I’m sorry that I didn’t send a newsletter last Monday. I was en route to the Kadavu archipelago in Fiji. This was my second visit to Oneta, an eco resort on Ono Island.

Last year I did a lot of painting and drawing in Fiji and shared it all in a newsletter. This visit was shorter. I didn’t do as much painting and I didn’t take as many photos. I saw unbelievable things but many of them were under the sea. I did a lot and learned a lot but I recorded much less. I was, as they say, on Fiji time.

Here are a few highlights.

Diving

If you told me a year ago that I would be throwing a shaka in the South Pacific with my sister-in-law Maile and our scuba instructor Maika after the final dive of our Open Water Diver Certification course I wouldn’t have believed you, but here we are.

Fiji’s Great Astrolabe Reef is healthy, massive, and teeming with life. Scuba diving is a little scary but mostly it is gorgeous, otherworldly, profound. Since I was a kid I’ve had a reoccurring dream that I’m walking on the ocean floor; I’m surrounded by sea life and I can breathe. When I’m diving, if I stand still on the sandy bottom, silently watching the fish whirl around me, I’m overwhelmed and I cry.

I would never have tried scuba if not for the Oneta dive instructors, especially Anne who took me on my first dive last year. They are so good and I know it’s their job but I still feel like I owe them an unpayable debt.

Singing

There’s a lot of singing in Fiji and oh my god it’s so beautiful. This is the beginning of a hymn I heard at a Kava ceremony. My phone ran out of batteries or I would’ve recorded the whole thing. It got better and better. I was crying at the end. I do a lot of crying in Fiji, I guess.

Fijian

Maile and I are on a mission to learn as much Fijian as we can. I forget most of the words I learn but I won’t forget the word for rainbow because Bill wrote in on my hand.

Bill

Bill is from a warrior clan and his older brother is the chief of his village. Someday he may have to leave his job at Oneta and go home to be the chief. Until then he is an agent of good chaos on Ono Island and a guide to Fijian culture. He seems very chief-like to me already. His last name is Ikatamata, which means human fish.

Last year I didn’t want to scuba dive and Bill gave me a hard sell. He told me that there is a vast beautiful world under the ocean and barely anybody gets to see it. Why would I turn down the opportunity to see it?

This year he asked me to paint his portrait and I was happy to do it. I have lots to thank Bill Ikatamata for.

The Jungle

Ono Island is mostly jungle. There are no stores or destinations, only Oneta, a grade school on a tidal river, and a few small villages reachable only by boat or by trekking through the jungle. It’s a wild place. Last year we spent a lot of time on the water: kayaking and in outrigger canoes. This year was windier so we spent more time hiking in the jungle and along a high ridge.

The Creatures

Here’s an incomplete list of the animals I saw in Fiji:

• manta rays

• eagle rays

• sting rays

• an eel

• lots of white tipped reef sharks

• puffer fish

• flying fish

• thousands of other fish

• skinks

• a gecko

• fruit bats

• giant clams

• so many kinds of crabs

• sea cucumbers

• brittle stars

• frigates

• boobies

• a chiton

• a sea snake

• a little boa constrictor that Anne found in the jungle and brought into the dining room

The Perspective

On our last day in Fiji, Anne had to leave Oneta suddenly so we went to another island to pick up Maika - the other dive instructor - in his village. Bill explained to us that if you want to build a house in a village you only have to ask the chief and elders for permission. You don’t have to buy a piece of land. You just have to ask. I said, “Is that just for Fijians? Could a white person do that?”

Bill said, “Of course. We’re only around for 90 or 100 years and then we die. We should share everything while we’re here.” And my heart sank to think about how wrong we anglo people have it, and how impossible it is to reverse course.

Here are a few more photos. If you’d like to see more art and hear more about life on Ono Island, check out last year’s travelogue.

Vinaka vaka levu,
Carson