the nephew of Governor Edmund Fanning for whom Prince Edward Island's Government House is named, "Fanningbank". Another bit of Island trivia: the community of Lady Fane, near Crapaud, was named after Governor Fanning's wife. After American Samoa, we’ll visit Samoa, Fiji, and Vanuatu.