Welcome to Leleuvia

Arrival to Leleuvia: September  13th, 2010

The trip from Suva to Leleuvia was quite the experience. I was still dealing with obtaining my health insurance in Suva, which was not going so well. So, after wondering back and forth around the Suva marketplace we  headed off to a little town called Nassouri. Nassouri was essentially the last developed area we would see before leaving Viti Levu. We met up with our Co-worker Tai once we got to a popular petrol station in town. The cap driver promptly put Karla, myself and all of our luggage out in the middle of a busy petrol garage. Imagine a 3rd world country, with old cars spitting fumes of exhaust into the atmosphere and old men trying to sell peanuts and cashews to you in dogdy little baggies, all the while being the only white people for kilometres in any direction. Two blondes with tons of Luggage in the middle of nowhere waiting for someone we had never met. And so we waited in the hot, humid garage for what seemed forever, until finally our Tai showed up.  Tai is a very tall, strong looking man in his 30s. He has a pleasant face and is missing his front 2 teeth. He showed up with 11  petrol canisters for us to  fill. $550 later we negotiated our ride to Boa landing, where we would meet up with Howard and head off. The mini-bus we had talked our way into was loaded to the brim with 11 canisters of petrol, all our lagguage and a surf board to top it off.

So we sped off down the road in what any developed country would consider a dangerous load. Going over pot-holes and dirt, passing beautiful lush bushland. The most beautiful trees and greenery lay on the outskirts of the dirty developed towns. Boa landing was in the middle of nowhere, with nothing around. School children are picked up by boat there each day and taken to there school on Boa. From the landing they must walk a good 6kms if not more down an empty road to the nearest house. We waited for Howard here and after a good hour he arrived with a truck and a pallet full of dive gear.

We spent the next 1.5 hours unloading the pallet and trying to workout boat transfer as there was enough gear for 2 boats and only 1 boat there. The locals agreed to take Howard and the gear in their boat for $40 and a cannister of petrol, then we were off.  Leleuvia is about 45 minutes Northeast of Boa landing. On a calm sea, which we were lucky enough to have, it goes by quickly without any difficulties. The sun was setting behind us as we finally saw the first sight of Leleuvia. It was more beautiful than you can imagine. We were 5 minutes from shore when we heard a loud bang. We looked at captain Tai, who had a look of uncertainty on his face. We had hit something in the water, be it coral, rock or animal, we still aren't 100% sure.

We assessed the damage, a broken prop, and continued on to our Leleuvia, we were home. It didn't take long for the stir-crazy to set in, after 2 days we were aching for the luxuries of the mainland, like hot showers, working water and air-conditioning.Not to mention protein. They pack us full of bread and rice in substitute of protein. Cans of Tuna have never looked so good. This is not a place for the faint of heart.