Yasawa Islands

The Yasawas were settled long before European contact by people whose descendants still live in the chain's villages, farming the thin soils, fishing the reefs and organising life around chiefly title and the landowning kin group. The islands sit within the wider province of Ba, and their oral traditions link them to the western Viti Levu mainland and to Tonga, whose canoes reached these waters.

The first European to sight the Yasawas was William Bligh, who sailed past in 1789 in the Bounty's open launch after the mutiny and chose not to land; the body of water he crossed, east of the chain, still carries his name. Later came sandalwood traders, bêche-de-mer collectors, missionaries and, after Fiji's cession to Britain in 1874, copra plantations. The islands remained one of the most isolated parts of the colony, served by sailing boats and, later, small motor vessels from Lautoka, with no roads and little cash economy.

Tourism came slowly and by sea. Small cruise vessels ran up the chain to anchor off the northern beaches long before there was anywhere to stay ashore, and the area's name spread further when The Blue Lagoon was filmed at Nanuya Levu in 1979 and released the next year. Government policy kept the group closed to land-based tourism until 1987, after which resorts and village lodges opened on the beaches, and backpacker routes and a regular catamaran from Denarau followed in the 1990s. Cyclone Winston in 2016 and the closure of borders during the pandemic both hit the islands hard, since almost every family depends on visitors in some way.

Village life, not resort life, sets the tone in the Yasawas. Households belong to a mataqali that owns land and reef, decisions are taken by the chief and village council, and a stranger becomes a guest through the sevusevu, in which yaqona root is presented, accepted and then pounded and drunk from a shared bowl. Kava sessions run long into the evening, accompanied by guitar and singing, and visitors staying at a village-run lodge are often drawn into them.

Christianity, above all Methodism, is woven through daily life. Sunday means church in the morning, best clothes and a quiet afternoon, with hymns sung in close harmony and without instruments — one of the most memorable sounds of the islands. Meke, the sung and danced recounting of stories, is performed at celebrations and for guests, and the lali, a slit wooden drum, still calls people to church and to meetings.

Manners are specific and easily learned. Modest dress is expected away from the beach, a sulu wrapped around the waist covers the knees, hats and sunglasses come off in a village, and it is polite to speak to the village headman before walking through gardens or up a hill. Rugby is the shared passion, played on any level ground, and schools and churches are funded partly by community fundraising days with food stalls and sport. The relationship with tourism is close and consciously managed: lodges are often village businesses, and their income pays school fees, boats and generators.

A few thousand people live in the chain, spread across villages on Waya, Naviti, Nacula, Nanuya Lailai, Yasawa and their neighbours, with numbers falling as young people leave for Lautoka, Nadi, Suva and work overseas. Villages are compact settlements of concrete and timber houses behind a beach, with a church, a primary school, a meeting house and a small canteen.

The economy is fishing, subsistence gardening and tourism. Families grow cassava, taro, breadfruit and vegetables on hillside plots, fish the reef with nets and lines, and take wages or lease income from lodges and resorts; handicrafts, copra and remittances from relatives on the mainland make up the rest. There is no electricity grid: power comes from solar panels, batteries and generators, and fresh water from rainwater tanks and a few wells, which makes drought a serious problem in the dry season.

The day begins at first light with fishing and gardens, slows in the heat, and ends with kava and singing. Boats are the lifeline — the daily catamaran brings guests, supplies and mail, and village punts carry children to school and patients to the nearest nursing station. The persistent issues are water supply, the cost and reliability of transport, cyclone damage to houses and reefs, the single high school for the whole chain on Naviti, and how evenly tourism income is shared between and within the villages.

Food in the Yasawas is what the reef, the gardens and the supply boat provide. Reef fish, walu, tuna and shellfish are grilled, curried or served as kokoda, raw fish cured in lime juice with coconut cream, chilli and onion. Coconut is everywhere: cream in almost every dish, grated flesh in puddings, and the water drunk straight from a green nut cut down beside the path.

Root crops are the staple. Cassava and dalo, boiled or baked, take the place of bread at nearly every meal, with breadfruit in season and rice brought in by boat. The lovo, an earth oven of hot stones, is the festive way of cooking, and under its layers of banana leaf go fish, chicken, pork, root crops and palusami — taro leaves folded around coconut cream and onion until they collapse into something rich and soft. Indo-Fijian cooking reaches the islands as curries, dhal and roti on the lodge menus.

Sweet things come from the garden and the lodge kitchens: papaya, mango, pineapple, bananas and watermelon, alongside scones, pancakes and cakes turned out by lodge kitchens for afternoon tea. Yaqona is the drink of consequence, pounded and strained and drunk from a shared bilo, or coconut cup; Fiji-brewed lager appears at the resorts, but alcohol is restricted in many villages, and tea is the everyday alternative.