Soli and the sea
p. 47 · Read in the full issue
AKIUSA Soli, 40, chief mate of 5, knows the power of the ocean. Sitting aboard his vessel atXevuka wharf, he conjures up images of the raging storm that hurled him and his crew onto a reef off Udu Point the northernmost point of Fiji’s second largest island in 1987.
“It was about Bpm when we entered the passage,” he says. “The wind and rain were terrible, and we were driven onto the reef. I stayed aboard through
the night with the captain, the chief en gineer, the bosun and the cook. We were very frightened, and many didn’t think we’d make it. But I put my life in God’s hands and, in the morning, the sea calmed. We were there for four days before a tug took us off.”
But Sakiusa is a man of the sea and, though he knows it can be hard, it’s the only life for him.
He began fishing with Ika in 1967. □
Soli: survived a storm.