Navire and Kailopa

OK, I need to start with a little bit of background on this one. There is an SSB radio net called Gulf Harbor Radio run out of Auckland New Zealand by some former cruisers, and since the husband is a meteorologist and gives the best weather forecast information out there, most of us in the South Pacific, especially when going to/from New Zealand, tune into their net religiously. While still in Fiji, I e-mailed David, the meteorologist, and told him that we’d be heading north for cyclone season this year and asked him which weather products he thinks would be the best to monitor for crossing the convergence zones. He must get tons of emails, but he responded promptly, and the rest of the story about my dialog with David isn’t really relevant here, but I will mention that he put me on to monitoring the “streamline” weather fax, an excellent visual which clearly shows convergence zones along with all other major weather phenomena.

Anyway, during our passage to Rotuma, as I was brooding about being alone without any buddy boats, I received an email from a boat called Navire. They are Janet and David from New Zealand, and they got our contact information from, you guessed it, Gulf Harbor Radio. They were already in Rotuma, and would also be heading up through Tuvalu and Kiribati up to the Marshalls, and they were looking forward to our arrival. So, halfway through our first passage alone, we instantly had a buddy boat again.

But that’s not really all I want to say about Navire. I need to introduce Kailopa, and that requires even more background information. Rabi isn’t the only island in Fiji with transplanted Polynesians. There is another island in Fiji just to the south of Rabi called Kioa, and on Kioa is a community of people who migrated from the island of Vaitupu, which is north of Funafuti in Tuvalu. Their story is a far less tragic than that of the Banabans, in that their relocation was totally voluntary, and a little farsighted, in my opinion. Back in 1947 they purchased the island Kioa as an alternate homeland, due to weak soil and overcrowding on Vaiutup. They used money they earned during WWII from the US military who occupied their island. Kioa was initially settled by 37 people, and later a couple hundred more followed. On both Rabi and Kioa, there are now third generation inhabitants who consider these islands their home, where they are from, and in 2005 they all became full Fijian citizens.

So, while Navire was in Fiji they visited the island of Kioa, and they struck up a friendship with a man named Kailopa. To make a long story short, they ended up bringing Kailopa along with them, giving him a ride from Kioa to Funafuti, Tuvalu, so he could visit with friends and family he hasn’t seen for a long time, including his teenage grandson, Joseph. So, Kailopa became their crew for the journey from Kioa to Rotuma and then from Rotuma to Funafuti. We had the opportunity to meet him and spend time with him in Rotuma, and he was easy going and nice to be around, and he would spend much of his free time fishing off the back of Navire. But it doesn’t matter how easy someone is to be around, once you are together in a small space like a boat 24/7, easy can easily become not so easy. Many of us struggle with sharing this small space with the family members that we love. So, it takes special people to do what David and Janet did for Kailopa, and it takes a special person to do what Kailopa did to go with them in order to see his family again.