Immigration at Lautoka

As Jordan and I had to fly back to Canada for a week, we had to visit the Immigration authorities in Lautoka Fiji, a small town close to the Vuda Point Marina where we were moored. The Fijian airlines will not let anyone fly into Fiji without a booked flight out of Fiji, or some other method of leaving Fiji, unless you are a resident. So on our attempted return, we would be denied entry unless we procured certain paperwork from Immigration before we left Fiji.

It necessitated us to first go to the Marina office where they gave us a letter stating that our boat was in the Marina, thereby proving that we have a boat to return to with plans to sail out of Fiji in the next month or two. Next, we went to Immigration in Lautoka and presented the letter from the Marina. Immigration also typed up a letter that vaguely re-stated the same information as the Marina.

So now we were set. When we return to Fiji after our upcoming trip to Canada, we should just have to present the two letters to the airline officials at the airport to get back into Fiji and to our boat, Sea Turtle.

(We have flown home to Canada from several countries that we visited in the past, including Ecuador and New Zealand, and never had a problem returning back into the country where we were anchored. This is the first time that we have had to have proof that we had plans to leave the country after our return.)