Its a 45minute hike through the forest to the village on Ogea. The path is well made and easy to follow. As you get closer to the village, there is more cultivation of crops such as papaya, salads, bananas.

The village itself is nicely kept, but we found it almost deserted on arrival. After a while, we found someone to take us to the chief and do the introductions. The chief had been busy carving, but soon we’d done our sevusevu and were told we were free to enjoy the village. The chief’s son, Titus, did the translation and translated everything loudly for his father who is a bit deaf. He asked us what we’d done for jobs, in case they were useful for the village. I may be useful to the school apparently.

This is one village which may have a global warming issue. Most of the houses are on stilts because the whole village floods at high tide. There are raised paths through the village to stay dry. We were ashore at low tide, but we’ll go tomorrow to see the village at high tide.

As we were leaving, the headmaster called us over and had the kids bring seats out for us all. We sat and had a quick chat with him - clearly a football fan as he told us who plays for Belgium! Apparently Fiji had been playing rugby 7s in the commonwealth games finals which may have explained the quiet village. Apparently they got a silver.

This morning we headed to to the small NW pass to have a snorkel. There have been reports of a single shark attack there, but of a spear fisherman who tried to stop a shark getting a fish by spearing the shark. It didn’t end well, with the guy getting bitten (though he survived). When I got in, I saw as couple of small white-tip, but nothing larger.

The snorkel was very nice indeed. Drifting through the pass a couple of times, lots of fish, some nice coral and maybe 6 white tips in various places. Even out towards the drop off, there were no signs of anything bigger - maybe on an incoming tide things change.

Our anchorage is very comfortable with a very small swell that gets in at high tide. We could move a bit further down, and may do when other boats move. For now, we’re happy here.