Makogai

Stardate October 12, 2023

25 mile hop to Makogai Island.  The preferred entrance is on the west side, so we had to loop all the way around.  The preferred entrance is also next to a breaking reef.  I mean right next to a breaking reef.  Looping from the north, you are barreling straight for breaking waves and at the last minute you turn 120 degrees to follow the ferry route.  Criminy!  Nick tried to cut the corner and wound up in 21 feet of water.  I noticed his quick dogleg to starboard to get back out to deeper water.  

I followed him after his course correction - we were still off the ferry route by 100 m or so.  I saw 28 feet on the depth gauge as I crossed the underwater ridge.  Way too close for comfort.  

Anchorage was protected, good holding.  We hopped in the dink to sevusevu and were received with a blissfully short ceremony, following which a woman named Mare took us around.  

Makogai was the home of one of the largest leper colonies in the world, apparently, in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  There were thousands of lepers here, scattered in settlements according to their nationality.  They had their own electrical generation, hospital, cinema, police and jail.  We got the tour of the ruins from Mare.  It must have been pretty impressive in its day.

Mare and Nick in the midst of the old movie theatre.  It was huge!

Projection holes.

Graves.  There are supposedly hundreds up the hill but the area has been overgrown to the extent you can't get to them without a lot of effort.  All headstones are made of concrete.

Yep, an open crypt.

The jail.

Cyclone Winston in 2016 pretty much destroyed the island.  In the rebuilding process, the houses have been made virtually storm-proof by the use of 4x4 aluminum frame members.  These are anchored to concrete pads in the ground.  Even the porches are constructed of aluminum framing.  

The clam farm is run by the Fisheries people in Fiji.  They take the fertilized eggs and plant them on a concrete pad in long races with running water.  There they nurse them to the point where they can be introduced into the ocean.

RIP their largest clam.  He had just been removed the day before we arrived.

Should have put my foot in for scale.  About 2.5 feet long.