Vatoa (pronounced ) (known as Turtle Island after Cook's visit) is an outlier of Fiji's Lau Group.

History

Vatoa was the only island of present-day Fiji visited by

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...

. The island was sighted on 2 July 1774. The next day, a Sunday, the Master and some of Cook's crew went ashore: Cook's chart shows the name Turtle Isle.

Geography

Vatoa has varied rainfall and is usually cool because of

trade winds The trade winds or easterlies are the permanent east-to-west prevailing winds that flow in the Earth's equatorial region. The trade winds blow mainly from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere and from the southeast in the Southern Hemisph ...

. The island has an area of and rises to more than

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

. It is composed wholly of

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

(Koroqara Limestone, Tokalau Limestone Group), probably

Late Miocene The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene epoch (geology), Epoch made up of two faunal stage, stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from 11.63 Ma (million ye ...

in age. A single village has a population around 300. Interesting old fortifications occupy the highest part of the island.

Government

Viliame Naupoto, a noted son of Vatoa, is currently Commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces. He once served as Director of Immigration and Deputy Commander of the

Republic of Fiji Navy The Fijian Navy was created when Fiji ratified the recently created United Nations Convention on Laws of the Sea. The Convention established that maritime nation had an Exclusive Economic Zone of 200 kilometres, which extended Fiji's waters twe ...

Shipwrecks of Vatoa and associated reef Vuata Vatoa

Vatoa and its associated reef, Vuata Vatoa, have a surprising number of shipwrecks, given the closest island to the north is and to the south is , but Vatoa with an elevation of only can easily be missed. Some of the wrecks are listed below: *1825: Oeno, Whale ship, Vuata Vatoa *1840: Shylock, Whaler, Vuata Vatoa *1942: SS Thomas A. Edison, Cargo ship, Vuata Vatoa * 1943: USS Grebe, Minesweeper, Vuata Vatoa * 1962: Ragna Ringdal, Cargo ship, Vatoa

References

External links

Islands of Fiji Lau Islands {{Fiji-geo-stub