We hadn’t been on a risky adventure, just out with a local friend to take underwater pictures of a reef pass on the southern side of Matuku (Lau group, eastern Fiji) for a report to get government funding for a no-fishing ‘tabu’ zone there. Our friend and boatman Maikeli, the headman of the village of Makadru, wasn’t so lucky – his body was found two days later.
On this fateful morning we were reluctant to go. The weather was overcast and we both had a cold, but we didn’t want to disappoint Maikeli – and we were eager to help protect the environment of our favourite island in the Lau group.
So we went down south to the Daku passage in his 24ft open boat. Approaching the pass we saw that the swell outside was much higher than expected. We would never have taken our dinghy out in such conditions, but we thought Maikeli, who had spent all of his 58 years on Matuku, knew how to judge the situation.
The pass is short and upon exiting it on
