When we steamed in to Suva Harbor around daybreak a few mornings ago, it was plain the the entrance reef had claimed yet another victim. A pretty 40 something sailboat was hard up on the reef, lying on her side looking very forlorn.
I really needed one of Steve Dashew’s or Ron Lane’s BIG lenses for this shot, but this will have to do.
When you see something like this, your heart goes out to the folks it happened to, you hope they are all OK and you pray that it never happens to you.
Last night, we were having dinner at the Sails Restaurant at the Royal Suva Yacht Club and happened to ask our waitress about what had happened. She told us that it was a young couple who had sold just about everything they owned to pursue their dream of a cruising lifestyle. They were relatively new at it. He had apparently fallen asleep on the approach to Suva and the reef was waiting for his mistake. The waitress told us that just about everything they owned was now lying out on that reef.
She went on to say that they had not been injured and were brought to shore, and she had taken them in at her home. They have been staying with her for about 3 weeks now. She has also helped them organize a salvage attempt this coming Monday and they are optimistic that the boat can be retrieved and repaired.
As an American, I tend to be skeptical and suspicious when people seem to be going out of their way to help for no particular reason. We have been ingrained with the thought that there has to be a motive with a payback at the other end of it – altruism isn’t and to the extent it is, it certainly isn’t free (wry humor intended).
Well in parts of Fiji at least, we have found this is not strictly true as evidenced by this story.
Oh, while at Sails, Alice, the manager was talking to Deb about spices and cooking. Alice invited us to go to the open air market with her today to show us what she uses as well as give us a few recipes.