Dark history of Levuka cruise port in Fiji

It’s a popular spot for some of the world’s most luxurious cruise ships, but there’s a dark history to this cruise port.

John Milesi settles into a chair above the MV Reef Endeavour’s stern, puts his feet up, and looks across the remote Fijian town he now calls home.

“In Levuka, we have Levuka time, and that’s even slower than Fiji time,” the former West Australian tells Escape.

“This is one of the few places in the world where an afternoon nap is an accepted tourist activity. We find our guests slow down very quickly and sit on the veranda to have a nap while waiting for the sunset.”

John and his wife, Marilyn, own Levuka Homestay, ­­a home-away-from-home B&B in Fiji’s former colonial capital on Ovalau, and visit the Reef Endeavour when it stops for passengers to explore the island.

The couple fell in love with Levuka when they discovered it on their first overseas trip in 1984.

They bought the hillside block where Levuka Homestay now sits and moved to Ovalau to build a life in the South Pacific.

Established in the early 19th century, Levuka was Fiji’s capital until a lack of land halted growth and forced a move to Suva on neighbouring Viti Levu in the 1880s.

The tranquil waterfront of Fiji's first capital Levuka.

The colonial Levuka church.

That was about when the clock stopped, and now walking around town feels like being on the set of a colonial-era film.

John says the town was once nicknamed Hell of the Pacific.

Ship captains sat outside the reef until the tide turned, then followed the trail of rum bottles floating out to sea to pick a safe path through the coral; drunks were kidnapped and forced to work on whaling ships, and linen-clad colonials took their quinine (a treatment for malaria) in liquid form at the toffee-nosed Ovalau Club.

It was home to Fiji’s first bank, hospital, post office, newspaper, electricity network, private club and library, while the Royal Hotel ­ is now the South Pacific’s oldest operating pub and the 19th-century church continues to welcome parishioners.

The Reef Endeavour visits Levuka on the second day of the Remote North Discovery Cruise –­­ an eight-day Captain Cook Cruises Fiji itinerary departing Nadi’s Port Denarau Marina ­– and in the morning, passengers join local historian-cum-storyteller Nox for a walking tour of the settlement before snorkelling on the reef in the afternoon.

Captain Cook Cruise’s MV Reef Endeavour in Fiji. Picture: Supplied

There are no five-star resorts or fine-dining restaurants in Levuka, not a swimming pool or souvenir shop in sight, but that’s the beauty of this voyage to off-the-beaten-track locations on the north side of Viti Levu and far side of Bligh Water.

The journey starts with a visit to Tivua Island and my late-afternoon swim becomes a wildlife encounter, floating with the baby reef sharks that live in the shallows.

Two days later I meet baby turtles on Makogai Island.

The Reef Endeavour spends a day anchored off Makogai so passengers, a collection of Australians and Canadians, can wander land that was once a leper colony before becoming home to a conservation project.

Our guide, Phillip, who was born on the island, shows us around the hospital’s remaining buildings and mountainside graveyard before providing a tour of the conservation station, where researchers study rare giant clams that live below the surface just off the beach.

“The fisheries division moved in not long after the leper hospital closed, to bring back the giant clams that were disappearing from the reef,” he says.

“And now six families live on this side of the island, with another 14 families on the other side, with that community working as farmers.”

An aerial view of Levuka, Fiji.

The leper colony opened in 1911 and closed in 1969, and people from around the Pacific were brought there, Phillip says.

Passengers leave the ship several times a day to embark on shore excursions, explore the reefs by glass-bottom boat, spend hours swimming and snorkelling, and walk through the rainforest to visit waterfalls and reach hilltop lookouts.

We stand with one leg on each side of the International Date Line to be simultaneously in yesterday and today, join a traditional earth-oven feast, sit with the crew during kava ceremonies, and nose around the wreck of a ship that went to the bottom during a cyclone.

There’s a day in Savusavu to visit the pearl farm before browsing a village market packed with local produce and attending the Sunday service on Taveuni Island – known as Fiji’s Garden Island – to appreciate the congregation’s spirited singing.

But my favourite moment comes early on our last full day at sea, when a gaggle of crew leaves the ship during breakfast to work on a conservation project in the bush behind a remote beach in Viti Levu’s sleepy north.

I surface from my cabin just in time to be invited to join them for the tender ride ashore and spend the silent hours after sunrise savouring my own private beach.

I walk the full length of the sand in the shadows of tilting palms with only my footprints marking the surface, float in the warm water with my face tilted towards the sun and tropical fish nipping at my feet, and sit submerged in the shallows assigning every detail of the glorious morning and magical location to memory.

The writer was a guest of Captain Cook Cruises Fiji.

This article originally appeared on Escape and has been republished here with permission.