The Island, Vanua Levu

This past week, we took a 12 hour Ferry ride right through the night from our home in Suva up to the second largest island in Fiji, called Vanua Levu.  We will be gone just over two weeks as we reach out to other islands providing eye care as well as having fun exploring and seeing new sights.

This 50 year old boat used to be part
B.C. Ferries in Canada until 2011.
It can hold up to almost 1000 people,
and many trucks and cars.

This is where we drove onto the Ferry.

This is where they had us park our vehicle
for the journey. The boat was later filled with
trucks and cars all around our SUV.

As you can tell from my face, our 6'X6'
cabin was not in the best of shape.  It felt like
we were in a prison cell.

This was the disgusting bathroom, worse than it looks!

The ceiling was "nicely" decorated!

Most passengers didn't have a cabin to
sleep in, but just slept on the floor.  Whole
families would lay out a mat and play and
sleep there through the night.  It was a real
sight to behold.  It was also a very hot
journey, as the air conditioner broke down!

To get some fresh air before we ate and
slept in our cabin for the night, we watched
the sailors preparing for departure.

A beautiful sunset saw us off, as we
sailed away from the port in Suva.

As we sailed away, we were both nervous
and excited for the adventures ahead of us.

This is our Ferry boat after we arrived at 5:30am
at our destination, the seaside town of Savusavu.  

There are pockets of natural hot springs
releasing steam all around Savusavu, 

Here, Rick almost burned his hand on the hot
water coming up from the ground.

This was the amazing view from our hotel
room at the Savusavu Hot Springs Hotel.

This is our hotel nestled along the bay.

We found this unusual flower as we
drove around to discover the island.

More amazing flowers...

Hibiscus were also plentiful.

Beautiful bouquets of flowers are made
from the many local flowers on the island.

On the day we arrived, we drove up the
Hibiscus Hwy to Buca Bay through a
beautiful Fijian rain forest.  It was amazing.

We stopped at a remote beach along the way.

We found several unique seashells
to add to our Fiji shell collection.

I have realized just how much I love shells, and the
thrill of finding that perfect shell is addictive!

We came upon these three galloping horses
during our drive on the Hibiscus Hwy.  We had
to slow down to let them get off the road.

We had a good laugh at this "Pac Man"
island we found along the seaside.

Time to cool down at the wharf
on this very hot day in Savusavu.

It was such a picturesque harbor.

Rick actually had a bit of a struggle as he climbed
onto this tree branch, the locals gave him a
thumbs up when he carefully got off.

These Fijians were sitting out in the hot
sun selling their piles of clams.

We went to church the next day, and were
met by these loving & friendly children.
Some of them sat on our laps during the mtg.

We were also greeted, and invited to dinner
with the Roths (from Switzerland) who are
 on a humanitarian mission.  We grew to love
them so so much.  They were a great example
to us and so fun to be with.

This was the very small LDS church we
attended on Sunday, and did eye exams on
Monday.  When we arrived for church, the
leader there invited us to speak in the meeting;
so Rick & I stood at the front and took turns
telling about our story of how we came to
do this mission and some of the things we
have had to overcome.

Standing beside his grand daughter, is the
oldest patient we have examined in Fiji.
He is 101 years old.  Since the life expectancy
in Fiji is much lower than north america,
it is quite remarkable that he is this old.
We had a busy day, seeing 98 patients.

On the next day, we drove out to the village, Vunivesi, to do eye care in 

this nice little meeting hall.  We took some photos of the people 

waiting their turn in the hot weather to have their eye exam.

What a happy grandpa.

One lady was too crippled to get out of
this car to come in for an eye exam, so Rick
came out and did the eye exam right there.

This was a first, and probably the last time
he will ever do an "in-car" eye exam! Her eyes
were healthy, but she needed reading
glasses, which she was happy to receive.

I was kept busy keeping up, as we did
108 eye exams in this hot building in 6 hours.
Luckily we had two fans blowing to help
make it a little more comfortable to work.

After a busy and hot day, we sure enjoyed
cooling down in the hotel pool before supper.

On the next day, we took a tour of the one and only pearl farm & factory in Fiji.  We then snorkeled in the Savusavu Bay and saw huge 6 foot diameter clams, something we had never seen before in real life.  They are remarkable.  Later that day drove up to the north part of the island to the city of Labasa (pronounced "Lambasa"), where we were to do our next day's eye care.

On the way, we thought we may have taken
a wrong turn when we came up this village!

There were some beautiful views of the
ocean as we drove to Labasa.

This funny, and somewhat scary sight of this guy balancing a 
boat on top of his vehicle was kind of interesting.  We carefully
passed him, as didn't want to be behind him for too long!

Because of the extreme heat here in Fiji,
many kids and adults use umbrellas to
provide shade as they walk the street,
especially here in Labasa where it is
considered the hottest city in all of Fiji!

Once we arrived in Labasa, we checked
into this "interesting" hotel....

The hotel had a good looking pool where
we could swim after a busy day of eye
examinations.  The only problem was that
because of the extreme sun and heat, the
water felt like a warm bath - not quite as
refreshing as we had hoped, but still okay.

On our first day in Labasa, we did eye
exams in the local LDS church.  Here's
some photos of many of the interesting
people who were waiting in line outside
in the extreme heat waiting to see us!

Some of the people watched a video while
waiting for us, but since the room wasn't
air conditioned, it was still very hot.

We felt lucky to work in the only air conditioned
room in the church.  It felt like an oven
when ever we stepped outside our room.

We ended up doing exactly 100 eye
exams on this particular day.

At lunch time, this generous senior missionary
couple (the Woodwards from Idaho) treated
a number of us to a great Chinese food lunch.  
They were so sweet and treated us like royalty; 
we didn't feel like we deserved it!

The next day, we drove about 30 minutes
outside Labasa to do eye exams at this
somewhat remote town.  

This is an outside look at the health centre
as we drove up to it.

Today, we weren't quite so lucky to have
air conditioning.  It makes it so much more difficult!

This man told us that his face & head are
shaped like this because of drinking and driving

This particular day, the lunch was provided
by the Lions Club of Labasa. They (as well
as some workers from the health centre)
also helped us with organizing the crowd
of people and helped check them in for us.

This 5 year old cross-eyed girl was
brought in by her mother, concerned
about the left eye crossing in.

It was found that she needed glasses in the
worst way, as her left eye was +7.00.
We have to special order her glasses from the
office in Calgary, but gave her some glasses
that were her partial prescription to wear in the
meantime.  We hope that when she gets her
proper glasses, that her left eye will straighten out.

This little girl really broke my heart.
I had to put drops in her eyes, she
was so brave.  We just loved her so much!

Well, this raps up our week on the island of Vanua Levu, exploring different places, staying in different hotels, eating great food, and most of all meeting

some wonderful people.  They will always have a place in our hearts!