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doctor who was the bishop in charge, arrived to care for the
lepers. Other Pacific countries started sending their leprosy
patients to Makogai, leading to a population of 675 patients
on the island in 1947. The ratification of dapsone use at
the International Conference on Leprosy in 1948 brought a
steady decline in the number of leprosy cases, but not before
more than 1,000 souls had been buried on Makogai.
A walk among the graves and remnants of the
leprosarium was sobering, but afterward the village children
put on a joyous dance for us. A convivial kava ceremony
hosted by the village elder prior to the dance might have
facilitated the happy atmosphere, although I’ve never
actually acquired a buzz from drinking kava. The beverage
is a grog made by grinding the root of the kava plant
and straining it with water into a large communal bowl.
The ceremony of drinking the muddy concoction from a
coconut shell is an integral part of the Fiji experience, and
one the village at Makogai shared with great hospitality.
TAVEUNI
Surprisingly, in six previous trips to Fiji I’d never been to
one of its most iconic islands, Taveuni. The fourth largest
island in Fiji, and connected to the outside world with its
own international airport, the “Garden Island” offers a
sophisticated infrastructure of dive resorts specializing in
mythic dive sites. While we were diving from a liveaboard
this trip, I look forward to a land-based dive trip here as well.
The diving was exceptional, and we often saw the day dive
boats from Taveuni cruising to their moorings. A friendly
wave was about all the interaction we had with them though,
for there are ample sites available to all.
Never having been to Taveuni, I’d not dived one of Fiji’s
most famous sites, the Great White Wall, an omission I
was eager to rectify. According to the briefing, we would
descend through a semilong tunnel and exit at about 80 feet
before turning left and cruising along the reef wall. Almost
immediately we encountered an area of the wall that could
be described as both “great” and “white.” When the current
rips (which it clearly does at times, as evidenced by the
density and diversity of soft corals) you might swim past the
lushest portion of the dive without meaning to and won’t
be able to swim back against the current to see it again.
You might also be surprised to see that the white soft corals
aren’t nearly as immense as the red, yellow or lavender soft
coral trees you may have seen elsewhere. But the sheer
multitude of them along this wall is most impressive. Don’t
despair if you are blown off the wall too soon, because the
rest of the dive is likewise decorated by impressively vibrant
soft-coral-festooned reefs.
One of the nice things about diving from a liveaboard
that visits the same sites week after week is that the crew
tends to know where to find creatures of significance. This
is particularly true for territorial or sedentary species such
as pygmy seahorses and blue ribbon eels, a subject I was
interested in photographing.
I’m fortunate that many of my charter guests are repeat
customers. A guest on this Fiji tour has an infallible
memory, and whenever the subject of blue ribbon eels
comes up she is sure to remind me, “My best shot of a
blue ribbon eel never happened because when we were
in Fiji in 2004 we saw one at 80 feet, and by the time you
were done photographing it, it went back into its hole and
never came out before my bottom time was up.” On this
trip I finally absolved myself of that long-lingering guilt by
sharing with her a photo-op with a particularly bold blue
ribbon eel in less than 30 feet of water at Jerry’s Jelly, a
rich and productive shallow dive site off Taveuni. While
the eels, of which we found three on a small patch of reef,
might have been the target species for that particular
dive, the ship’s log confirmed guest sightings of whitetip
reef sharks, scorpionfish, garden eels, whip gobies, Maori
wrasses and fire dartfish.
NAMENA MARINE RESERVE
The Namena Marine Reserve surrounds the tiny island of
Namenalala and stretches between the two main islands
From far left: A hawksbill turtle swims through a crimson sea fan at Half Pipe; a resident ribbon eel at Jerry’s Jelly;
a shallow reef off Taveuni. Fiji is known for the density of colorful filter feeders that decorate the walls and overhangs.