We got off to a rough start when Corey and Dale arrived (lost surfboards, strep throat, torrential rain, warm beer), but once we got to Kadavu, we seemed to leave that world behind and enter another. This place is so unlike anywhere else we've been, so pristine and so undeveloped, it's hard to believe it's just one night's sail from Port Denerau, home of Fiji's largest inflatable water park and the Hard Rock Café. I can't think of anywhere else where hiking to waterfalls, swimming with eagle rays, or anchoring in the shadow of a volcano are not extraordinary occurrences. And we experienced these things alone. We didn't see another sailboat for 10 days. We dove world class passes, visited local villages, and the boys had waves to themselves. In a world where everyone's chasing authenticity and striving to go remote before every last inch of the globe has been discovered (myself included), finding an anchorage that's not on the chart or a corner of the lagoon that's been passed over by the guidebooks feels revelatory. Imagine a whole islandful of these revelations. I realize that many other people have done the things we did, but doing them alone, with no one but the birds and fish as witnesses, made the four of us (sorry for crashing the boy's trip, boys) feel, at least temporarily, like voyagers at the edge of the world. I'd be willing to bet anyone else who's visited Kadavu would say the same thing.
