11The mainland arrives as a rugged sleepy animal, too big for empire builders to obliterate. People crawl over her back, shelter in her valleys and plant grain on the plains. She’s bigger than all of them.
I sit outside with my morning coffee to gaze upon our new watery Lautoka home – an expansive glassy harbour with only three other yachts, softly faded in the distance. Protective arms of scrubby land shelter us from the unpredictable sea. Nearby, a rusty watchtower shell leans precariously over the water, its pokey windows glance anxiously to the jetty on shore, also slip-sliding, rotting, collapsing into the sea. Voices from shore fade behind broken birdsong and the noise of our sail sliding across itself on the rocking boom. In the shivering water, the rising sun turns small dwellings
