Toberua October 3 to October 5, 2003
John and Marilyn, the owners of the Levuka Homestay, had convinced Forest and me that we should spend a couple days on the resort island of Toberua (pronounced TOM-bur-ew-ah). Toberua was the first place they had visited in Fiji, and they had loved it so much that they came back year after year. Eventually they had been married on Toberua, and later decided to move to Fiji.
Toberua Island from the boat
Forest and I left Levuka early Friday morning, waved off by John and Marilyn - who insisted on cooking us a full breakfast despite our protestation. The plane was actually on time, and even more surprising, the taxi we had requested to meet us at the Suva airport was there when we arrived. The taxi took us speedily to the Toberua dock, and we congratulated ourselves on making great time - but then "Fiji time" struck again.
The boat that was supposed to pick us up at 8 AM wasn't there at 9...or 10...or 11. We sat in front of the weather-beaten General Store for three friggin' hours, and to break the tedium, we went inside and bought a dusty packet of coconut biscuits and a bag of chips called "UFOs" - Unusually Flavoured Objects. They were definitely that. Sort of like Honeycomb cereal fried in Funyun/Burger Ring flavouring. They were also chock full of MSG, which probably accounts for the fact that Forest ate three bags and was contemplating a fourth when a local approached us.
"Are you headed for Toberua?" he asked.
We said that we were, and that we had been waiting for three hours. He said that he would call the island for us and arrange a pick-up. I don't know why this random stranger was so nice to us, but we were very grateful. Twenty minutes later, an expensive boat cruised up to the dock.
As our boat approached Toberua, we heard singing. All the staff were gathered at the dock serenading us as we arrived! The owner met us, and apologized profusely for not recording our pick-up time correctly. We were given a complimentary bottle of champagne as further apology.
We were led to our bure, where we quickly drained the bottle of champagne and polished off most of the exotic fruit basket provided to all guests on arrival. Then we heard the drum signalling it was time for lunch...which turned out to be a three-course event on little umbrella-shaded tables by the ocean.
After we finished eating, Forest went along on a boat ride to the nearby reef for snorkeling, and I picked up a snorkel and headed out into the ocean. The water was warm and shallow - I swam for a long way out and it never grew deeper than chest-deep, which suited me fine. I didn't see anything too spectacular, mostly the same stripy fish I had seen on Caqelai and plenty of dun seastars and red brittle stars, but I found the rhythmic rasp of my breathing and the warm currents of water flowing over my body intensely relaxing. Once again, I lost track of time until the sun began to set and the water grew noticeably cooler. Then I waded out and lay on the warm sandy beach to dry.
Forest returned from his snorkeling trip full of stories about seeing reef sharks and manta rays. And apparently one of the woman on the trip had spotted a seahorse, floating camouflaged in the weeds.
We were sitting on the chairs outside the bar, sipping cocktails and playing Jenga with a group of Australian kids, when Carol and Barry showed up - a ex-pat New Zealand couple we immediately recogized as being from Levuka. They had both been at Tuesday night at the Ovalau Club, and Carol had been on the Silano village tour with me.
We all sat around drinking cocktails (the barman made a good, spicy Bloody Mary, a rare event in Fiji) until it was time for dinner. Dinner was as elaborate as lunch, with soup, appetizers, three choices of main dish, and dessert. We all split a bottle of New Zealand wine as well.
Early the next morning, we woke up for a round of "reef golf" - only available when the tide was at its lowest point, since the course was normally covered by seawater. To tee off, we first had to make a mound of sand.
Reef Golf Rules are as follows:
- Sea snakes may be lifted and dropped two club lengths without penalty.
- It is absolutely forbidden to wear long socks and shorts.
- Guests out walking shall be treated as hazards.
- The sea shall be treated as casual water and a ball may be retrieved and dropped without penalty, no closer to the hole.
- Taking the game seriously shall incur a shout at the bar.
This was the first time I had ever played golf, so I was pretty terrible. Trying to hit my ball out of a puddle, I missed and sprayed salty water all over myself. Barry and Forest turned out to be good at golf, consistantly hitting under or at par. However the game had a definite casual feel, as we fished our balls out of tidepools, out of mangrove roots, and away from the waving arms of brittle stars. Before we finished our game, the tide began to come in, and the last two holes were a foot deep in seawater before we got to them.
After that, we played a game of Petanque, known as Botchie Ball in the States. For those who have never heard of this game (I hadn't until this trip), it's played in teams and is somewhat similar to golf. One team throws a small wooden ball (the jack), then tries to throw their big metal balls closer to the jack than the opposing team's balls. Each team takes turns and once all the balls are thrown, the closest balls to the jack earn points. We played Petanque up and down the sandy paths, until Barry and I reached 15 points, the winning amount.
After lunch, Forest went on another snorkeling trip to the reef while I snorkeled in the shallow waters of the bay. I tried to use flippers and hated them - they trapped sand around my feet which was horribly scratchy. Even worse, when I tried to stand up the flippers folded under me, making standing impossible, and I had panickly drowning feelings even though the water was only chest-deep. Once I ditched the flippers on the beach I had a good time though.
We met Carol and Barry for cocktails before dinner, and drank probably too much. Dinner was even more elaborate than any other meal we'd had at Toberua - a buffet table by the ocean spread with Fijian dishes, including a huge platter filled with crab legs. And this turned out to only be the appetizer! I ate some of the dishes I had developed a taste for on Ovalau, including the seagrape and tuna dish, the dish with crab flakes and fern, and taro leaves. Plus of course I gorged myself on crab.
The main meal was barbecued fish, beef, or pork. Despite being stuffed, I had a small piece of trevally and a small piece of tuna steak. Both were perfectly cooked: slighly seared, with a faint charcoal taste, but still tender - the tuna was almost raw in the middle, as I think the best-cooked tuna is.
On our way back to our bure, we came across a sea snake slithering across the path. The sea snakes come out of the ocean at night to lay in warm sand digesting the day's food. It was striped black and white, like Beetlejuice.
We had already been assured that the sea snakes weren't venomous (they are poisonous, but their jaws are small and their poison glands are very far down their throats; the only way to get poisoned is to stick your finger down their throat), so I picked the little guy up amd posed for pictures.
Sunday morning, Forest and I met Carol and Barry for breakfast. They ordered us all a round of Bloody Marys and some of the "special" Toberua coffee - coffee with cream, brandy, Creme de Cacao, and several other liquors - then we headed out for another round of reef golf.
We didn't want to leave, but there was no escaping it. We boarded the boat with Carol and Barry waving goodbye, and were given small pink flowers. As our boat pulled away, we were told by the skipper to toss our flowers into the ocean - supposedly if they wash ashore, that means that someday we'll come back.
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