As we entered the Ovalau Club on a wet Sunday afternoon dripping wet from the downpour it felt like we were stepping back in time. The warmth of the colonial wooden structure made the rain and the wet a distant memory.
Two men were huddled over a bottle of beer at a lone standing table near the landing while a balding elderly man was slowly sipping his mug at the corner of the main bar. From the looks of it, that was his preferred corner. Their eyes followed me as we headed straight for the bar.
We're on a mission and there is no time for chit chat. We're on the hunt for Count Felix Von Luckner, a German aristocrat and marauder of the high seas.
I went straight to the bartender, a well rounded woman by the name of Vitinia Colati who hails from Vanuabalavu. Straight away I knew we were on the right track.
Von Luckner's last known location in Fiji was Katafaga Island, an island off Vanuabalavu.
At the metion of the word 'letter' she ran straight to a backroom and came back with our prize. The framed letter has aged with time but it is readable enough for our investigations.
After all, we're running after Count Von Luckner 95 years after he had set foot on Katafaga and 46 years after his death.
The letter was a note Count Von Luckner left behind to thank William Hennings a fellow German who had settled in Fiji before the turn of the 19th century.
The Count was already legendary as a daring naval captain for the imperial German Navy and a gentleman officer during World War One, before he set foot on Fiji on September of 1917.
An avid follower of the Count's exploits is David Kirton, a Levuka based lawyer who probably owns the only copy, in Fiji, of the biography of the German during his exploits in the North Sea and later in the Pacific.
The book called 'The Sea Devil' was written by a Thomas Lovell and published in 1928, ten years after Count Von Luckner set foot in Fiji.
"One of the remarkable things about this man is that he never hurt anybody at any time when he was hostile towards the merchant ships of the Allied nations fighting against Germany in the First World War.
"This was the day of gentlemen warriors where people don't kill for no reason. Either he makes arrangements with his enemies to spare their lives or they die fighting but many chose the former," Kirton says.
The name 'Sea Devil' was given to him by the British and American navies who were hunting him in the North Sea after he had sunk 10 ships right under their noses.
The ship he commanded was called the Seeadler or 'Sea Eagle' in English, which was actually a captured American boat.
He slipped the trap that was set for him by the British Navy and entered the Pacific via the Cape of Good Hope. In the Pacific he sank another four ships which brings his war time total to 14 ships.
The humane ways he treated his enemies was reflective of him as a person.
One of the best examples was the letter I was holding in my hand. In the letter Count Von Luckner was thanking Mr Hennings for the use of food and supplies on Katafaga.
In the letter he was thanking Mr Hennings for the use of his house and also for the food, to which he left 11 shillings for a chicken and two shillings for the bananas. He went on to thank Mr Henning's caretaker, a man named Maciu. And he signed off with the name as Sir Max Pemberton, a popular novelist and historian who was also sailing the Pacific at that time.
"Mr Pemberton was a neutral man. He didn't support the war in Europe but any Englishman would have realised immediately that the note was not written by an Englishman," Kirton says.
Kirton also disputed popular beliefs that Count Von Luckner landed in Fiji from Tahiti, saying that Von Luckner was shipwrecked in Samoa.
"No he didn't. He wrecked his ship in the Samoan Islands.
"The wreck is certainly there. I don't know where they were sailing to but most probably the Dutch East Indies and some people say he was captured in Wakaya," Kirton said.
Standing at the Ovalau Club and looking across Totogo Creek, I see the old Police Station, most probably the place where Inspectors A.E.S Howard and J.C Hill set out on their way to Wakaya to capture Count Von Luckner.
"He was really disappointed that he was outwitted considering he fancied himself a man who has outwitted much more malicious and powerful ships and seamen. He was captured in Fiji by a small fishing boat without any guns."
The original Von Luckner letter that is currently residing in the Ovalau Club actually belongs to the Taylor family which was lent to the club by Annie Taylor.
"And its rumoured that one of the coins bent by Von Luckner's own fingers was given to the Taylor family but I haven't seen it and so I cannot say that it exists," Kirton said.
It could have been one of the coins Von Luckner left behind as payment for his holiday at Katafaga Island.
"I say he was a fascinating man. Some years ago I thought it would be wonderful if the Fiji film industry would make a film about him. A very colourful character but at the time he would probably be called a gentleman," Kirton says.
Count Von Luckner's adventures did not stop after he was caught in Fiji. In fact he tried to escape in New Zealand and later on in life he saved his town of Halle from US bombers in World War Two.
"He was a real man, nothing short of the ordinary man."
Count Von Luckner's grand nephew came to visit Fiji in the early 1970s and he gave the German ensign flag of his grand uncle, which currently hangs on the walls of the Ovalau Club. As we walked off into the rain, we were content that we had found our man. As we faded beneath the veil of the rain the men slowly went back to their beers. At least the letter is safe.