The Mamanucas

The Mamanucas are the twenty islands that lie off Nadi like a handful of thrown coins — the Fiji of the postcards, an hour from the airport by catamaran from the marina at Denarau, and the sunniest corner of the country because the mountains of Viti Levu take the rain: Malolo, the largest, with the Fijian villages of Solevu and Yaro and the resorts of Likuliku and Six Senses; Malolo Lailai next to it, with Musket Cove and Plantation and the yachts of the September regatta; Mana in the north, with a sandbank in the lagoon and the backpackers and the resort side by side; Matamanoa and Tokoriki, small and quiet, for two people; Castaway, whose real name is Qalito, for families; Beachcomber and Treasure, thirty minutes out, where the day-trippers and the young go for the party; and Monuriki, uninhabited, where Tom Hanks talked to a volleyball in the film of 2000, which is why the boats stop there for an hour and the crested iguana watches from the trees. On the barrier reef to the south-west, Namotu and Tavarua sit beside Cloudbreak, one of the heaviest waves in the world, and Cloud 9 floats on the reef with a wood-fired oven and a bar, reachable only by boat.

The traveller lands at Nadi, sleeps the first night at Denarau or on the Coral Coast, and takes the morning catamaran — the Malolo Cat, the Yasawa Flyer, South Sea Cruises — to one island for three or four nights, choosing by temperament: Malolo Lailai for the sailors and the walk to Plantation, Mana for the lagoon and the sandbank, Tokoriki or Matamanoa for the quiet, Castaway for children, Likuliku or Vomo for the bures over the water; takes the day trip that calls at Monuriki and the snorkel on the reef; drinks a beer on Cloud 9 with the feet in the water; visits a village on Malolo with a sevusevu of kava and a sulu around the waist; and, if the traveller surfs, sleeps on Namotu or Tavarua for Cloudbreak and Restaurants, open to all since the decree of 2010, or takes the boat out for a morning.

The Guide's honesty: the Mamanucas are resorts and boats and sun, and they do not pretend to be more — the traveller who wants the Fiji of villages and mountains goes to Viti Levu's interior or to Taveuni, and the traveller who wants the wilder islands keeps going north to the Yasawas; the wet season from November to April is hot and green with cyclones possible, and the dry season from May to October is when the postcards are taken; the resorts range from bunk-beds to a thousand dollars a night on the same island; ‘bula’ is the word that opens every door and it is meant; and the sandbank at Mana at low tide, white in the middle of a lagoon of six blues with the mountains of Viti Levu behind, is the Pacific exactly as it was promised.