The Allure Of Fiji's Desert Islands

“...an island far away to the west and south. It is not down on any map; true places never are.”

Herman Melville, Moby Dick

I was halfway to Fiji when I realised I had no idea where I was going. After an eight-hour layover at Hong Kong’s Lantau Island airport, the check-in counter for Air Pacific finally opened, and I learned that another eleven-hour flight lay ahead. A flight to the east and south, actually— to a point just north of the Tropic of Capricorn and pretty much right on top of the International Date Line. Except that it’s an imaginary line, so Fiji sits, officially at least, to the west of it.

Alternatively, the line is real and Fiji is imaginary— in which case, there was no telling when I would arrive.

It’s been a week now since I was airlifted back from the South Seas, but I’m having trouble convincing anyone of my adventures. I’m not entirely convinced myself. But this is what I remember:

I remember dining with millionaires under a banyan tree on a desert isle, subsisting for a whole week on a diet of ferns and taro root, chilled lobster salad, and seared tuna steaks—washed down with endless bottles of Hunter Valley Pinot Noir.

I remember showering in a jungle waterfall at noon, snorkelling in coral reefs at dusk, wallowing in a jacuzzi at night, and scampering down to wade in the coral-strewn shallows of my private beach at dawn.

Dancing in conga lines with pink people in floral shirts and dark, handsome locals in grass skirts.

Steering a catamaran through a figure-eight in a trade wind, paddling my own glass-bottomed kayak, and surfing—okay, web surfing—on a broadband-enabled beach.

Getting high (or maybe low) on a bowl of piper methysticum, also known as ‘grog,’ and passing out on a massage table where Cameron Diaz may well have been oiled and kneaded before me.

They say that Fiji consists of more than 300 islands, just 100 of which are inhabited. The rest are more or less imaginary: ‘Castaway Island,’ ‘Blue Lagoon Island,’ ‘Bounty Island,’ ‘Treasure Island.’

You won’t find them on any map—not unless you append the word ‘Resort’ to each.

And on my first morning in the South Pacific, I’m on my way to one of these desert island fictions. It’s an appropriately cinematic scene; we are in a rakish white motorboat, skimming across the sea. A large island looms ahead to the left, but that’s not it. “That’s Beqa, home of the fire-walkers,” I’m told. “Most of our staff are from there.” Our prow is pointed at a barely discernible sandbar, sandwiched between the contrasting blues of the sky and the sea. A lone puff of cloud hovers over it, an absurdly photogenic signboard.

With me on the boat is Grahame Southwick, a tanned and wiry white man who chats relentlessly over the roar of the motors, waving his hands animatedly. He’s a native Fijian, as it turns out. “My ancestors came here from Darmstadt in Germany in the 1800s and settled while the Fijians were still eating each other.”

He’s an old salt, an experienced sailor, and a fishing magnate who owns Fiji’s biggest tuna fleet.

It was only later that I stumbled upon an old map, which revealed the true name of our destination: ‘Ugaga Island’ or ‘Stuart’s Island.’ But for the next eighty-nine years (of a ninety-nine-year lease), it’s really Grahame’s island, and he can call it whatever he wants. He’d known the island since his childhood and finally struck a deal with the Chief of Beqa to lease it and make even more money as the Royal Davui Island Resort.

It’s been hard work, but it’s gone well. He tells me of Russian oligarchs who come to stay and pay with briefcases of cash, and Arab sheikhs who chopper in with their wives and twenty pieces of luggage in tow.

Grahame is a rich and happy man, and his happiness, at least, is infectious. As we chat, the island heaves into view—an astonishingly picturesque confection of coral and white sand, capped with a dome of tropical jungle.

As we moor at the jetty of Royal Davui, a boisterous school of clownfish frolics and leaps for tossed scraps of bread, while a baby reef shark waits shyly for its turn. Upon reaching the reception area—a large, airy pavilion—I’m enveloped in the sonic warmth of a choral serenade, with the assembled staff singing a Fijian welcome song in lush harmonies, embellished with guitars and ukuleles. Minutes later, I’m settled in my villa, one of only sixteen on the ten-acre island.

There’s a plunge pool and a jacuzzi, a power shower, and above it, a vergola that opens to the sky at the push of a button. The villa features a bedroom and a lounge, both of which open onto slatted wooden verandas. Beyond them lies the turquoise aquarelle of the open sea. There’s a beach, of course, with swaying palms, and not another soul in sight.

It takes a few moments for me to absorb the existential dilemmas of this sudden change of fortune. But I’m a survivor, and soon I’m coolly weighing my options: jacuzzi, plunge pool, or sea? Beer, coffee, or room service? Should I enjoy the view from the beach, the deck, the sofa, or the bed? In the end, I do the only rational thing and try them all.

I should have known by now that I would never really get to Fiji. Instead, I will pass the days resort-hopping in small planes over a kaleidoscope of reefs. I will be garlanded repeatedly, massaged, and serenaded—hello and goodbye. I will rub psychic shoulders with the definitely rich and the kind of famous. At the Jean-Michel Cousteau Resort, a franchise of the almost-famous son of the legendary seafarer Jacques, and at the Namale Resort of the equally famous life coach and motivational speaker Tony Robbins, where I’m assured Russell Crowe, Edward Norton, Hugh Jackman, and, yes, Cameron Diaz have preceded me. Robbins’ resort, which turns out to be incredibly beautiful, offers a particularly seductive sideline: residential courses in how to actually become rich and famous. “Awaken the giant within” is his spiel. Tempting, except that Tony Robbins is 6 foot 7 to begin with.

But I’m beginning to suspect that a more ancient fantasy is at work or at play here. Maybe it’s what James Mill (the almost-famous father of John Stuart Mill) was talking about when he described the colonial world as “a vast system of outdoor relief for the upper classes.” Or is it R.M. Ballantyne’s boy’s own adventure, The Coral Island, which, come to think of it, was set in ‘Feejee’? Or perhaps Jack London’s The Inevitable White Man (another tale of Fiji). For that matter, Queequeg, the wild savage of Moby Dick, was also from the ‘Fejee Islands’. Or is it The Tempest? Lord knows all these resort owners are Prosperos.

One enchanted evening at Namale, the fantasy suddenly evaporated, quite literally, in a puff of smoke. I had just had dinner, served in a fairy-lit tunnel of volcanic rock just above the waters of the Koro Sea. I was a little tipsy from the wine, as much as the glamour of the circumstance. Feeling like a “globe totterer,” as another similarly inebriated guest put it, I repaired to my cottage or “authentic bure,” a delightful thatched hut perched in splendid isolation atop a small cliff above the beach and enclosed in a lush garden of palms, crotons, and hibiscus. I undressed, slipped into a sarong, and stepped barefoot onto my cliff-top deck for a contemplative ocean-view cigarette. A gentle breeze swelled up from the sea, and I heard the door click shut behind me…

My cigarette was extinguished almost as fast as my high spirits. I peered forlornly through the plate glass at the comforts of my bure: my clothes, my slippers, my phone, my canopied bed. Electricity. Then I turned around to face grim reality—sinister palms creaking in the moonlight, the relentless brutal crash of the tide, and a desolate stretch of beach viciously seeded with serrated coral, shells, and pumice. Of course, I was rescued in the end, but not without some ignominy, mincing my way, squealing and swearing, to the next cottage and yelping piteously for help.

Perhaps it was just my wounded pride, but I decided I’d had enough of the desert island idyll. Spurning a scheduled excursion to Monuriki Island—the location for the Tom Hanks movie Cast Away—I demanded a trip to the Fijian capital of Suva instead.

We drove along the scenic coastal highway, passing picturesque fishing villages that inspired the landscaping of Fiji’s resorts. Unlike the holiday villages spread out over expansive common lawns, real bures seem to use tin sheets rather than thatch. Approaching the outskirts of the capital, my guide pointed to a severe high-walled structure. “The Suva Hilton—free rooms, free food, but no beer,” he quipped, as if reminding me to count my blessings.

I visited the national museum, a modest institution that offered a potted history of the island nation’s tortured saga of tribal warfare, colonial submission, and the sad tale of the Girmityas—Indians duped into indentured service on the islands’ sugarcane plantations.

For lunch, I chose the Holiday Inn, facing the “government building,” a small but severe complex of 1930s fascist architecture that has witnessed the series of coups defining Fiji’s recent political history. I was reminded that the country is still run by Commodore Frank Bainimarama, an eccentric dictator who has seen his nation expelled from the Commonwealth yet keeps a portrait of Queen Elizabeth in his office, insisting he is a monarchist at heart. I heard the well-worn national joke that Fiji is just a “Bainimarama Republic.”

I realised that tourist fantasies are a lot more fun than political fictions and returned, chastened, to one last resort. One day, perhaps, I will visit Fiji in its true essence. But for now, at least I know what it’s like to be all washed up on a tropical beach, amidst the allure of the islands of Robbins and Cousteau.

Note: This story is a previously published piece that has been republished for your reading.