We went back to the village again today and met up with Suli.
I have been reminded many times on this trip how cruising is by far the best way to travel, for so many reasons. Over the years, cruisers have established a rather favourable reputation with locals and as a result they view you with a higher level of respect and trust than they do with other tourists. The island of Makogai is strictly prohibited to everyone other than cruisers and the supply ship that comes in every once in awhile. Even local Fijians are not allowed here.
The island is now a reservation for turtles and giant clams. Both of these creatures are illegal to kill, but they still have a big problem of pirates stealing them and selling them to others as an exotic food.
They had a few tanks with hundreds of little baby clams. The few that survive and grow to a reasonable size are moved to the other tank that I took photos of yesterday. When these ones grow even bigger (as big as your arm span), it takes almost the whole village to carry them down and release them in the bay here.
We also got to see the turtle tank. They would all swim up to you when you approached because they thought you were bringing food.
Suli took us on a short tour of the old French leper colony that was here from 1911 - 1969. There is only one reported case of lepracy currently in Fiji (not in Makogai), but this island once housed 5,000 lepers and staff.
They had a church, a court house, barracks, a jail, and even the very first movie theatre in the South Pacific.
There are around a thousand remains on the island of patients and staff from the old leper colony.
The gate from a memorial monument they used to have here.
At the front of the village, right by the water, they have the gravesite/memorial of the first guy in the world who discovered a cure for lepracy. The hospital in Suva is named after him.
Suli's grandparents lived on the island in the time of the leper colony. The island was split into two parts with a border between that separated the lepers from the healthy local Fijian people. The lepers were strictly banned from crossing to the healthy side of the island, and if you were healthy and crossed to the diseased part of the island, you were not allowed back to the healthy side. People were very paranoid of this disease (for good reason). He told us a story of a time when a couple lepers chased a goat over to the healthy side. When a group of women fishing (one being Suli's grandmother) saw them, everyone abandoned their fishing gear and ran away. The lepers were caught and had to spend a month in the jail as punishment.
On our way back to our dinghy, Suli pointed out a few released giant clams under the jetty. I climbed down a rickety ladder to try and grab a shot of them.
The picture does little to show their true size though.
We did some snorkelling in the afternoon and found an incredible bomee that had a huge variety of colourful reef fish.
Here are a few dead ones too. They definitely did not move.
I think this next fish here is called a 'clown fish'. If not, then it should be, because it sure looks like a clown.
There was also the biggest giant clam I have ever seen at this bomee. This thing was easily my full arm span. I tried to instigate it to close by putting my hand near it and pushing water at it, but it didn't move. The sucking hole you see was the size of my fist.
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