Friday, November 7, 2014. When I first moved to Maine back in 2008 I started working for the Portland Phoenix, an alternative newsweekly similar to the publication I had worked for back in Vermont. Unfortunately - as with much of the newspaper world - the recession hit the Phoenix hard. Within nine months I had lost my job. I had no idea how much that phone call would influence my life in the years that followed. That day marked the start of a mutually beneficial relations.

Kava and a Lovo on Ono Island. We chose Ono Island for our first stop in Fiji. Ono is a specific island northeast of Kadavu on the southern edge of Fiji. In reality, there are a zillion little islands out here. Some appear on maps and others exist only in reality. We asked the locals the names of these other islands and they said Ono.