Morovo Lagoon, Western Province

If Nugu Beach was a sleepy place with quiet reserved people our stop in Morovo Lagoon, Western Province was the exact opposite. With little information other than its claims to be the largest lagoon in the world we decided to check it out. It is not properly charted so I picked what looked like the largest pass close to what looked like a suitable anchorage and went for it. As we pulled up to the island we were going to anchor off of we were immediately swarmed by children in dugout canoes paddling alongside us. We asked if it was ok to anchor here and they were more than happy to have us.

The kids play all day in their canoes, paddling over to an uninhabited island, swimming, singing and having a great time. There was some current between the islands and the kids ranging from toddlers to young teens didn’t have any lifejackets, all the canoes take on water and their method of bailing is to rapidly kick the water out with their foot. I thoroughly enjoy watching them play.

It didn’t take long after the anchor was down and we had the first of many carvers from the island show up with his carvings looking to trade or sell. We ended up trading a bunch of stuff we didn’t use and some stuff we had bought for trading for some carvings. Some are really nice, some are useful and some, well, we were happy to have made them happy.

The tiny island was home to around 300 people, they would paddle to the mainland in the morning and tend their gardens, some would go out fishing and then spend the afternoon and evenings at home with their families. In the evenings from the boat we could hear constant talking, singing and laughter. We met some wonderful people who came out to the boat, took a walk around the island, with a small entourage of children of course, and were showed more carvings and some artifacts. After a couple days hanging out it was time to move on.