Column 13--Welcome to Wakaya!

This is the thirteenth column in a serialization of PACIFIC FLASH: A Year in FIJI by Gerry Takano. Copies will be available April 1, 2010. Stay tuned for more information.

For the initiated, Wakaya Island was the supreme exclusive Fiji private 2,700 acre island with 32 white, pristine beaches visible from Levuka. But luxury and isolation have a price -- simple units (only 8) were about $800 USD per day in 1994 and the few private homes were about $1400 USD. American Wakaya owner David Gilmore lived in France. Visits were by invitation only.

During the calm of Sunday, I journeyed to Wakaya Island as an honored guest for the Fiji Day holiday (Monday). The Wakayan speedboat, so slick against the local banana boats, barreled across the Levuka Channel in a mere 15 minutes with Indian and Fijian crewmen merrily guzzling beer at 9am. I was glad to set foot on the Wakaya dock, gazing up at another world … breathtaking, exquisite.

After greetings from manager Rob, an ex-Maui person, I explored the isle on my own. There was a newly built museum’s collection originally planned for Nasova house and priceless images of old Levuka from old lithographs and other prints. I returned for my savusavu welcome in front of the entire Wakaya Fijian community (all working for the owner) and the few, very elite guests. Oh, let’s see, there were Michael Jackson’s composer and his entourage of beautiful people, the “oil money” Koch family and a man who tapped me on the shoulder and said:

I met you in Honolulu, remember me? Yes I did, he was Michael Ainslie, past president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, now with Sothebys in New York City. My goodness, I said. This world is too, too small. What brings you to Wakaya?

Later Rob drove me to Mr. Gilmore’s home high on top of a prominent ridge full of Thai and Indonesian art tastefully placed in harmony with the estate’s open verandah. Covered walkways connected separate bedrooms, tennis courts, pools and gardens. Views of blue, aqua seas and coral beds were in every direction. Come back again, said Rob. Did he mean as a paying guest?

Back in Levuka and directly across the wharf a crowd gathered in front of a local store. On Sunday, no stores were supposedly open but the door was partially closed and the essentials glowed under the fluorescent lights. Fijians were lined up to buy cigarettes and fresh white bread.

A Levukan asked me, do they really use artificial moonlight on Wakaya? I was tempted to say, why yes they do.

Gerry Takano was reared in Honolulu, Hawaii and received his architectural education and early training in upstate New York and Boston. Gerry served as Hawaii’s National Trust Advisor and State of Hawaii Commissioner of the Historic Sites Review Board.

He currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can be reached at gertkno@aol.com