ties like an afternoon of snorkeling, a full day of deep sea fishing, a private dinner for two at Vonu Point or a sunrise horseback ride with breakfast on the beach. She even suggests, perhaps, when to plan nothing at all … and just like Tinker Bell, she scatters hibiscus flowers like pixie dust in her wake. By the end of the week, we considered her family and would have loved to take her, and any number of the staff home with us to show them our world and share a slice of the mountains with them, just as they had shared their island paradise and culture with us. Turtle Island came about as an exclusive tropical resort almost by accident. It all started with Harvard Business School graduate Richard Evanson, an entrepreneur on the fast track to success who made his fortune in cable television. In 1972, Evanson was burnt out from the pressures of corporate life and took a hiatus from his business dealings to search for an escape from the world he had created in America. He found it in the Fiji Islands. He purchased Nanuya Levu, a 500acre barren, uninhabited island in the Yasawa Islands and the rest, as they say, is history. Shortly after purchasing Nanuya Levu, Evanson was approached by film producers who had searched the world for the perfect location to stage their remake of “The Blue Lagoon” starring Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins. They wanted to use his island 132 sunvalleymag.com | 40th anniversary issue
to film the movie. Evanson agreed and, after realizing how much he enjoyed having people on the island who appreciated its beauty as much as he did, he decided to open the property to guests in 1980 and Nanuya Levu was renamed Turtle Island. Turtle Island is not just about the pristine white sand beaches, the perfect temperature (a constant 80º to 86º F) or the clear azure waters teeming with fish dropped like coins through sunlight. There is no denying the breathtaking and postcard perfect beauty of the islands of the Republic of Fiji—a string of 333 ancient volcanic islands and lagoons carved from lava and coral and scattered across 20,000 square miles of the sparkling blue South Pacific. And the Yasawan Island group, arcing north up the western coast of Fiji, of which Turtle Island is a part, is one of the most remote and untouched of all the islands—with land-based tourism activities restricted until as recently as 1987, when a governmentsponsored ecotourism startup fund promoted responsible and sustainable travel (and Turtle Island is the proud recipient of more than six international ecotourism awards for their solar power, five-acre vegetable and herb garden and a reforestation program that has seen the planting of over 500,000 trees over the last 40 years). The island has also been called the most
THIS PAGE (clockwise) Devil’s Beach (top left) is just one of 14 private beaches on Turtle Island; The warmth and joy of the Turtle Island family (the staff) elevate the experience beyond any other resort; Private dine-outs or beach picnics are an indulgent luxury.
intimate and romantic private island destination in the world. And with only 14 bures, along with 14 pristine powdery white sand beaches scattered around the 500-acre island, privacy is all but guaranteed. Reserve your own private beach and your bure mama delivers you to it with a picnic of lobster and champagne. There are no rules and no schedule, the day is yours to unfold as you wish and how you wish. And the experience of Turtle Island is not just about the fact that every single member of the staff is smiling and laughing and happy to meet your every single