Farewell Unforgettable Fiji Farewell

Port Denarau would be our last Fijian port of call, before Turtlebones and her crew sets out on the 500+ mile passage westward to Vanuatu. Wow, talk about a contrast! Its nothing like the Fiji we’ve come to know and love while exploring this amazing nation of islands during the previous six weeks.

This, and the nearby Nadi International airport, comprise the epicentre of Fiji’s tourism industry. Carved out of what once was a swampy mangrove, Port Denarau is typical of the well-established mould for the modern tropical resort complex – a man-made island sporting a golf course, open-air mall, shops, canal-side restaurants, and a marina, all the big hotel chains allocated a slice of the shoreline. It could be anywhere in the world.

In order to welcome cruise ships, Port Denarau is an official port of entry, with its own customs and immigration office. Which is why we’re here – to do the formalities required for clearing out of the country. It’s all very sanitized. Any trace of what previously existed eliminated. Like the rest of the place, it feels artificial yet comfortable.

By contrast, the main commercial port in the capital, Suva, hums day and night with the coming and going of huge freighters and smaller supply ships serving Fiji’s 130 inhabited islands. There’s a constant industrial din from the massive machinery loading and unloading cargo and containers in a vast compound of shore-side docks and warehouses. The paint peeled buildings, rusting hulks strewn about the harbour, and oily sheen coating the surface of the water, lend the whole place a certain grubby charm.

Port Denarau has a whole different vibe. It’s tiny, quiet, and super clean by comparison. And, caters almost exclusively to tourists. 

A steady stream of brightly painted boats ferry visitors – mostly pastie-white Aussies, New Zealanders, and Americans – out to resorts on the countless offshore islands. Others take vacationing day-trippers out sailing, surfing, diving or fishing.  

Cruise ships are too big to enter the port itself, and instead anchor out. Their passengers lightered in on tenders to partake of the many resort town amenities – much to the delight of shore-side businesses and their staff.

Port Denarau’s bustling marina includes a sprinkling of smaller yachts, like Turtlebones, anchored out and paying a small shore fee for use of the dinghy dock, showers and laundry ashore. But most of the docked vessels are much larger, including a surprising number of really huge, incredibly lavish, super yachts owned by the uber-wealthy. Sailboats so big they dwarf boats like ours. Motor yachts the size of small cruise ships. Some, particularly the older ones, are elegant looking. Most of the newer ones ascribe to a brutish, semi-militaristic, aesthetic. Various shades of grey and black, and even camo, dominate the colour palate.     

The owners of these vessels occupy a truly rarified snack bracket.

One motor yacht anchored out beyond the harbour near us – being too big for the marina – measured nearly 400 feet long. It cost the owner – a power-tool tycoon – a third of a billion USD. He shells out another $40 million each year to operate the vessel. A full-time crew of 32 run the ship and cater to the needs of up to 16 guests. To enhance their luxury seafaring experience, the ‘mother ship’ travels with a 227-foot support vessel staffed by another 22 crew. In addition to carrying the helicopter, it has an onboard chopper workshop, a full-service dive centre, and a fully equipped hospital. 

This is the Fiji most visitors experience. A world away from the pristine isolated islands and traditional villages of subsistence fishers and farmers that we’ve had the privilege of visiting and getting to know. Places rendered inaccessible to big cruise ships and super yachts by fringing reefs with narrow passes, and simply too remote for most resort guests. Islands only visiting sailors have the rare opportunity to experience.

And, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.  Mass tourism would undoubtedly change forever those pristine places, and disrupt traditional village life – both in good ways and bad. That’s the rub of tourism. Like Newton’s third law; every action (or interaction) has a reaction. In the case of people and their complex cultures, the reaction isn’t always linear or easy to predict.

Small as our numbers may be, visiting yachties can hardly deny the profound impact we have on the remote places we visit and the people we meet. Bringing as we do mindboggling trappings of wealth, replete with an amazing cornucopia of stuff from all corners of world, and buying power that inevitably induces particular responses and behaviour. Good and sometimes not so good – unqualified as I am to accurately judge.

A wise villager told the story of a visiting yachtie lamenting to locals about how he’d worked his entire adult life, and sacrificed and saved, to be able to spend time in a place of such beauty, removed from the grinding pressures of modern daily life. And how baffled he was by the extent to which villagers desired a different life, more like the one he’d left behind.

Still, it’s hard not to fall prey to the romantic wish for things to remain the same. For those pristine places to remain unspoiled, for people to continue living traditional lives deeply immersed in family and community, seemingly unsullied by money and markets. It’s also hard not worry about the impacts of change, and the potential for unforeseen and irreversible consequences.

But it would be a mistake to get carried away and view island life strictly through rose-coloured glasses. One would need to be willfully blind to miss seeing the significant number of vacant homes in most island villages – their former inhabitants having voted with their feet for life elsewhere. Or the extent to which young people, who must leave to pursue education after the primary grades, choose not to return. While villagers certainly don’t go hungry, their diet is quite limited, economic opportunities are almost non-existent, sanitation is basic, and health care meager. Life expectancy is comparatively low.

Smart phones and internet are now ubiquitous even in remote villages. The images and information they provide not only stimulate a desire for more bright and shiny consumables, it also stokes aspirations for better access to necessities like clean potable water and better health care. The appeal is powerful and ever-present.

For this small island nation, with boundless natural beauty, but few natural resources, tourism is a major source of employment, and the chief source of foreign exchange. The sector is growing quickly, and is already responsible for over one quarter of Fiji’s GDP. The number of foreign visitors per year recently surpassed Fiji’s total population of one million.

While residents of Barcelona, Venice and elsewhere protest over-tourism, the Fijians we met – be they in the islands or the cities – expressed no such concerns. Maybe they don’t have the same luxury. Either way, the prevailing view on tourism appears to be: ‘the more the merrier’.

Welcoming as they may be to foreign visitors, ethnic tensions between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians – the descendants of indentured workers (a.k.a. contractual slaves) who’ve lived here for generations – are deeply rooted and fractious. The conflict – essentially over how to balance the competing rights of each group – has resulted in the overthrow of democratically elected governments by coups four times since 1987.

The chronic political instability has disrupted every aspect of Fijian life, including the economy, and stunted growth in the tourism sector.

Fiji’s colonial past has bestowed a wicked brew of stubborn challenges. There are no easy solutions, at least not without slighting or short-changing one or the other faction.  

Land rights remain a particularly thorny issue. The vast majority of land – over 80% – in Fiji is owned by indigenous Fijians on a communal basis. The transfer of land to anyone other than an indigenous Fijian remains highly restricted. This regime dates back to 1876 when the British colonial Governor of the day prohibited the sale of Fijian land to any non-ethnic Fijian – at least partly in response to the threat posed by American settlers, Klu Klux Klan zealots, who planned to turn Fiji into a white supremist society.  For their part, the Brits established the Kingdom of Fiji and quickly quashed the KKK activities that had included fortresses and artillery.   

Today Indo-Fijians own or lease many of the sugarcane plantations, dominate trade and many other businesses throughout Fiji and are well-represented professionally. They live primarily in the urban centres and cane-producing areas on the two main islands. Due to their relative success in business and trade, Indo-Fijians have over the years gained economic power, and political influence. 

Each coup has sought to strengthen the standing of indigenous Fijians and protect their traditional institutions and land rights, generally at the expense of Indo-Fijians. As a result, there’s been an exodus of more than 70,000 Indo-Fijians during the past decade, including many skilled workers.  

Until recently, the term “Fijian” did not denote a citizen of Fiji – instead, it referred exclusively to people of indigenous Fijian heritage. Citizens of Fiji of different ethnicities – including Indo-Fijians and others – were called Fiji Islanders. In 2010 that changed, all Fiji citizens are now officially called Fijians. However, laws that favour indigenous Fijians have been largely been maintained and preserve privileges in favour of the iTaukei people, formerly referred to as indigenous Fijians or just Fijians.

But challenges remain for the Indo-Fijian minority – most critical of which is that they remain effectively landless, and expiry of their leases often creates insecurity in their lives and puts their enterprises at risk.

The particulars may be unique, but Fiji is hardly alone in attempting to find the appropriate balance between its indigenous population and those whose ancestors hail from elsewhere.  Other countries including Canada, Australia, Greenland, and New Zealand, to name just a few, are contending with similar unresolved issues.   

We greatly enjoyed our time in Fiji, marveling at its astonishing natural beauty, learning more about its history, and the complexity, of this diverse nation of islands. It is, quite possibly, the most warm and welcoming country I’ve ever visited. We truly wish we had more time to spend exploring Fiji’s many charms. But the time for moving on has come once again.