EVEN before the tourism industry existed, the first cruise ship to call into Fiji in 1893 was Taveuni.
This is according to an article in The Fiji Times of October 1956.
“Thinking in terms of tourists and tourist cruises, one is inclined to think of stream-lined luxury yachts. Something a little like Stella Polaris — the luxury yacht that visited Suva in pre-war days,” The Fiji Times noted.
“Perhaps most people do not realise that Fiji’s first cruise ship was the Taveuni, which called here in 1893.”
In the late 1920s, just before the world depression hit in 1929, the shipping industry became a booming business.
Shipping companies had recuperated from the devastation of World War I and big ships were sailing the seas of the world.
The busiest sea lane was the North Atlantic, where emigrants were still crossing from the “old world” to the “new”.
In the mid-1920s, a new ship for the tourist trade was ordered.
She was to become a legend of the cruising industry, Stella Polaris, a former visitor to Suva port.
Another cruise ship, the Waikare, spent time here from June 18 to July 5 in 1902.
A photograph in the Auckland Weekly News newspaper of July 10, 1956 showed a number of very fashionable people standing under banana trees up the Tamavua River.
The plantation was owned by a Chinese man.
In those days, Fiji was able to export bananas to Australia.
In the same issue of the Auckland Weekly News, there was a photo of the Kaiora lying alongside the wharf in Suva.
The Kaiora is believed to have opened up Fiji’s inter-island service.
Mr Griffiths was the chief steward and he was the manager of the Grand Pacific Hotel.
According to The Fiji Times, two Union Steamship Company vessels were outstanding for their war services in Fiji waters during World War I — the Monowai and the Matua.
A plaque was placed in a prominent place inside the Matua to commemorate her services to Fiji and each member of the crew was given 10 pounds.
The plaque read: “Presented by the people of Fiji to record their appreciation of the splendid service maintained by this vessel in the dangerous days following the outbreak of war in the South Pacific”.
