Yanuca Island

Yanuca Island sits at the eastern edge of the Coral Coast, connected to Viti Levu by a short causeway that means you can drive onto it without ever noticing you’ve left the mainland, which is part of what makes it a strange little pocket of geography. It’s small enough to circle on foot in under an hour, ringed by a fringing reef that’s shallow and swimmable at most tide levels, and quieter than its position — right at the doorstep of one of the coast’s biggest resort complexes — would suggest.

I came for the reef and stayed for the walk around the island’s perimeter, a rough path that alternates between low volcanic rock shelves and short stretches of sand, with views back toward the mainland hills and out toward the open channel where the swell builds before it hits the reef. At low tide you can wade a surprising distance out over the exposed reef flat, stepping carefully around clusters of black sea urchins and watching small reef fish dart between coral heads in water barely deep enough to cover your ankles. Lia found a blue starfish wedged in a tide pool and we spent a longer time than either of us would admit just watching it not move.

There’s a small village on the island’s landward side, and a handful of fishermen who work the reef passage with hand lines from small aluminum boats — we watched one haul in a trevally just as the light started going gold, and he held it up for us with the unbothered pride of someone who does this daily and still enjoys an audience. The snorkeling off the northern point, where the reef drops into deeper water, was the best we found on this stretch of coast, with better coral cover and more fish life than the more heavily trafficked spots further along.

When to go: Any time from May to October for calm water and good snorkeling visibility. Check tide tables before walking the reef flat — low tide opens up far more of the island to explore on foot.