This stop was an adventure. Dravuni Island is a little, and I do mean little, island – the whole Island is less than ½ square mile. It only has 200 inhabitants, if everyone is home. Dravuni is one of the 312 Fijian Islands. It is a challenge to get to as it doesn’t have an airport or even a pier. We were supposed to be tendered to their “new pontoon dock” - you know, those floating docks like people have at their lake houses. A storm hit last night and seriously damaged the dock. Before we could even start going ashore the Captain had to send the ship’s engineer and some carpenters to repair the damage. Well, they say half the fun is getting there. On the ride over to the island, the seas were such that the waves broke over the top of the tender! Really. Then something happened to the front of the tender and the captain was hollering at the deck hand, in some language other than my mother tongue. I had no idea what he was yelling but the deck hand quickly ran upfront and was scrambling around doing something, hopefully constructive, up there. The next thing I notice was about 2 inches of water sloshing over my feet. Now in an open motor boat that wouldn’t concern me much, but in an enclosed tender, I was checking out the location of the life vests and the quickest route to the nearest exit. Finally, we make it in to the “dock” but it was still so rough that when they tied off the tender, it ripped the tie down cleats right off the dock! Meanwhile, we are enclosed in this bouncing, stuffy box. It feels like we are on a cross between a roller coaster and a bumper car ride. We are now ricocheting off the side of the dock with each and every crashing wave. Finally they got something rigged to “secure” the boat. The moment had come to stagger your way to the opening where you must anticipate when the the boat opening and the floating dock will rise up at the same time, then sort of jump off. Finally, safely off the boat, I grabbed for a rail and looked up to see this writhing thing they called a dock, which was in about 6 or 7 sections. It looked like some sort of carnival ride leading to shore. With every wave, each section was rising and falling at a different level than the one next to it. They finally got some plywood to lay across the connections so you could step from one section to the next. At last, my sandals touched the wet, sandy beach – we made it. This was one island I really had been waiting to visit. Fiji and Tahiti are what usually comes to mind when you think of South Pacific Islands – that or someone crooning Bali Hai. I am here to tell you that if you live through the ride over, it is an absolutely lovely island. As I mentioned, no airport here, heck there isn’t even any roads – not that they are needed, as there are no cars. Which makes sense, where would you go? There were just foot paths to houses, to a one room school and to the other side of the island. There was a closet size library – where we were encouraged to donate any books we had finished reading. (I bet they hate Kindles). The only transportation I saw on the whole island was 2 motor boats and some dugout canoes. There was no town on the island; even saying this was a village is a bit of a stretch. We saw a few small generators. I am not sure what they were used for as I saw no refrigerators or appliance that ran on electricity in the houses. I think maybe it was hooked up to something like a community refrig. It appeared that most plumbing was of the outhouse variety. They had lots of cisterns and large vats for catching rainwater. Davuni isn’t set up for tourists, offering only one public outhouse for 600 “guests”. I think this may be the first time Princess has stopped at this island. A few Australian cruises come, mainly because of their reef, the Great Astrolabe Reef. It is the 4th largest reef in the world. It is often studied and is known for its hard and soft coral. It almost completely surrounds the island. Drevuni is one of the Pacific’s most unspoiled destinations. The water is so transparent you can see your chipped toenail polish through in the surf. Picture white sandy beaches with lots of palm and bread fruit trees. This is strictly natural living without a single store on the island. They had vegetable gardens and I assume they eat a lot of fish. If the cruise ships start stopping here regularly I am sure some industrious native will set up a stand to rent snorkels, fins and cokes to visiting tourists. Currently, if you even want a towel you must bring it with you. Interesting to me at least, is the fact that they say the island makes an average of $56,000 per cruise ship visit. On what? If I bought everything I saw I would be out about $3.25. They seem so isolated; there is a surplus of nothing thus not even any handicrafts – except maybe a woven basket or two. The main thing for sale was a few “services”. Some islanders offered massages or hair braids on the beach .I suppose both ideas were suggested to them, as good money makers, by previous visiting cruisers as they don’t even wear braids themselves. I can’t imagine how the average visitor could possibly spend over $100. Maybe that number includes an anchorage fees for stopping in their harbor or for the use of their fantastic dock. Now that I think of it, they probably should charge for that dock ride. I have paid more for less thrilling rides. There are no tours of any kind offered, no hotels, and of course no taxis since there are no roads. I am not saying this island is small, but what was offered was a scenic 5 minute walk to the other side of the island. There was also a 15 minute trek if you wanted to stroll the long way from sea to shining sea. What they didn’t mention to the gringos was that it was a muddy, billy goat of a climb, almost straight up and straight down to get there. I will say, just when I was about 10 yards short of a coronary, I arrived at the peak. The view from the top was spectacular – you felt like breaking into some song from “South Pacific”. This island will change if there is an influx of tourists but right now the inhabitants mainly just looked sort of puzzled at the invasion of crazy tourists slathering on sunscreen, sunbathing, and hiking through their yards. Without a cruise ship in port I am sure life on Davuni is not a heck of a lot different than it was 100 years ago. The locals were cooking on wood fires, sleeping in hammocks and enjoying an afternoon swim in ocean. Back in the day, Fijian was not always so friendly however. Fiji was once known as “Cannibal Island”. After battles, the victors cooked and ate the defeated. This of course opens the door to a couple of cannibal jokes. Have you noticed that most cannibal jokes are not in good taste? Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Anyway, joke one:
1st Cannibal "I don't like your wife much."
2nd Cannibal “Well, never mind, just eat the vegetables."
OR
1st Cannibal: Am I late for supper?
2nd Cannibal: Yes, everybody's eaten.
2nd Cannibal: Yes, everybody's eaten.
All kidding aside, this little island was breath taking. If you have seen a travel brochure for a south pacific Island they might very well have used this little island for the picture. With white sandy beaches, aquamarine surf and swaying palm trees this truly is an island paradise. It is by far the most natural island we have visited. It feels so native you almost expect to see Captain Cook sailing into port at any moment. (Good luck with that dock, Captain) I won’t do a history recap on this stop. You know it involved Captain Cook and that was just too easy a shot on the heels of the cannibal jokes. However, if you want to just relax on a beautiful, unspoiled south pacific island, I’d say grab your swim suit, snorkel and maybe a couple of granola bars and head to Dravuni.
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