AKA Little Malolo Island
AKA Big Brother is Watching
AKA Peaceful Days
I get to Fiji and the first time I have wifi a window pops up on my phone. It's my find-a-crew app telling me that according to my ip address I appear to be in Fiji and asking if I want to update this information onto my profile. '&£¥$#×@,' I think. Really? It feels like big brother is really leaning heavily over my shoulder.
But, having been prompted, I update my information anyway, and then, out of habit, I look to see what boats are in the area looking for crew. I'm not looking to crew. I've been crewing. I'm just on my way home doing an extended stop-over in Fiji since I have to fly through anyway. I'm only here for a few weeks and my only agenda is to catch a ferry out to the Yasawa Islands and find cheap accommodation there for a few days, maybe snorkel once or twice.
But one boat is looking for crew, just for a week or two, to do a trip out to the Yasawa Islands. Well. Who woulda guessed? I message the captain and 24 hours later I've taken a Cat out to Little Malolo Island and, as if by magic, I'm living once again on a boat. It's a large newish Beneteau, and, best of all it's docked so we can walk on and off at will (unlike Infinity which was always at anchor and therefore involved endless communication screwups wrt when a dingy would be going to or returning from shore).
It turns out that when I get there the wind is blowing in the wrong direction. The captain, Scott, asks sheepishly, apologetically almost, if I'd mind staying docked on Malolo Island for a few days till the wind spins back around to where its supposed to be. Of course not!
Little Malolo Island has a lot of crabs; huge green coconut crabs that live on land, big brown shore crabs that scuttle put of the way and hide, small white sand crabs, and tiny bright red rock crabs. It has beaches galore, three huge resorts that come with all the bells and whistles, about 12 private houses and twice as many boats anchored offshore, an airport, an organic farm that produces a wide variety of fresh fruit, veg, and herbs for the resorts and the island store, and amazing tides. The tides aren't particularly high but the bay is incredibly shallow so the sea retreats a kilometer or more each each day exposing almost endless sand flats and then inexorably, incredibly, almost unbelievably flows back in covering them up completely. It seems impossible yet at the same time effortless. Like my being here.
We get up in the mornings and go for long walks along the beach while it's cool out then swim in one of the marina resort's pools. In the afternoons we go diving, or head over to watch the world surfing competition at Cloudbreak, or dingy out to Cloud 9 to snorkel there, or even spend a couple hours reading in the cockpit, a gentle breeze washing over us, before meandering over to the bar for a drink where Scott, who's been here a while, knows everyone. Eventually we decide what to make for supper and, after watching the sunset, cook and eat, and another day in paradise has slipped by as stress-free as sipping sangria in the shade and I can't imagine, at all, what I might possibly have done in a previous life to be so lucky as to have the privilege of being here.
I'm not sure if we're going to make it out to the Yasawas or not and I don't care either way. Little Malolo is fine.
AKA Big Brother is Watching
AKA Peaceful Days
I get to Fiji and the first time I have wifi a window pops up on my phone. It's my find-a-crew app telling me that according to my ip address I appear to be in Fiji and asking if I want to update this information onto my profile. '&£¥$#×@,' I think. Really? It feels like big brother is really leaning heavily over my shoulder.
But, having been prompted, I update my information anyway, and then, out of habit, I look to see what boats are in the area looking for crew. I'm not looking to crew. I've been crewing. I'm just on my way home doing an extended stop-over in Fiji since I have to fly through anyway. I'm only here for a few weeks and my only agenda is to catch a ferry out to the Yasawa Islands and find cheap accommodation there for a few days, maybe snorkel once or twice.
But one boat is looking for crew, just for a week or two, to do a trip out to the Yasawa Islands. Well. Who woulda guessed? I message the captain and 24 hours later I've taken a Cat out to Little Malolo Island and, as if by magic, I'm living once again on a boat. It's a large newish Beneteau, and, best of all it's docked so we can walk on and off at will (unlike Infinity which was always at anchor and therefore involved endless communication screwups wrt when a dingy would be going to or returning from shore).
It turns out that when I get there the wind is blowing in the wrong direction. The captain, Scott, asks sheepishly, apologetically almost, if I'd mind staying docked on Malolo Island for a few days till the wind spins back around to where its supposed to be. Of course not!
Little Malolo Island has a lot of crabs; huge green coconut crabs that live on land, big brown shore crabs that scuttle put of the way and hide, small white sand crabs, and tiny bright red rock crabs. It has beaches galore, three huge resorts that come with all the bells and whistles, about 12 private houses and twice as many boats anchored offshore, an airport, an organic farm that produces a wide variety of fresh fruit, veg, and herbs for the resorts and the island store, and amazing tides. The tides aren't particularly high but the bay is incredibly shallow so the sea retreats a kilometer or more each each day exposing almost endless sand flats and then inexorably, incredibly, almost unbelievably flows back in covering them up completely. It seems impossible yet at the same time effortless. Like my being here.
We get up in the mornings and go for long walks along the beach while it's cool out then swim in one of the marina resort's pools. In the afternoons we go diving, or head over to watch the world surfing competition at Cloudbreak, or dingy out to Cloud 9 to snorkel there, or even spend a couple hours reading in the cockpit, a gentle breeze washing over us, before meandering over to the bar for a drink where Scott, who's been here a while, knows everyone. Eventually we decide what to make for supper and, after watching the sunset, cook and eat, and another day in paradise has slipped by as stress-free as sipping sangria in the shade and I can't imagine, at all, what I might possibly have done in a previous life to be so lucky as to have the privilege of being here.
I'm not sure if we're going to make it out to the Yasawas or not and I don't care either way. Little Malolo is fine.
 |
| Cloud 9 is a floating bar, anchored far offshore in shallow water near good snorkelling, that makes great cheap pizza in a wood fired oven. What's not to like? |
