{"id":203,"date":"2008-02-15T21:45:51","date_gmt":"2008-02-16T02:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/?p=203"},"modified":"2018-07-14T22:24:12","modified_gmt":"2018-07-15T03:24:12","slug":"the-village-on-makogai-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/2008\/02\/15\/the-village-on-makogai-island\/","title":{"rendered":"The Village on Makogai Island&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-204\" title=\"080214_img_005559\" src=\"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/080214_img_005559.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<small>The village on Makogai Island, Fiji&#8230;<\/small><\/p>\n<p>After getting cleaned up from our last dive, we relaxed with a glass of wine as we waited for Marnie to brief us on what we could expect during the Village visit this evening. I had already removed my camera from my underwater housing, changed lenses and prepped it for the land excursion, so I was pretty much all set when Marnie called us all to the skiff for the ride over.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-205\" title=\"080214_img_005616\" src=\"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/080214_img_005616.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<small>Being welcomed by the villager&#8217;s &amp;\u00a0children on the beach at Makogai&#8230;<\/small><\/p>\n<p>With our Sulus in place, we headed for the village where we would attend a welcoming Kava ceremony with the local Chief, villagers and school children. After being greeted on the beach by the Chief and village children, we were taken on a small tour of the village and then given a history lesson on the island, the village and the people that live there. It turned out to be a great photo opportunity for both myself and the overly photogenic village children.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-206\" title=\"080214_img_005637\" src=\"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/080214_img_005637.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Before the ceremony started, the villagers prepared our food in the traditional Fijian way to be cooked in the \u2018Lovo\u2019 or fire pit. Our food would then be carried back on board our boat for dinner later on that night. Everyone partook in the Kava for the first round and some of us even asked for seconds and then thirds! It could have had something to do with it being so hot and humid inside during the ceremony.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-207\" title=\"080214_img_005700\" src=\"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/080214_img_005700.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There was no air movement at all and I was sweating like there was no tomorrow. I don\u2019t think anyone thought to bring water with them. So as guests, we all suffered through the same slightly uncomfortable situation until the dancing and other festivities of the ceremony were finished. After thanking the Chief and other villagers for their hospitality we were taken back to the Aggressor to enjoy our village cooked feast!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-208\" title=\"080214_img_005714\" src=\"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/080214_img_005714.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>After a fantastic Fijian style dinner the crew dropped the mooring and we headed down to Wakaya Island for our final Friday morning dive. It has been a great week so far and we\u2019re all hoping for one more perfect dive to finish things out.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-209\" title=\"080214_img_005723\" src=\"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/080214_img_005723.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>To see more photos from our village visit <a title=\"Makogai Village Photo Gallery\" href=\"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/divetrips\/fiji2008\/makogai_village.html\">Click Here\u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n\n<!-- Facebook Like Button v1.9.6 BEGIN [http:\/\/blog.bottomlessinc.com] -->\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Foceanimagery.com%2Fjournal%2F2008%2F02%2F15%2Fthe-village-on-makogai-island%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=dark\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height: 30px; align: left; margin: 2px 0px 0px 0px\"><\/iframe>\n<!-- Facebook Like Button END -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The village on Makogai Island, Fiji&#8230; After getting cleaned up from our last dive, we relaxed with a glass of wine as we waited for Marnie to brief us on what we could expect during the Village visit this evening. I had already removed my camera from my underwater housing, changed lenses and prepped it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,6,3],"tags":[20,22,23],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-photo","category-travel","tag-fiji","tag-makogai-island","tag-village"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2864,"href":"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions\/2864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oceanimagery.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}