Trautz' travel saga: YOLO in Yasawas, Fiji Sept 2012

The Yasawas are the group of islands to the west of Nadi on the western edge of the country. We hoped to go to the top of the island chain, but the winds were too strong to make it that far and we went as far as Naviti only. Several movies have been shot around here, including Blue Lagoon and some think parts of Castaway Island were used in Castaway.

The orange on these leaves is part of the green leaf. It's not two separate leaves. Very unusual and very pretty.

This guy had a shed full of these "Fiji brooms" that are made from the spines of palm fronds cut out and tied together. $3 Fijian (about $1.50 US) would get you one.

This little kid caught this crab in the sand and then proceeded to 'play' with it and bang on it with a stick until it was pretty much dead and couldn't pinch him.

These are the leaves of the dilo tree that I crunched up in water and used to try to clear up a problem with my eye. Its supposed to cure eye infections. "You put your face in the bowl of water and swivel your eyeballs around" were my instructions. Didn't hurt, but didn't really seem to help either, so I must not have an infection.

Barracuda hanging on YOLO to dry. Of course, as soon as I hung it out, it rained. I marinated it in wasabi, soy and ginger and when dried, it was pretty good. Did the same with mahi mahi earlier and liked it. Like beef jerky but made with fish.

Jason lying in a puddle of water in the sand at low tide after snorkeling on a WWII Mustang plane in the shallows here off of Naviti. His private Jacuzzi.

The beach on Naviti. We had the place to ourselves and then Sirius joined us.

The messy snarl our mooring buoys got into. We lost one of them trying to untangle this mess and the wind gusted and pulled to the point of breaking the line.

Our dinghy, OTIS, on the beach at Naviti. Doesn't this look like a magazine cover?

Semi weaving me a mango basket out of a coconut frond.

The village lady making Fiji brooms out of the coconut frond spines. What a way to spend your days, eh?

The biggest barracuda we've ever seen in this dinghy. Veladare caught it and gave us a huge chunk and took the rest to a local resort for the guests to eat.

Karen and her mango basket made by Semi on Naviti. It's full of mangoes and I had to cut the spine at the top to get it open back at the boat. Very clever.

The only woman Chief in Vanuatu. She lives on Naviti and is 87 yrs. old and still functioning quite well. This is in her home when we took kava to do sevu sevu with her.

A large manta ray. You can just see the tip of his wing, but he was a pretty good size, mabye 10-12 feet across, and he swam back and forth with us in the channel here for quite a while.