On the east side of Fiji lies a group of barely known islands called the Lau Group. With no Fijian port of entry this far east, and with cruising here essentially prohibited by a bureaucratic permitting process, the Lau Islands today remain virtually untouched by western people and corporations. The islands are habited by traditional Fijian families who live in small villages in many of the Laus. Each village behaves as a single community where its members share everything freely among each other in a system of tribal-like socialism. How or why their cooperative system has worked so well for so many generations is difficult to understand for those of us from the western world, but for whatever reason they do just fine without any of the things we consider necessities in modern economies (stores, money, consumer products, even the concept of private property). There is no tourism whatsoever in the Laus, but with the relaxation of the permitting procedure for sailing yachts earlier this year, it is now finally possible for sailors to visit the Lau Islands and get a taste for the ancient Pacific Islander lifestyle in its pure form that is nearing extinction.

The problem with the Lau Group, from the visiting sailor’s perspective, is that it sits upwind from Fiji’s most easterly port of entry in Savusavu. Getting to the Laus requires about a 80 mile sail straight into the prevailing winds, which is enough to keep most sailors away. And with no real break in the weather, it almost kept us away too. But our curiosity trumped the weather, and after a wicked 14 hour day of smashing into 25 knots of wind, we were in the Laus.

The Fijians living in the Laus are some of the friendliest people anywhere, so it’s possible to be invited into their villages and be treated as a sort of guest of honor, provided you observe the traditions and respect their cultural rituals. This means that upon entry to a village in proper attire (meaning sulu skirts, even for men, covered shoulders, and no hats) you should go straight to the village chief (“Turaga”) for a ceremony known as “sevusevu”. Here you present to the village chief, by dropping near his feet, a traditional kava root gift offering, which is used to create the Fijian “grog” drink (an alternative to alcohol in this liquor store deficient part of the world). When the chief picks up your offering from the ground, this indicates you’ve been accepted as a guest of the village, he blesses your visit in Fijian, and you are then free to explore the village with the help of the village’s headman (an ambassador for the village who is called the “Turaga ni Koro”). All this may sound like a touristic gimmick, but that is by no means the case – the concept of tourism doesn’t yet exist in the Laus, so the ceremonial practices must be taken seriously and respected.

We were just the fifth sailing boat to visit the Susui village this year, and our experience during our two days here has been unforgettable. We were invited to tour the village with the Turaga ni Koro, visit their small school (17 students), and attend church. Purely by luck, the village was having a big feast that night, and we were invited to join that too, which of course led to a more rambunctious grog drinking ceremony afterwards (which is really just the village men assembling in a room, mixing the sedating kava root with water, then gulping as much as they can). The invitation to “grog” was a sincere honor for us, as the Turaga ni Koro told us no westerners have ever attended one of their grog ceremonies. This is where Piers brought out his guitar and showed the Susuis a bit of western culture, Bob Marley style, which was a treat for the villagers and caused a crowd of village women and children to gather outside where they could listen and peek through the windows.

The truth is that we have mixed feelings about the opening of the Laus to sailors, and presumably to further western influence over time. On the one hand we loved the opportunity to meet native people and experience an entirely different way of life and a new type of tradition. On the other hand, we expect the gradual opening of the Laus is a first step towards more western influence and the corporate invasion that always follows. This would also mean the erosion of the traditional way of life here and a shift towards a money based economy probably based on the expanding tourism industry in Fiji. In an ominous sign of things to come, Mel Gibson recently purchased one of Lau Islands just 15 miles from Susui… it would be heartbreaking to return to Susui some years from now to find a holiday resort where the village once had been.

We’ve been roaming around the world pretty much nonstop for the past 18 months. In the process we’ve been shedding some concepts that are useful in a stationary life, and adopted ones that are more useful for nomads. The way we think about location and time is one example of this. We used to think of our location in terms of fixed landmarks, like street addresses, and time in terms of whatever the nearest clock says. Both of those concepts lose relevance on a circumnavigating boat and have now faded into the background for us. Landmarks and addresses are rarely available on the sea, and our routine practice of crossing time zones ensures the clocks around us are always wrong. The fixes we’ve adopted are simple, work universally, and are never subject to confusion. We think the world would be an easier place to live in if everybody adopted the sailing conventions we now use.

Instead of defining a place by its address, we use its latitude and longitude coordinates. Every position on Earth can be easily described by these two numbers, which identify how far north or south of the equator you are (the equator represents the 0 degree line for the north/south latitude coordinate) and how far east or west you are of Greenwich, England (Greenwich is by convention the 0 degree “prime meridian” line for the east/west longitude coordinate). With these two simple numbers, we can describe any location in the world with pinpoint accuracy (our current position is 16.46s, 179.58w). And without any effort at all (thanks to modern GPS devices) we can determine exactly how far any place is from our current position and in what direction – even maps are optional once you become accustomed to using the coordinate grid. Why the concept of coordinates hasn’t found its way into the lives of land lovers remains a mystery to us.

The importance of Greenwich, England, also has importance for how we think of time. Instead of using the local time, which to be accurate, also requires a correct understanding of which time zone you’re in, whether they’re currently on daylight savings, etc. we simply always think of time in terms of the time in Greenwich. The time in Greenwich doesn’t change for daylight savings, so Greenwich Mean Time (aka GMT, aka UTC) is always a fixed time coordinate we can rely on wherever we are. The confusing idea of time zones, and the hassles that go along with traveling, communicating, and doing business across arbitrary time zone borders, we think should become relics of our foolish past.

The reason we’re thinking about this now is no more of a coincidence than it would be for a first time visitor to Greenwich. That’s because we’re in Fiji, which sits on the 180 degree east/west line directly on the other side of the planet from the Prime Meridian – we can’t get further away than this. Interesting things happen here on the 180 degree meridian line…. interesting at least for geeks like us. We’ve gone so far west on this voyage that at this moment we’re crossing from the west into the east (our longitude coordinate changes from 179.99W to 179.99E when we cross the meridian, and we now start counting down towards 0 as we get closer to Greenwich). Even more interesting is what happens to time because the 180 degree line in Fiji is also the international date line. With a single eastward step here on Taveuni island we can leap 24 hours back into yesterday. Stepping back across the line literally brings you back to the future… fancy Delorion car not needed. For a New Years party, pardon, parties, this would be the place to be.

But the real excitement is on board because a few days ago our parents joined us. It was Mom’s birthday on October 8, so we had hoped to give her two birthday celebrations, but bad weather prevented us from getting to the date line in time. With the nasty cold front now having moved through overnight, we’re waking up to bright blue skies, warm weather, and calm blue water that looks perfect for a swim and a waterfalls hike. And that means the time for blogging is officially over.