The Voyage of the Northern Magic: A Family Odyssey

by Diane Stuemer

  Our plan had been to stay until Sunday morning, go to church, partake of the farewell bosun bird feast to be held in our honour, and then leave for the three-day trip to the island of Niue. But we never got to taste the bosun birds that had been lovingly prepared for us. During the night before the feast, the wind began shifting in a dangerous direction. Not only was it now threatening to push us onto the reef, but as it swung us around, our anchor chain snagged on a coral head. With each wave, our chain jerked and grated against the coral, and we began to fear it might break.

  After staying awake all night, we called the island by radio and informed them that we had no choice but to leave at first light. The only thing holding us back from leaving immediately was that we had loaned out all our videotapes to different families. Someone agreed to canvass the homes, collect the tapes, and bring them to our boat as soon as possible.

  When a boatload of islanders finally appeared, they brought with them not only our videotapes but also a parting gift of two still-warm loaves of bread. As we handed over our own bag of gifts, my throat choked up unexpectedly, stopping me from speaking. These people, all of them, had been so kind, and so generous with sharing what little they had, that I didn’t know what I could possibly say. Finally, I simply blew them a kiss while Herbert shook their hands. We motored away, out of danger but very sad to be leaving our many new friends, who waved as we left.

  After Palmerston, we continued hopping our way across the Pacific, in passages of several days or a week each. In Niue (pronounced Nee-you-ay), where we spent six days, we discovered that Palmerston Islanders did not own the monopoly on South Pacific friendliness. Then we departed for Tonga, in company with three other boats. We formed a beautiful and stately caravan as we made our way back out into the ocean, sails billowing and spirits high.

  They say that the definition of a race is any two sails on the horizon, and this was true now, even though no formal declaration was ever made. But as we four sailboats kept in touch with twice-daily radio sessions, you could just about hear the gnashing of teeth as we each reported our position and made our calculations as to who was ahead of whom. We were no match for the two speedy fibreglass boats, but the race of the steel boats was more of a match.

  “Where are you?” Dee from Axe Calibre asked hopefully as we rounded the island of Vava’u after two days at sea. “We’re only twenty-five miles away.”

  “Well, we’re just circling around the north part of the island now,” I answered, trying to keep any trace of a smirk out of my voice. “You’re about four hours behind us.” Later, I learned that when Tom on Axe Calibre heard this, he broke his pencil and spewed forth some choice seafaring words. We, on the other hand, tried to confine our jubilation to some quiet, dignified dancing and screaming.

  Tonga was a cruisers’ paradise. For several weeks we travelled from anchorage to anchorage, from island to island, encountering new mysteries and discoveries at each idyllic spot: giggling children, hospitable local people, feasts baked in underground ovens, a solemn Tongan wedding at which others sat on the grass so that we, as guests of honour, could sit at the head table. We also enjoyed watching baby octopuses, exploring underwater caves, investigating mysterious blowholes, and the companionship of other cruisers who, like us, were reliant on each other for friendship far away from home.

  One night we went walking on the coral reef, lit only by a crackling, hissing torch, to hunt for clams. As we walked in the ankle-deep water, our footsteps activated the tiny, phosphorescent plankton that lived on the coral. Throwing down the torch with a big hiss, we saw in the perfect darkness that our feet were surrounded with brilliant twinkles of light. These sparkling underwater constellations echoed the real stars and planets blazing in the dark night sky above us, the Milky Way clearly visible as a shining arc reaching across the sky.

  It was a magical sight, a magical night in Tonga. Only one of many.

  8

  Forced to Drink Muddy Sawdust Water

  We set off from Tonga for Fiji on a windy, wavy day. Four hundred and fifty miles of ocean lay ahead. With the mainsail boomed out to starboard and the jib poled out to port, there was nothing to moderate the rolling motion that pushed us relentlessly from side to side. It was difficult to cook, eat, walk, or sleep. All we could do was hang on tight.

  The rolling lasted the entire four days of our voyage, making all of us queasy and miserable. But at least we made a fast passage, and had we been an hour or two faster we would actually have reached the safety of Suva Harbour on the evening of our third day at sea. In late afternoon, however, it became clear we wouldn’t make it before darkness fell, so we began to reduce speed. Our destination, the island of Viti Levu, was surrounded by a reef that, in places, extends a mile or two out, making it a dangerous place to approach. Just the week before, a sailboat had run badly aground on this same reef after having attempted to enter in darkness. We had no intention of sharing that fate, so, as much as we wanted a respite from the motion, we reduced sail to be sure of arriving in daylight.

  We dropped both the main and the mizzen sails and furled in the jib until only a tiny handkerchief was left flying. Even still, we were making progress towards the reef at four knots and more. Without the big sails up, we had even more motion, rocking wildly back and forth so much we had to put leecloths on the beds to keep bodies from flying out. It was a long, long night.

  Herbert decided during his watch to reel in a line he had been trolling, using a lure Jonathan had bought him for his birthday in Tahiti. As he pulled in the line, he felt some resistance. Judging from the pull, he surmised he had caught a medium-sized fish. He was surprised, therefore, to meet the angry gaze of a large dorado at the end of his line. In that proud he-man voice of the successful hunter, Herbert called me on deck to help pull in his prize, but my help was not necessary; the dorado gave so little resistance we realized it must have been dragging behind us for many hours.

  Although it was three in the morning, we roused Michael and Jonathan, and we all watched as Herbert pulled the rainbow-coloured fish on board, using a flashlight for illumination. We had to hang on for dear life as the boat rolled and the fish struggled. As tall as Christopher, the dorado was a magnificent specimen.

  I have to confess that I do have considerable empathy for any fish caught on a line, even a big brutish dorado with sharp teeth and a Neanderthal brow. Secretly, I always root for the fish. I’m the first one to grab onto any excuse to return it to the water. For years, I’ve been the butt of many a family joke for my unwillingness to kill even a spider. All this to say that I didn’t stay around to see how Herbert put the poor keel-hauled thing out of its misery.

  Finally, daylight broke, and the island of Viti Levu was in sight. Although the kids were fresh as usual in spite of the dorado episode, Herbert and I were bone-weary.

  Herbert was hand steering and having trouble planting his feet, because the carcass of that huge fish filled most of the cockpit. Its large glassy eye stared up reproachfully at its murderer. Its increasingly powerful odour filled the cockpit and wafted down into the cabin as we made our approach into Suva Harbour, adding its own pungent note to the haze of our fatigue. At last, we made it in through the reef. We were happy we had waited until daylight to do so, as the approach was riddled with shoals and wrecks. By the time we dropped anchor and finished our formalities, we smelled more like a fishing trawler than a cruising yacht. Later that day, our fridge broke and we ended up giving most of that dorado away.

  To our delight, we discovered that Fijians are among the friendliest people we had met – and that is really saying something after our five months of cruising in the friendly South Pacific.

  We found Bobby Kumar, a Fijian of Indian descent, tending his fresh fruit stand at the bustling Suva marketplace. A nice-looking man in his late thirties with a friendly, open face, he struck up a conversation with me as I rested in front of his stall. Half of Fiji’s population is made up of people of Indian ancestry, descendants of inde
ntured labourers who came over to work in the sugarcane fields a century ago. Fijian Indians have clung to their Indian culture and now run most of the small businesses in Fiji, despite being legally discriminated against in their own country.

  Bobby and his beautiful wife, Niru, were successful and proud of it. “The Fijians don’t work as hard as we do,” he explained. “They want to have Saturday and Sunday off. We work seven days a week. Why should we waste a day resting?”

  As a reward for their industry, the Kumars and their three children lived in a comfortable three-bedroom home. The Kumars seemed full of pity for us, living in such confined conditions on the boat. Niru confided to me that her thirteen-year-old daughter, Norris, had felt sorry to see us walking through the market, carrying a load of bags just like ordinary people.

  “You’ll see when they come over,” Niru had explained to her daughter, “that they are just like ordinary people.”

  “But they must have such a fine house in Canada,” Norris had persisted. “They must be very rich.”

  Our standard of living in Canada was in fact the object of intense curiosity. Did we have a washing machine? A dishwasher? How big was our house? We spent many hours comparing our life with theirs. They pored over our photos and books about Canada.

  As if to give us a complete picture of both sides of Fijian society, we were also befriended by a native Fijian family. We met Kasa, a handsome woman in her thirties, while the kids were horsing around on a rope swing on a nearby hillside. Just as we were leaving, Kasa came running out of her house with a papaya from her tree, shouting for us to stop.

  She breathlessly handed me her gift and asked if we would come by again another day. Her husband, she said, would really want to meet us. Without setting a time, we agreed to return on Sunday for a visit. That Sunday, the Kumars were going to meet us at 1:00 p.m. to go to the beach, so at 10:00 a.m. the kids and I ran up the hill to spend the morning with Kasa. Herbert had stayed behind to work on the fridge.

  When we arrived, Kasa was busy preparing a traditional Fijian feast for us. The underground oven was already smoking, and Kasa said everything would be ready for one o’clock. I was horrified. They were going to all this trouble and we had no way of cancelling our other invitation for the same time. Kasa was gracious when I explained the situation. She simply said, “That’s okay. You don’t need to stay to eat it. I’ll pack the food all up, and you can take it to the beach with you.”

  There was no way we were going to do that. The only choice was to return for Herbert and eat as quickly as we could, even if it meant keeping the Kumars waiting.

  I sat with Kasa on a woven straw mat as she deftly prepared a mixture of tomato, onions, canned corned beef, and coconut juice, all wrapped up in large taro leaves and aluminium foil to bake in the underground lovo oven. Sheets of newspaper protected the mat from food drippings. She prepared a fish the same way, stuffing it with mashed garlic and fresh ginger root.

  Her husband, Joe, appeared, a large, handsome man with feet fully twice the length and width of my own, muscularly built like the rugby player he was. Together, they buried the meal on hot coals under a blanket of banana leaves and covered it with earth. As we waited for it to bake, the kids and I returned to the boat and granted our long-suffering captain a temporary reprieve, time off for good behaviour.

  The meal, unearthed at 12:45 p.m., was delicious. Everything was eaten Fiji-style, sitting on the floor and without cutlery, something we were by now adept at doing.

  The living room of Kasa and Joe’s simple but clean three-room home was unadorned by furniture. The small concrete house was provided to Joe as one of the perks of his job as a prison guard. Kasa worked as a receptionist in a government ministry. As we sat, cross-legged, on straw mats rimmed with colourful wool fringes, using our fingers to scoop up fish baked in taro leaves, I realized that Kasa and Joe were probably a pretty typical middle-class civil servant family. Coming from a government town like Ottawa, it made for an interesting comparison.

  Before leaving Suva for Ono Island, our next stop in Fiji, we went to the fresh market and invested thirteen dollars in a tangled bunch of dirty old roots wrapped in newspaper. We chose those roots carefully, paying a little extra to be sure of getting the best. This was kava, the root of the pepper plant. According to ancient custom, it must be presented by visitors to the village chief in a ceremony known as sevusevu.

  Kava is common to the people of Tonga, Fiji, and Samoa, where the precious root is pounded and mixed with water to make a non-alcoholic, tranquilizing drink. When we arrived at Ono Island, armed with our special kava offering, we waited for someone from the village to invite us ashore. Our host ended up being a middle-aged man named Kimi, who brought us into his home and explained the rules of Fijian village etiquette.

  In Polynesia I had already, long before, given up shorts for a more modest long skirt. I always felt I’d blend in better and make friends more easily if I dressed as closely as possible to the local customs. Other cruisers had told me the long skirt wasn’t necessary, but Kimi looked approvingly at my attire and said, “That is beautiful. This is the proper way of dressing in a village. You will have no problems here.”

  Later that day, we gathered in the house of the chief for our sevusevu ceremony. Like every other house we saw in the village, this one was adorned with many large pictures of Princess Diana. My own name, being so similar to hers, made me very popular all over the South Pacific.

  We sat in a circle with the village elders and handed Kimi our offering of kava root. He accepted it almost reverently and placed it carefully on the mat in front of him. He made a lengthy speech in Fijian, in which he explained to the others why we were there and requested our acceptance into the village. Then, clapping his hands three times, he handed the roots over to the other men in the circle. Each of the village elders handled our offering of roots in turn, making a short acceptance speech and clapping his hands as he handed them to the next. When all had signalled their acceptance, hands were clapped in unison once more. Everyone turned to us with smiles and welcomed us into their village. We were now one of them.

  We moved over to the home of Rachel and her husband, a friendly giant of a man named Romeo. Romeo retrieved a large, heavy pot called a tambili, placed our kava in it, and, heaving a long, iron rod like a huge pestle, began pulverizing it. Watching him at this job, I understood why Fijian men were so muscular. The peeling skin on Romeo’s dark brown legs looked white and ashy, symptoms of an excessive fondness for kava. I asked him about it, and he nodded and grinned.

  After half an hour of hard work, Romeo had reduced the gnarled and twisted roots into a fine brown powder. If I hadn’t known better, I might have called it sawdust. Now, Herbert followed the men into a bamboo shelter in the centre of the village. I stayed behind with Rachel while the boys played with their Fijian counterparts.

  The powdered kava, Herbert later reported, was placed in a small bag and immersed in room-temperature water in a large, elegantly carved wooden drinking bowl, the tanoa. It made a muddy-looking tea. After Romeo judged the mixture to be perfect (and complimented Herbert on the excellent quality of the root), he made a loud speech in Fijian to the half dozen other men who had joined in. Romeo ran his hands around the rim of the tanoa and clapped three times. This was followed by more ceremonial clapping and statements of approval. Then Romeo filled half a coconut shell with the mixture and handed it ceremoniously to Herbert, the guest of honour, to drink.

  We’d read that the polite way to drink kava is to guzzle it down in one slurp. Herbert did that manfully. As he finished his cup, the men all made three loud claps and joyfully shouted “Matha!,” “Empty!” Then the cup was refilled and passed around the circle.

  Herbert had meant to take one cup politely and then decline further offers. But his drinking companions absolutely refused to drink unless the guest of honour started each round. So Herbert continued unhappily chug-a-lugging the muddy sawdust water while I, who could hear all t
he enthusiastic clapping and matha!-ing from my spot outside on the grass, began speculating how long he would hold out.

  It took half an hour. Herbert quietly exited the shelter and tip-toed up behind me. “I need you to rescue me,” he whispered in my ear. “They won’t let me stop drinking, and if I have any more, I’m going to throw up.”

  I excused myself from Rachel and respectfully entered the male enclave to see what was going on. Jonathan joined me. He was worn out from playing tag with a dozen village children, who, in their excitement, had made it rather tough on him; whenever Jon was “it,” he remained “it” no matter who else he tagged. Even if he was not “it,” the entire gang chased only him.

  Under the bamboo shelter, we found our poor captain being forced to guzzle yet another cup of kava. He threw me a look of intense gratitude. Jon and I sat down in the circle, the ceremony began again, and I was treated to my first taste of the drink. Yup, if it looks like sawdust, and smells like sawdust, it tastes like sawdust, too. The men offered Jonathan a cup, and Jon, to my everlasting admiration, took a hearty gulp. After swallowing, he smiled and said, enthusiastically, that it tasted good. That brave boy actually took a second big swallow before handing me his cup to finish.

  After only my second cup, my tongue and lips began to feel numb. My mouth tasted like I’d been licking a sawmill floor. I could hardly believe Herbert had managed to hold down what was now seven coconut shells full of the detestable brew. Finally, we were able to woozily beg off and leave the rest of the grog to people who actually appreciated it. The woody aftertaste the kava left in our mouths was noticeable even the next day. I did, however, make the important discovery that Mars Bars are an excellent antidote.