14th of July, 2025.
Soon enough I spot Potty, she’s the wife of the captain with whom I will be sailing to Vanuatu. They both have boats, but Potty’s boat is a small one, so she can handle it alone, while Michael’s boat is bigger, and he would like someone to help. In our first meeting, they were OK with the fact that I don’t have any sailing experience. Michael says all I needed to do is to pull this or that line when he tells me to. And I would also cook. They ask me about seasickness and I tell them I don’t know yet, as I haven’t really been in open sea waters. But I add that I’m a strong person, with a strong and healthy stomach, which some people tend to oversee it, saying that it has no importance regarding sea sickness. Oh, really? So who do you think is more likely to feel really nauseous and unable to recover quickly: a) someone who is very delicate, with a weak health, and is not used to eat everything, street food, with a strong stomach; or b) someone who is exactly the opposite of the previous?
One of the first things that Potty tells me is that they share the costs of the food equally. They would pay the other costs like fuel and marina fees. OK, now here is what I think of this. Fuel and marina fees should obviously be paid by the owner of the boat. They are going to that specific destination anyway, either with crew or not. Then if you require crew to help you with your sailing, this person will help you with the boat things, regular watches and night watches, cooking and cleaning, so why would someone pay for their own food when they are helping you in exchange? It’s not a guest situation, where you sit, eat and sleep only, you will be working hard, for many hours, constantly changing this and that sail. It’s basically the same principle of a volunteer work, with the difference that you are moving while doing it. And another way of seeing this is regarding professional crew. When an owner wants someone to sail his / her boar while sailing, he / she will pay someone to do all these things, while they relax and do nothing. Now, if you cannot do all of that alone, but is willing to do the hard work, plus all the cooking and cleaning, why should you pay for anything, including your own food?
Anyway, I don’t tell her either no or yes, because I need to think about this. She has something to do, so I will stay around here, use the Wi-Fi to do some stuff, and make a decision middle time.
Middle time I meet Lily. I had seen her sitting and working digitally in one of the tables, and I thought she was a queen sailor. That’s because she looks gorgeous and elegant. When she spots my backpack, she is surprised and makes a comment about it, so we start chatting. I tell her everything about my travels, then another young guy overhears us and he’s also boat-hiking so he has seen my adds around and we also start taking.
The guy is called Leo, and when we sit to talk he tells me he has just started his travel around the world. When I tell him about my story, he’s excited and ask me how do I do to save money. I tell him everything. When it comes to sailing, he’s willing to share the food costs, no matter how high they are. And he tells me to be paying a lot in food. Well, at least is sounds like a lot for me. You see, the other problem about sharing the food costs is that people are different, so perhaps you eat simple food but someone else in the crew, and the boat owners, want something more luxurious. He already paid about 350 NZD to sail from New Zealand to Fiji, on a trip of about 10 days. And he’ll be sharing the food costs from Fiji to Vanuatu again. Ironically, next day, I meet a wonderful lady from NZ who covered all the costs of her crew coming here from there, and she agreed with me in everything I wrote above.
Lily is a sweet heart and she even helps me to connect to the Wi-Fi at Vuda Marina Office, so I don’t need to keep asking for passwords at the cafe, where probably the only rude Fijian lady works, and she doesn’t like me at all. Lily is an artist, who works as a creative director, and runs a creative studio that specializes in brand, design and illustration. Vuda Marina is one of her clients, so she designs the menus for both restaurant and cafe, plus the website, so she comes her for working and meetings. Here’s her page so you can take a look at it: studiolilykate.com
When I sit to talk with Potty and Michael again, they tell me that my share part of the food would be something like 300 Vatus, which is more or less 150 USD. And that’s for a trip of 5 days. It can be done in less, but that means Michael will be travelling slowly. Later I would know that, for many reasons, travelling slowly can be not so good. OK, that’s a lot of money for a five days trip. At least for me it is. But now I’m worried that if I back up, they will not have anyone else to help Michael. But luckily, they make it very clear that it’s all good, they have done that many times before, and it’s a short and easy passage, so they can do it again. Plus, as they have postponed the trip to next Monday (today is Wednesday), they still have a few days to find a crew if they really need one. So that makes me feel more comfortable to break up the deal and find another boat.
But I’m still sad, of course. And now I not only need to find a boat but also a place to stay. Luckily, Lily helps me with that too. After my meeting she asked me what’s going on and I told her everything, to what she answered that, if I need, I could come and stay with her and her partner, because they live just a few minutes walking from the Marina. So just before she leaves to go back home, I ask her if it’s OK for me to come, now that I have thought more about it and realize that it would actually be great for me. And I even tell her that I can camp in the garden, it’s all good for me. She’s lovely and says that they have a spare bedroom so there’s no need for me to camp. Plus, the neighbours would be wondering what’s going on. Laugh. That’s amazing! I will stay a bit longer working in some other stuff, and trying to talk with more boat owners, and come by her house later.
When I’m walking to her house, a driver from a resort nearby, called First Landing, offer me a lift. Yay! As we arrive to Lily’s house, she’s playing basketball with her husband Aisea. That’s so cute! They are both surprised to see me arriving in a car but soon enough I explain everything. People in Fiji are so friendly and generous!
Lily is originally from New Zealand, from the North part of the Te-a-Maui, and she’s half Maori, which is awesome, but she also has Fijian roots, and that’s why she moved here. Then a few years ago she met Aisea, who is Fijian and from an island called Koro, one of the few islands which, due to its isolation, still preserves Fijian culture to its root. And Aisea himself does a lot in order to preserve that culture too. He started a Facebook page focusing on talking more about Fiji culture, and due to his perseverance and strong will to help to change his country, after some time he became very popular about his thoughts and his work, his page grew immensely, to a scale that he was even invited for a meeting with the president. Nowadays, almost everybody knows who he is but he’s still a very humble person.
I also talk a lot with Aisea, mostly about Fijian culture and his experience with Workaway in his remote village. But we also talk about many different interesting topics. We also watch movies at night, which is super cool. One night, we even make lolobun, which is a type of coconut bun, very traditional in Fiji. I love it!
We go out to grab some food for dinner. It’s a long drive to Nadi, so we keep on talking about my travels but also about Fiji, cultures and life. We pass by a few huge live billboards with ads made by Lily, which is super cool, and they are all in very strategic areas.
Lily has some Indian food but Aisea wants to have some local Fijian cuisine. And where do we go? To the seafood shop where Lani, Kristine’s sister works. That’s so freaking cool! I didn’t say anything to Aisea, but as we walk inside, I just go behind the counter and call Lani out. He doesn’t’ understand at first (he would tell me that later), but when Lani comes by and we hug and start talking, it’s really funny. But coincidences don’t stop there. The owner of the shop, an Australian lady, starts chatting with Aisea (I told you he’s well known), and then eventually with me too. She’s really nice and is telling us about her husband’s healthy and naughtiness issues. Then, all of sudden, when I look outside, I see Ako and Kristine! Laugh. I cannot believe it! I run outside to hug her, and I immediately start telling them about what’s going on. Then we all get out of the shop, Lily comes out of the car, and all introductions are made. The owner of the shop is actually Kristine’s aunt, married to one of her mother’s brother, who now lives in Australia. And Kristine had told me about her before, I just hadn’t made the connection. We keep chatting for a while, all still a bit under shock because of all these coincidences.
The food from Lani’s shop is delicious and very special. I hadn’t realized that it’s actually a quite fancy shop for food. We have Kokoda Yum, cassava e veggies.
I go to the marina next morning, but not before going for a short walk by the beach. Lily and Aisea’s house is a hundred metres from the beach, and we can hear the waves clearly at night. It’s a very nice neighbourhood here, and the beach is beautiful with white sands, colorful water and palm trees all over.
For the next couple of days, I keep coming to Vuda Marina to talk with captains and people around, but also to message captains online. I meet a lot of people, most of them very nice, and I talk with a lot of others. It’s a bit overwhelming but enjoyable.
In one of the afternoons that I am at Vuda Marina, I meet Thomas, a very nice captain with whom I’ve been talking online for over a month now, and he has tried to help me to find boats too. He was born in Germany, raised in Brazil, then Spain, and has lived for many years in Australia. He speaks Portuguese fluently, and during the one minute we meet and talk, I can tell already that he’s a nice guy.
Next day, a Saturday, around lunch time, I was just about to go and talk with a skipper I’ve met yesterday, Sergio, this really nice, calm, quiet and polite guy, who needs crew for Indonesia, when Thomas messages me saying that his crew has agreed to taking me onboard, so I should just join them on their way to Lautoka, where they will make their last grocery shopping before leaving for Vanuatu tomorrow morning, at 6 a.m. I’m like whaaaat? I run to the bus stop, and luckily, I still have the 10 FJD which my sister Kristine exchanged with me for some NZD I had. Again, she saves me! Otherwise, I wouldn’t have the 4 FJD which takes to go by bus to Lautoka, return.
The crew are Irene (Thomas partner), her cousin Sergio and his girlfriend Clara. They are all so sweet! And Irene is such a lovely girl, kind and pleasant all the time, always with a smile in her face. We talk a lot during the shopping, which takes us quite a few hours. We don’t talk about the passage at all though, so by the time we come back, I’m still not entire sure if I passed the test or not. Laugh.
It’s pouring rain by the time we come back, so we all get soaked wet, which wouldn’t be a problem per se if I didn’t have my laptop, mobile phone, and books on my backpack. But it’s all good and once we arrive back to Ananda, their boat, Irene makes the joke that I have indeed pass the test so I’m now part of the crew. Yay! And just like that I got, this time for sure, my first lift in a boat. Now I’m officially boat-hiking the world too. I’m so happy!
On my way back to Lily and Aisea’s home, something else happens. I pass in front the boat of Sergio, which location I’ve had completely forgotten already, and if it wasn’t for this, I would not make it to his boat, because it’s getting dark, I’m all wet, and it will probably rain again soon. The boat belongs to a Colombian man, and one of the crew members from Tony has told me about him.
I call out for Sergio. I first apologize for my delay, and explain to him the reasons. He’s also Colombian, and we talk about many different things. He offers me a Colombian coffee, which was already an amazing thing, but then to go with it, he offers me bocadillo, which in Brazil we call goiabada, and it is a kind of red guava sticky paste. I love it and haven’t eaten it in almost 9 years, or the whole duration of my travels. To make it even better, we have it with a slice of cheese, a thing that in Brazil we call it Romeo & Juliet. We talk about the travel plans and some arrangements, and Sergio must now talk with the owner of the boat for some last confirmation. I’m so excited! It sounds like it would be absolutely awesome to sail with Sergio and in this really nice boat.
Back at Lily’s house I tell them about the wonderful news. Unfortunately, Lily has got really sick, so we haven’t spent much time together lately, and I feel really sorry for her. But they are both really happy for me. That night, I watch a documentary about sharks (what makes much sense).
I must say my goodbyes tonight because as I must be at Vuda Marina tomorrow by 6 a.m., Lily and Aisea will still be sleeping. I tell them how much I appreciate their help and how incredibly lucky I was to have met them. I really don’t know how things would’ve turned out if it wasn’t for them. I’m really blessed for all these amazing people who the universe put it on my way.
10 Years Around the World 