April May 2012 Postcards From Paradise

7/31/2019 April May 2012 Postcards From Paradise

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Adventures of the Apocalypse

Volume 1, Issue 22012

Its been an eventful couple of months with two trips to hospital, cyclones, an earthquake, floods

and I believe 4 apocalyptic horsemen rode past at one point. But we drew on some good old

fashioned Blitz Spirit and pulled through. Thanks for all the kind and sarcastic comments on the

previous editionI hope you enjoy this one just as much as we enjoyed writing it.

2nd Edition 2012

Bush craft 101 2

A birthday party 2

Rats 1-Visitors 5 2

All the bloody nature 3

Picture Gallery 4

Breathe Deep 6

Jungle John 8

Inside this issue:

Not that kind of wind!

(Although the Dahl soup

does take a toll).

Last night Harry came over

and said that the govern-

ment issued a weather warn-

ing for strong winds and rain,developing to a !

Now we are from the north

of England, so strong wind

and rain isnt something that

holds any fear for us. But

when a Fijian says it, you

wonder if it takes on a new

meaning. Are Fijians masters

of understatement? A bit like

the Brits would find them-

selves in a hurricane and say

Bit breezy out isnt it?

Living in a tent directly under

some coconut trees; and the

look of concern on Harrys

face both pushed us into

battening down the hatches

and securing a few things in

the old plantation house.

Readers will recall that the

problem with the house is

that it is the central battlefield

of the ugly and ongoing rat

war. So the scarier thought

was that the wind and rain

would be too much for the

tents and we would have to

come into the house over-

night ourselves. (Shudder)

We braved the night in the

tent. There were a few close

calls with coconuts flying

horizontally and branches off

the trees heading for us like

spears, hurled by an ancient

Fijian warrior angry that

wed set up camp on his an-

cestors graves. There were

three occasions when we

scrambled as fast as we could

out of the tent to try and

save the tarpaulin that was

being ripped away and ulti-

mately ended up in a bread-

fruit tree at the back of the

orchard.

There was certainly no sleep

to be had it was very noisy,

windy and rainy and kind of

scary.

Harry came to work in the

morning, and feeling pretty

pleased with our survival I

said to him, See- were still

here Harry. Were pretty

tough us Brits living in a tent

in a cyclone. To which he

responded with a puzzled

look. It hasnt started yet,

cyclone comes tonight.

Oh crapWe might sleep in

the house with the rats to-

night!

Postcards From Paradise

Strong Winds Warning

NB Postcards from Paradise is loosely based on stuff that happened with a dash of gross exaggeration, some under exaggeration and some stuff I might have dreamed, but

its all loosely what happened with a bit of artistic license. Names have not been changed to protect the innocent but they are innocent anyway so give them a break.


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Jungle John has seen the infamous and

mysterious Seppo out hunting fish with

some kind of spear crossed with a stringoff a bow and arrow and is intrigued.

Seppo is looking slightly perturbed at the

wide eyed white man constantly watch-

ing him through binoculars. Who would-

nt?

On Seppos return to shore, Jungle John

immediately grabbed the nearest vine

and swung over, leopard skin loincloth

wafting in the breeze. ugspear...me

want is roughly how I imagine the con-

versation went, but to fair I didnt actually

witness it. So bless his lack of cottonsocks or socks and shoes of any kind,

Seppo showed John how to make one.

It was simple too, just a case of getting

some steel rebar from under the house,

wrestling it away from King Rat, and thensharpening it with a file to a serious point

and a notch at the top the same way for

the laggy band to go. I suspect this is

one of those things that looks easy, but

youd make a right hash of it without

decades of practice. But nonetheless,Jungle John is a happy camper with his

new toy and Seppo is slightly less worried

about being stalked.

Bush craft 101

Rats 1, Visitors 5

Page 2 Postcards From Paradise

Since meeting neighbours Nigel and

Carol (just a 10 minute kayak away) they

have taken great pity on us dumb white

kids living in the bush in tents and have

been wonderful hosts.

Invited for dinner one evening there wasquiche and another night steak and

COLD beer. Nigel's birthday party even

had cake and wine and roast chicken.

Where do they get these things? They

also have fabulous magical tricks such as

fridges and freezers and cookers... and a

blummin big generator.

My only complaint with this warmth and

generosity is that while there, Jungle

John acts as if I never feed him, just beat

him with a stick and throw him a dead

rat to gnaw on. Nothing could be fur-ther from the truth. I cant tell you how

much effort goes into making dahl soup

in different textures, varying the type of

lentils, adding and taking away spices so

it isnt identical day by day. Three fingers

show the scars of battling with the scald-

ing roti pan. So one more worshipful

puppy dog eyed face at Carol at lunch

time, and Im going to shrink his loin

cloth on a hot wash.

A birthday party

In the on-going battle for the house

with the rats, we have made signifi-

cant strides with the aid of traps and

poison. Never thought I would turn

to chemical warfare.

So far we have found 4 dead rats, the

stench from under the house indi-

cates more and the pool around one

of the traps indicates one bloody

nose. Sadly a minor birds beak was

also taken in collateral damage.

In a key strategic turning point and

after some intense negotiations, the

marmite was returned unharmed, I

know we all slept better after that.

The consequence of all this death is

somewhat stinky though. As Jungle

John keeps saying, I love the smell of

death in the morning, smells like

victory

Smells l ike...victory

Nigel with his Mum and Dad on his

birthday

Rats 1, Visitors 5


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I quickly realized they were taking the opportunity to climb onto me - and that cant be a

good thing. No point us both getting bittenif only he were calmer Im sure hed agree.

Young Harry (who I have now nick-

named Eddie the blur Daniels be-

cause he moves so fast (not)) has donea corking job clearing the orchard. You

can actually see the wood for the trees

now. The mosquitoes back there are

still rampant, but hopefully that will tail

off with the end of the rainy season.

Feeling adventurous, I roped Jungle

John into a fruit collection session,

which mostly consisted of me pointing

at the highest branches and saying I

want that one. Several avocadoes,

limes, guavas and custard apples later,

and I spot the robust spiky form of asoursop.

Massive it was, on the highest branch

of course, and my mouth was already

watering thinking about making sour-

sop juice. A choir sang rousingly in the

background and a beam of sunlight

broke through the clouds as if to high-

light the bestest fruit in the whole or-

chard - no, WORLD!

So up he climbs its a pretty climbable

tree, but the fruit is just out of reach. I

pass the spear up to jungle boy so he can

reach. Unfortunately, just seconds earlier,

he discovered the fire ant nest. Or at

least they discovered him. I couldnt

honestly tell you which came first. But

there were a few seconds with a truly

extraordinary range of facial expressions,

some of which Im sure were entirely

new; before he launched himself back

out of the tree towards me (minus thebloody soursop).

Big ants these things too. And hes rapid-

ly rediscovered the power of speech get

em off me! What am I going to do with

an arm full of fruit? Throw a lime at

them? I make an attempt to brush down

his back, and quickly realise they are

taking this opportunity to climb onto

me and that cant be a good thing.No point us both getting bitten if only

he were calmer Im sure hed agree.

After all, my first aider training clearly

states that before going into a rescue

attempt I should always assess the sce-

ne for my own safety. Which I quickly

do and scarper!

Im not sure if it was the stop, drop and

roll maneuver, or the running into the

sea that finally vanquished his foes, but

I was very impressed at his self-rescue

skills, and indeed told him so.When he starts speaking to me again I

shall even tell him where I hid the

Stingese.

The moral of this story is never rely on

your wife when theres fire ants about,

All the bloody nature

Page 3Volume 1, Issue 2

Eurgh..but also quite pretty!Mangrove crab. Also called Harrys dinner

About the size of Johns hand

Everybody say Ahhhhh

Clear for take-o We had these at school, but smaller


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Gizmothe alpha of Harrys pack

And Shithead, named for getting his

head stuck in packs of chocolate biccies

Jungle Johnalways happy with a re

and a machete

Handwashingpain in the backside. Well the back actually.

Seppo teaching Bush Craft

Transport to the island

Bambi the skinny little baby in the pack

O foraging


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Carol & FloThe neighbours

The tents at night Solar power!

Noel, Nigel and Flo


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Well one of the things we came here for

was to make a difference ecologically

speaking. In the words of Monty Python,lets DO SOMETHING Reg. And what an

opportunity we have.

In May, we were amongst several who

attended the Suva meeting with the Min-

ister for Fisheries about an ongoing lob-

bying campaign principally by the Save

The Coral Alliance and Fiji Shark Defend-

ers to make all of Fijian waters a marine

reserve for sharks. It would make it illegal

to kill a shark anywhere in Fijian waters

(as it already is to kill a turtle).

This is a tall order for a developing nationwith giants such as China and Japan

constantly pressuring and paying well for

the right to come and fin sharks here.

But we have put a good case forward

that financially they make more money

from tourists coming to dive with the

sharks, than they can from finning. And

since it would be the worlds 2nd largest

shark reserve, they could do some great

marketing on the back of that.

What happened at the meeting? The

tuna fisheries put forward their argument

that they dont try to catch shark, they

are by catch and it is a waste to just

throw them back, but if they come on

board alive they do throw them back. A

shark sanctuary in Fijian waters would

put them out of business they say. They

claim it is in the in shore local fishermen

causing the real problem. And to a de-

gree they are right on that point at least.

Last year, the official by catch figures de-

clared around 70,000 sharks caught and

landed here.officially.

The figures hide what is happening

though. The staff on the tuna boats tell

us that they arent paid enough to live

on, so they have to take the sharks fins in

order to supplement their earnings. Their

bosses dont encourage it, but they know

its going on. And it means the live

sharks thrown back are usually those

without fins.

Once the shark appears in a market, we

cant tell if it is from shallow or deep wa-

ter so we need the shark sanctuary to be

all Fijian waters for it to be enforceable.

I suggested that by charging tourists who

visit Fijian sanctuary waters, we create

jobs to police the area, and we can look

at compensating the tuna fishing indus-

try for their losses from not being allowed

to keep the shark by-catch. In turn they

can pass that on to their staff who need a

livable wage. (See www.facebookcom/

fijisharkdefenders if you want to know

more or get involved).

Want to help? Email the editor of the Fiji

Times saying you want to come to Fiji

and dive with sharks. and support the

Shark Sanctuary.

Thanks to all who liked and shared the

links on the Breathe Deep Diving Page

about the meeting.

then it all started turning black. Now Im

all for getting a tan, but even I knowblack flesh is not good on a white man. I

should say that we had by this stage

been trying to get to the clinic for about

4 days to get this sorted. Problem was it

coincided with the weather warning.

Harry had to take his engine off the boat

and pull the boat in shore. Then the

spark plugs went. Neighbour Dan was

on the next island over. The one day the

boat was working the clinic was closed.

Eventually neighbour Nigel lent us his

big boat and a captain to get John to the

clinic. This was after he slit it open torelieve the pressure, which was like hav-

ing a front seat for a live action stage

show of some awful Discovery documen-

tary on Things that Go Ouch in the Jun-

gle. Weirdly the Western doctor that he

saw having prescribed the right antibi-

otic, also prescribed using a plant to

wash the wound in Bush medicine.

Which I will tell you all about in the next

Bush Craft section.

John and I have been in serious compe-

tition for the doctors attention recently.

Well it is one of those places things

happen here. In this instance a mosqui-

to bite theres a lot of them. But occa-

sionally in spite of best efforts to keep

them clean and keep flies off them, one

gets infected. I have to be honest I prob-

ably wasnt taking John seriously

enough when he said one was particu-

larly hurting it looked like all the oth-

ers, and well hes a man isnt he. Its likemanflu all over again. A few days later

you could see it was really swollen

though with a big hard lump under the

surface. We located a phone signal,

called a pharmacist who said we had

the wrong kind of antibiotics for it, but it

was better than nothing. John started

on the wrong antibiotics, pain killers,

anti-inflammatories and an antibiotic

cream. This little combo did bugger all!

The lump grew, the red area grew and

Breathe Deep

A spanner in the works

Page 6 Postcards From Paradise

Front seat for a live action stage show of

some awful discovery documentary onthings that go ouch in the jungle.


7/8

Well reassuringly, Fiji is just the same. Up

here in Vanua Levu, they find those from

the island of Kandavu as hard to under-

stand as we find Rab C Nesbitsubtitles

please?

Even within our island it is true, a relative-

ly massive 5,500km2 (That's about 3

times the size of Yorkshire) and a popula-

tion of a dizzying 130,000 people (thats

less than the Borough of Harrogate) And

even hereif Im on the East coast I say

Vinaka for thank you, for the west coast

Vinaawith the k missed out like a York-

shire Tah home from home. Get it

wrong...and theyll look at you as if youre

from Lancashire!

Local dialects. Go an hour down the road

in the UK and you are in a completely

different territory accent wise, I should

knowwhen Jungle John is in Teesside,

and the accent starts to come backI

need someone doing sign language next

to him to have the first clue what he is

saying.

But its not just not just accents, its

words, meanings, food, culture it all

changes. Yorkshire Pudding, Lancashire

hot pot, a passport is required to cross

the Pennines and the North South di-

videdont get me started.

A little language lesson

sides of the vein. 4 stabs in different

spots it took. Not a fun day, but the night-

time routine was a cracker.

From 10pm to 6am the routine included

waking me for tablets twice, waking me

to swap IV saline to antibiotics and back

4 times, 2 sets of blood pressure and tem-

perature checks, and usually at least one

time where the IV would have gone

through the vein and been dripping into

the tissue instead of the vein making my

arm / hand swell up to hulk proportions.

Then finally 6am wake up with a chirpy

did you sleep well? Ummmmm not

especially.

Having said all that its a week later, and

Im alive and considerably poorer. So

they did a great job, thanks to all at Suva

Private Hospital.

We needed to go to Suva. The capital.

The plan was to fly in, spend a working

week there getting round all the lawyers,

accountants, banks, and government

departments we needed to.

And what actually happened? ..Monday

morning yours truly is covered in a really

painful rash and joints swollen up so

much I can hardly move and I look like a

circus freak. So I went to the doctors, and

was admitted to hospital with suspected

meningitis and septicemia. Many tests

followed. A quick blood test not a big

deal you might think...and youd be com-

pletely wrong!

The needles here are designed for Fijian

veins. I do not have Fijian veins. Even

the needles they use on babies here are

too big, and go straight through both

Not to be outdone A spanner in the works

The western doctor told John to find a

little plant and wash his mangled leg

with it 3 times a day. He said its betterthan any antiseptic known to man. Hed

done tests and everything. So we went

on a search and as soon as we mention it

to Harry, he smiles knowingly and says

yes, very strong Fijian medicine, lots of it

around here. Not sure why he didnt

volunteer that information days ago

when it would have been helpful, but

better late than never. So we boiled this

stuff up roots, leaves, flowers and all, letit cool and used the liquid to wash the

wound. You can also drink it if you are

feeling a bit crook, but of course being

wild, you cant predict the dosage you

are getting so it could all go a bit Alice in

Wonderland if you arent careful.

Woo hoomines a double!

Bush craft 2

Page 7Volume 1, Issue 2

Flowers from the gang at

Nanettes

Bush Medicine

You aint from round ere


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Hes definitely gone native. You can tell

by the way hes stopped saying OK and

started saying set like the locals. That

and the weird little calls and whistle Har-

ry and he have agreed between them so

they know at a distance who wants what

and where.

Its like boy scouts gone mad. Ive never

read Lord of the Flies, but as soon as I get

my Kindle near a wifi signal, its going on

there. I may need to be prepared.

And this month Jungle Johns summary

isBefore slicing into your own leg to

relieve the pressure, make sure the boat

is working and there isnt a cyclone in

between you and the nearest Doctor. Oh

and always get Harry to climb the tree

with the soursops.

A word from Jungle John The Good Life

Breath Deep Diving at Rainbow Beach Estates, is two British

nutters who decided to up sticks and move to Fiji to go div-

ing. Instead of buying a house or something easy, they

bought an old, overgrown coconut plantation, a rotten

damp rat infested excuse for a house and took a tent with

them. Off the beaten track? Theres no track to beat! No

power, no roads, no water, no mobile signal, no inter-net...just coconuts. Postcards from Paradise is the story of

their battle to turn this into their dream of a small eco friend-

ly and innovative dive school.

Paradise found, paradise built.

Rainbow Beach Estates Ltd

PO Box 687

Savusavu Post Office,

Vanua Levu, Fiji

Phone: +679 8853186

E-mail: [email protected]

Diving, skiving, just about surviving

The Weather Report

Cyclone Warning. Idiots in tents, please seek shelter. On the bright side Mozzies gone.

Seriously, you pitched your tent UNDER a coconut tree? Maybe you should move that then, its going to be a bitbreezy. Oh and damp (cue laughter from locals watching the Kaivalangis move tents in vicious wind and rain)

Gravity defying coconuts fly sideways. Its still raining. Constantly. And heavily. Say goodbye to that tarpaulin too.

Well drop it at the back of the orchard for you, wrapped in a breadfruit tree.

Bit like England this really grey, windy, wet but warmer and with flying coconuts.

You left your washing out? What you think this is a rinse cycle? Pick it all up out of the mud and start again. May

be nail it to the washing line this time.

And relax the worst is over, the sun is out, the sea is calm, and all is well youre back in Cansas now... Or Fiji.

Only joking Earthquake! And next week were planning a flood- yay!

Today I have been mostly planting

ooh all sorts actually. Watermelons,

capsicums, chilies, lettuce, cucumber,

aubergienes, tomatoes & spring on-

ions. And Ive integrated recycling

into the project by using old tin cans

and water bottles with holes poked in

the bottom as my pots. Yay me.

Im feeling rather smug about it to be

honest. Not least because I cant grow

so much as a weed in the UK, green

fingered is not how I would describemyself. But here with the volcanic

soil, the sun and the rain in plentiful

supply just 3 days later, and my wa-

termelons have sprouted. 4 days and

the tomatoes and lettuces followed,

and everything else from there.

Harry is going to build me a raised

bed to plant everything into and

my arse will eventually look like

Felicity Kendalls. All is well.

Watermelonday three

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April May 2012 Postcards From Paradise