Fishing with a prince
It’s not every day that one gets to swim and fish with a member of the British royal family. But in 1974 Prince Charles went on his second fish drive in Fiji with villagers from Beqa Island. This was reported in The Fiji Times on Wednesday, February 13, 1974.
Unlike the dismal, rain-sodden occasion near Leleuvia Island in 1970, when he had his first experience of traditional Fijian fish drive, the one with 100 islanders in the Beqa Lagoon was a huge success.
The Prince and his shipmates from the Royal Navy frigate, Jupiter, plunged overboard from boats to help a chanting, yelling throng of islanders to herd hundreds of pounds of vividly coloured coral fish into a net.
The Deputy Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, clad in goggles and swimming trunks, and Adi Lady Lala Mara, wife of the Prime Minister, joined in the action.
Prince Charles, wearing a face mask, constantly ducked underwater to watch the fleeing fish as he helped to haul in the hundreds of yards of vine used to drive them in the direction of the net.
Scores of sailors from Jupiter jumped from their boats to lend a hand, and then with Prince Charles they clambered into one of Beqa’s big punts to examine the catch after it had been dragged out of the lagoon.
The cheerful informality of the fish drive ended a sevenhour call at Beqa by Jupiter, in which the prince served as a radio officer. Earlier, at Rukua Village, home of Beqa firewalkers, the formality of welcoming ceremonies quickly gave way to relaxation.
A squad of island guitarists struck up with some lunch hour music in the vakatunuloa (shelter). Village girls quickly grabbed Prince Charles and hustled him around in the shuffling steps of the taralala.
Islanders were puzzled by the welcoming ceremonies which were directed at Jupiter’s captain, Commander John Gunning, and not the Prince, who sat with him in the vakatunuloa.
Their leaders explained to them that because the 2300-tonne frigate’s crew was being welcomed, Commander Gunning, as the senior officer, was correctly the person to whom the welcome should be addressed.
After the presentation of the tabua, yaqona, mats and food, and then meke by Beqa’s schoolchildren, Jupiter’s crew including the prince walked from the village to a nearby beach where Rukua men gave a firewalking demonstration.
Jupiter, which had sailed from Suva at 7am dropped anchor in Beqa Lagoon about half mile off the village at 9am.
About half the frigate crew members went ashore with Prince Charles.
The British High Commissioner, John Williams, and his wife also travelled to Beqa aboard Jupiter with Ratu Sir Penaia.
Adi Lady Lala had gone to the island earlier to help with welcoming arrangements.