Thursday, October 11, 2007 - Leper Colony
11 October 2007 | Makongai Island, Fiji
Don
Sand Dollar weighed anchor at 6:20 AM this morning for the 50 mile passage to Makongai Island, the site of a former leper colony. The trip was uneventful but the entrance to the lagoon was nerve racking. There were no channel markers but reefs everywhere. Fortunately we made it in without leaving any bottom paint on the coral. The anchor was put down near a small village located at the ruins of the leper colony.
The normal procedure when anchoring near a village is to go ashore and ask permission of the chief and then present him with "sevu sevu", a small bundle of kava roots. This small act is a formality which has been customary for hundreds of years and is expected of cruisers. After I presented my gift, the head man conducted a short ceremony and then welcomed me to the village and gave me a tour of the ruins. The leper colony was built by French missionaries in 1911, had 5000 occupants at one time, and was closed in the 1960s. Very few intact buildings remain today while the ruins are overgrown with all matter of vegetation. The surrounding countryside is mountainous and lush. The hundred or so people living on the island survive without roads, a supply ship or an airport.
All else is well onboard.