Dravuni Island

Fiji is comprised of 322 islands, 106 of which are inhabited. Dravuni Island has a population of 150-200 people and is located near the Great Astrolobe Reef which is the fourth largest reef in the world.  The island is quite small.  One can walk across it in a matter of ten minutes.  It can easily be circumnavigated on foot in a few hours.  
We are visiting the island during the rainy season but the day we were there was sunny throughout. The ship arrived late due to rough seas and then we were further delayed because the pontoon dock to which we were to tender was damaged by heavy swells last night and needed to be repaired before the captain would allow passengers to go ashore.  As we waited for the repairs to proceed and clearance to go ashore, we learned that Cyclone Jasmine is directly between our current position and our next port of call, which is Tonga.  Consequently, our stop in Tonga has been cancelled and we will now have three sea days before arriving at our substitute port of call, the Bay of Islands in New Zealand.  We had been struggling to decide what to do on Tonga, since there is not much to see or do, apparently ( we won't mention, except parenthetically, that Tonga is one of the places in the world where cannibalism was widely practiced!), so the change is welcome.  However, it does mean that, with three more sea days in store, the Cel and I will have to do some additional research for our taxonomy, unless we receive sufficient comments to cease our critical appraisal of our fellow passengers (so here's your chance to shut us up!)  
We did finally get to Dravuni Island at about 11 AM.  It is gorgeous.    We started by hiking through the jungle to the highest point on the island, which is 137 feet above sea level.  It was a very hot 137 feet but a great hike, despite the mud, ankle grabbing vines across the path, an occasional coconut blown down from the top of the trees, and one almost total knockdown of the Cel when I nearly did a header into the mud.  Great views were available at the top.  When we got back to the beach, we found that, due to the choppy waves and offshore wind, no doubt a spinoff of the nearby cyclone, the surf contained lots of debris which made swimming less enticing.  A few people also got stung by some jellyfish.  Nevertheless, we did venture into the water and enjoyed the bathwater temperature of the South Pacific ocean.  
The islanders all have booths offering total body massages.  Given our obvious love of humanity, we declined.  We did, however, watch their presentation of traditional music and several of the warrior dances, which were very entertaining.  As we have found at other islands the natives are extremely friendly.   Hard to imagine that our presence quadrupled the population of the island. Calmer seas would have made snorkeling more fun but all in all it was a great place to visit.  The worst point today was seeing the mile long crack on a rather rotund individual as we exited the tender.  The stuff of nightmares.    Well it is island beer time and since tomorrow is a sea day it will be time for another taxonomy session; maybe we'll introduce crackers!

No tip for today so here is a sea term definition as provided by our navigator.

Sea terms :
Son of a gun:  this term was used in the 17th and 18th century, and was given to babies born on board  naval ships whilst they were at sea.  This was because between the canons on the gun deck was one of the few places on board where some privacy may be afforded to a woman giving birth.