Mysterious tales and legends haunt the multitude of islands in the South Pacific. Uncharted destinations rarely sought by travelers. No island has been more shrouded in foreboding intrigue than Makoako Island. Come gather round and heed my warning.
That’s how the backstory for the Lava Flow Inn begins. It’s a detailed yarn that begins with Captain Redgrave and his nefarious crew raiding a Spanish Galleon and absconding some treasure. The pirates end up shipwrecked on Makoako Island sometime in the 1700s. After a single marauder escapes on a rowboat from a chieftain’s curse during a volcanic eruption, the story fast forwards to a party of early twentieth-century explorers. They seek the pirate’s treasure on the fabled island only to find a distasteful demise. The final chapter finds Matt with his wife Patty stumbling into a Tiki hut deep in a jungle and finding an explorer’s skeleton clutching a map of hidden treasure.
Read the rest of the story in Polynesiacs: Tiki at Home, page 20.
The Lava-Flow-Inn, La Mesa, California
