Where better to celebrate World Oceans Day than at this luxury Fijian resort, where Scuba inventor Jacques Cousteau’s son works with its owners through his Ocean Futures Society
“Bula!” The Fijian greeting is the first thing I hear as my car pulls up to the entrance of the Jean-Michel Cousteau Resort. A woven necklace is placed around my neck and a fruity drink pressed into my hand as a guitar serenade starts up. “Welcome home.”
Check into enough resorts and it might be easy for such receptions to feel run-of-the-mill – but there’s something in the wideness of my welcoming committee’s smiles that has me smiling back at the genuine warmth.
“Bula” is the standard Fijian greeting, literally meaning “life” or “good health”. It’s a word I hear hundreds of times during my stay. The phrase I hear almost as much? “Fiji time” – referring to the laid-back, unhurried pace of island life.
And, indeed, as I’m shown to my accommodation for the week – one of 25 bures, or wood-and-straw cottages, sitting on the resort’s seven hectares facing the South Pacific – I can already feel my worries melting away. It’s simply impossible to get stressed out while surrounded by birdsong and the lapping of the waves, with my biggest decision of the day being whether I want to go on a snorkelling trip or lounge by the pool.
