Mago Island Tour Reports by Hein and Eltjo Mante

Mago Island Tour
September 29, 2009 by Hein Mante

Do you like the movies? You will now find out about an island in Fiji owned by a Hollywood movie star. The island, which he owns is called Mago Island.

Yesterday the caretaker, Martin, gave us an exclusive tour of the island. Martin showed and told us (Mom, Dad, Jet, Eltjo and me) many cool and interesting things. To make a long story short, I will just tell you three of my favorite things that I learned.

 

Martin showing us tiny little shells on the high tide line

My first favorite thing to learn about is the Strangler Vine. The Strangler Vine seeds are carried around by pigeons, because they eat the vine’s berries. When the pigeons do their droppings in the tree, the seeds start to grow and attach themselves to the tree. Meanwhile the roots grow inside the tree. The vine grows bigger and bigger until it starts to strangle the tree. Once the original tree is strangled the vine itself becomes the tree. The Strangler Vine’s real name is the Strangler Fig.

 

A strangler Fig attacking its host tree.

 

Another attacking Strangler Fig.

Second, Martin also showed us the place where the islanders take care of metal (I don’t know how the place is called so I’ll just call it the metal dump). The islanders find a lot of metal stuff. They find from pick axes, that the early British explorers used, to cars and generators.  They take care of the metal by hammering on it. That is done to look whether it can be reused or to break it into small – harmless to the environment – pieces.

 

An old metal truck in the area being cleaned.

 

Watching some metal brazing in the workshop

 

Martin testing the new hot shower that we saw being finished in the workshop.

The last thing is the life on the island. There are a lot of people, who are making houses, roads, pig sheds and many more things. The people of the island are only allowed very limited fishing. The animals are protected, that is why fishing is limited. It is unusual, but the owner of this island also owns the fishing rights for the reef around it. Hence, the reef is also protected. The movie star also owns a plane on the island and if anyone is very sick this plane will fly them out to a hospital. The plane will also pick up sick people from the surrounding islands. The plane flies out from an airstrip that the islanders have built. For all this hard work they get paid 3 Fijian dollars an hour (which is equal to 1½ US dollars). However this is above the average labor rate in Fiji.

 

The pool we swam in.

 

Martin and Rima's house where we had our farewell dinner.

In the afternoon we returned to Bravado. In the evening Martin and Rima invited us for a farewell dinner. We first swam in the pool and then we had a lovely dinner at Martin's house. Martin and Rima, if you ever read this, thank you very much for having us. I loved and enjoyed my tour.

Hein


Seeing Mago Island
by Eltjo Mante

 

A floating bungalow Martin designed for use on the Lagoon.

We went from Bravado to the shore in The Peerys (our dinghy). Martin was waiting for us hat the shore in his truck. We all went in and drove up the hill. In the mean time Martin showed us the workshop and where a new house would be built. Martin told Dad to pick some leaves, we folded them and they smelled deliciously.

When we drove further, Martin pointed out where they were growing coffee. There were sticks coming out of the ground with a plant next to it. The coffee plant had green leaves and red berries. Inside the berries were the coffee beans.

 

An old octagonal watertank converted to a beach home for one of the caretakers.

Then Martin showed us the bay on the other side of the island. We stood looking at it from the top of a hill. We saw another very small island within Mago Island’s reef. This was called Edward Island.

 

Martin, us, and Edward Island just visible in between Jet and Hein's heads.

In the distance we saw another bigger island and Martin told us an interesting story about that island. It was owned by a man, who married a Fijian woman from a nearby island. The man was very cruel to his wife and beat her. One day she had enough and she swam all the way back to her own village on the other island, a distance of at least 15 miles. She arrived exhausted and barely alive. Her people nursed her back to health. When she was fully recovered and strong again, they brought her back to her husband and said: You belong to him now, you stay there.

In the middle of the island there was a village. In the village there was a huge tree, which was made into a Christmas tree. It had a lot of branches and the decorations on the branches were mooring balls painted in different colours. I really liked it.

Painted Mooring balls decorating the Christmas Tree

Thank you for inviting us to tour the island and dinner afterwards. I liked seeing how good ideas and lots of work can make an island beautiful!

Eltjo