Lifestyle I
Pacific Time
WORDS: ANNABELLE SPRANKLEN | IMAGES: MATT CRAWFORD
In Fiji, “Bula” means “hello” but it also means “life”. Fiji is somewhere that manages to ignite every sense, reminding you that you are indeed alive. Its golden beaches, green hills rising from coral-rich, fish-filled waters, dense jungles and gentle banks are a siren’s call to the world’s most powerful pleasure-seekers, luring them to this string of 333 islands bathing in the South Pacific Ocean. It is a slice of heaven on earth, where ‘Fiji time’ prevails, persuading those who come to revel in
all its beauty.
“It’s a place that gets under your skin and sometimes it simply takes my breath away. I can just spend the day smiling because it’s so beautiful at every turn,” says Linda Berry, founder of The Superyacht Gathering, who splits her time between Fiji and Auckland.
Sunny, unique and unspoiled, Fiji lies just south of the equator, about 4,450km southwest of Honolulu and 1,770km north of New Zealand. A little more than half of Fiji’s 900,000 people are Indigenous, or iTaukei, and nearly 40 percent are ethnically Indian, descended from indentured labourers brought to work on sugar plantations during the British
colonial rule.
The Fijian people are naturally some of the happiest people I’ve ever met,” says Berry. “If you stay in a resort or in one of the marinas you think it’s just for the tourists but when you actually get out to the villages, you realise it’s everyone. When I drive from my township to the grocery store, everyone yells ‘Bula!’ They are naturally so friendly, it’s infectious.”
A life-long sailor, Berry has spent three decades working within the Superyacht community in the South Pacific, including working for Southern Spars, Alloy Yachts, the NZ Marine Industry Association and running her own marine marketing company, before launching The Superyacht Gathering in 2019, an organisation that runs intimate events to connect and highlight the philanthropic and altruistic actions of Superyacht owners and industry leaders.
“I was in Australia for a typical industry conference about policy and government legislation. I’d just come off the back of seven years as Marketing Director and so I’d met all these fantastic Superyacht owners who were doing amazing things that you just don’t hear about.”
Berry continues. “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we had an event that had a purpose, that told personal stories and would inspire others in the industry to be active and do different things’.”
In late August this year, Fiji once again became host to the Superyacht Gathering, as well as Berry’s latest venture, The South Pacific Superyacht Rendezvous. Berry is adamant that sailors who haven’t visited this Edenic paradise are missing out. “To be able to sit in a bay and be the only boat, there just aren’t many opportunities in the world to do that anymore.”
Part of Berry’s task is to lure Superyacht owners away from “the milk run” of the Mediterranean or Caribbean and to the South Pacific. “Don’t get me wrong, I love Monaco, I love that sort of camaraderie, but I hate the show pony side. The people who come to places like Fiji don’t need that, they have a love of the sea, a love of culture, a love of diving and nature and so they don’t need to be seen.”
It’s true; coming here is all about immersing head-first into the wild, visiting the spectacular beaches and some of the remote, pristine northern islands with their craggy peaks and secret coves. There are the reefs at Vanua Baluva Island, where parrotfish and Picasso triggerfish burst all around like confetti, a chance to snorkel nose-to-gill with manta rays, or surfing at the world-famous Cloudbreak, three miles south of Namotu Island. “The diving in Fiji is second to none,” says Berry. She adds, “Some of our coral reefs are number one in the world – this is a
sea-lovers’ dream.”
A big part of Berry’s events are about experience, whether it’s a wine tasting, visiting a local village for a ceremonial Kava (made from the crushed root of the yaqon) or learning about druas, traditional Polynesian canoes, from a professor at the University of Fiji. Bringing interesting people with an environmental interest to speak is also key, as well as keeping numbers low so guests actually get to know each other.
Past speakers at Gathering events have included Captain and altruism officer James Knowles, who talked about fulfilling his employer’s mandate that benevolent uses should be found for Fly fleet assets when not in guest mode, such as providing cyclone relief to the Pacific after Cyclone Pam hit in 2015, and Patrick Whetter of the humanitarian agency SeaMercy, which runs floating health clinics and the SeaBridge disaster recovery programme.
Another guest of Berry’s was Jayden Klinac, the founder of For The Better Good, which turns vegetable plants into drinking bottles. “An Australian Superyacht owner was so intrigued by his talk that he asked if he could start investing in it,” Berry says. “Not that he did, Klinac didn’t want overseas investors but it sparked interest and an idea. That’s what it’s all about, it’s not about pitching your thing and getting money. It’s about inspiring an idea. If you’ve got people who are icons, stars of the industry that are saying, ‘Hey, we are really worried about this,’ then the guys who are sitting beside them are taking note too.”
Fiji is also benefiting from Superyacht tourism. “The great thing about the Superyachts coming out here is that they bring value and opportunity to the outskirts,” says Berry, who explains that yacht agents have been working hard to get the Fijian government to see the value of the Superyacht industry, which is understandable. According to a report in 2021 by Fiji Yachting Study, the average spend of individual Superyachts visiting Fiji between 2010-2019 was €100,000, a significant boost to the local economy.
Berry hopes her events will also teach young Fijians about possible careers in the Superyachting world and is beginning to work with local sailing clubs to bring crew over to talk about their jobs. “I want these kids to see that they can be an engineer, a marine biologist or a stewardess, not just a racing sailor. They don’t always realise that there are these kinds of opportunities for them. If the people of Fiji can travel the world from here on a boat and bring those ideas and thoughts back, that could spark so many possibilities.”
