Kaibu Island Fiji

Fiji's luxurious Vatuvara Islands

I am beaten in a rigid competition by a two-storey snus pie, which is frozen and strewn with gold-toasted grated chocolate and fimbripani beans. Just three of these huge mansions are located on the coast of Kaibu, a secluded island in the untouched Lau-Archipel in the far eastern part of Fiji. Whoever owns it is, like his island, very personal.

Beverages are provided on the resort's beaches. So without problems with the money and with the quest to spent a few days a year with his feet in the sands and his mind in a coctail of coconuts, the California businessman combed Fiji. And in 2010, he purchased a couple of riffin' isles in the East:

Kaibu, a 324 hectare stretch of ground on which the US fiberglass typcoon Jay Johnson had previously built a humble, tranquil sanctuary, and the neighboring Vatuvara, which is about the same sized, littered with coir trees and overlooked by an ascending mountaintop that resembles a monkshood. Jannard's next move was to get the Australians Rob and Lynda Miller, an American, to construct a remote sanctuary and operate it during the few seasons when he did not enjoy its beauty.

Millers managed the Wakaya Club and Spa, which many ('Gourmet Traveller', who presented it back in January 2006) regarded as the most prestigious island spa in the South Pacific. It seems that Keith Richards fell out of one of the resort's palm groves in 2006. "We had to keep the guestbook hidden a few times," Rob says when we met for a dinner of salads mainly picked from the island's biological vegetable-gardens.

A characteristic luncheon with uncooked seafood served in marinaded chocolate and almonds. They were interested in a new, smaller property after 28 years in the bigger (though still boutique) Wakaya Estate, with its 10 bureaus and spacious mansion. It was the goal to lure a similar audience into a quieter and more isolated islandylle.

Lau-Archipel is thinly settled; the nearest holiday island is Laucala, belonging to Red Bulls Dietrich Mateschitz, 60 kilometers northern. "The views from Delana, one of the resort's three mansions. In 2010 the pair went to the unoccupied Kaibu with a marquee, a power generating unit and a fistful of people.

"Lynda recalls the early years of the resort's change by looking at the island like a big back yard. Educating village people from a neighboring island in joinery, horticulture and building to help them, they engaged Fiji architect to refurbish and modernize the classical Fiji look of the current residence. On the ridge of the island lies Delana, which is with 450 sq. m. the biggest and most impressing of the three mansions.

I can see Delana's own bay from the swimming terrace, where a shelf with standing paddle boards is surrounded by a life-size chess board and a cabin with adjacent double hammocks. In the interior of Delana, the shine of the sunny side is subdued by the cooling of rock and hard wood with black lacquer. You will find swimming pool, sea view patios for courses in Pilates or Yogic, jet stones, outside shower and boundless cocktail and snack options.

If you can't (or don't want to) relax, there is high-speed WiFi everywhere on the island - from every single hammock and on every single one. Delana facing lounge. The trays in each mansion are filled with empty island play lists, and there is a straight line to personnel if the guest needs a cushion or cooler.

An excellent tomorrow could be a trip to the Houdini 11-metre fast Naiad Island with a few standing paddle boards in the water. There would be no irrational or uncommon plea to be lowered for a few long periods at low tide on one of the powdered shores of the water.

Inkblue crawfish with muscly tongs scamper up the trails in front of us to avoid the catch (as a shelter they don't need to worry). We have two places to eat on the island, not including your mansion. Here you can tap the top of a young chocolate cake and sip on its waters and have a cosy breakfast - smouldered lox with pickled egg and home-made chili preserves, perhaps, or warm donuts and home-made caffee.

Situated back from the shore, on a ridge on the way to Delana, there is a more informal eating pavillion with bars and lounges, called Valhalla. We' ll begin an afternoon of gingeritas and roast grated coconuts at the village of Ayoli. A tuna shashimi, Hummercuri, and barbecued opaque kapaka - a deep-sea rose snappers - are followed by banana-caramel soufflés and a sip of whiskey from the island's 300-bottle supply.

Last February's latest cycle was the most wild in Fiji's history: a Class 5 incident called Winston. At Vatuvara Résort the damages were huge, though less fatal. He remembers walking to the resort's grand pavillion after the top of his home was blown away. "and coco palm trees ripped from the sands.

It' s difficult to see a face in Fiji without a smiling face, whether they're wrestling with shrimps or agree that it would be a good thing to conjure up a second one.