These two ladies from Albert Bay came out to the Quest just as we were organizing ourselves to come ashore. They have a neat and tidy outrigger canoe and ashore are some structures that are used when people come up here to work. They don't actually live at Albert Bay.

Lydia and I swam ashore and joined Scott and Nancy in a little Kava and coconut juice.

Here we have kava in the "traditional" plastic bowl and cup. (right) Since these folks originate from Kiribati, they're not too concerned with Fijian formalities. This made everything more fun for us.

Lydia was giving it her all! The tradition is that you drink the cup all the way down and that you don't pause! A little bit like shooters.

I was pretty happy to be offered coconut juice - a bit messy, but good!

Procuring these coconuts does require a trip up the coconut tree for just the right ripeness of coconut.

It's interesting that here in Fiji people make steps in the trunk of the coconut tree in order to climb it. Even so, it's a precarious climb. Probably a bit easier if you've been doing this since you were quite young.

Their nephew was kind enough to climb the tree and prepare coconuts for us to take with us.

You can see that the one I have has had its green husk taken off. A nice sharp machete is required for just about everything in these parts. We see very young kids wielding machetes in a way that would bring CPS (Child Protective Services) running in the States.