Fiji wasn't meant to be like this ...

Our dream finally went sour 80km south of Fiji. What began as a daring bid to take a 20m, high-speed ferry across the South Pacific from Whangarei to Lautoka ended with a middle-of-the-night rescue in heaving seas.

The three days between were punctuated by equipment failures, growing anxiety as fuel dwindled to a few litres, and a terrifying night-time fire.

Herald photographer Glenn Jeffrey and I were the guests of Dan Costello, who was taking the Wanganui-built catamaran LagiLagi back to Fiji to become the flagship of his tourism business. In the process, he planned to break the 45-hour record for the voyage.

As we hit the open sea outside Whangarei Harbour, it became obvious it wasn't going to be easy.

The weather map showed isobars tightly packed around a big high to the north, and associated brisk easterlies whipped up a cresting 5m beam sea.

The LagiLagi, a hydrofoil-assisted cat drawing a mere 600mm at its 28-knot cruising speed, was knocked off course each time a swell hit. Rather than tracking straight and true, we corkscrewed our way north.

On a normal short-haul trip, that would have been no problem. But it was a fatal blow to our record bid: we would cover 20 to 30 per cent more ocean.

And there was a bigger problem. The LagiLagi's tanks held 7000 litres of diesel and the vessel used about 280 litres an hour at cruising speed - enough for 25 hours.

To give it enough fuel to get to Fiji, a further 10,000 litres were installed in two American-made polythene bladders moun-ted in a plywood frame on the lower deck.

Our crew of 12 soon grew to hate and fear these giant waterbed clones. The tonnes of fuel inside them sloshed from side to side as the LagiLagi rolled with the swells, putting what seemed like unbearable pressure on the fittings.

We mounted a round-the-clock watch and the fittings held until we could pump the fuel into the main tanks. But none of us had noticed a small screw sitting slightly proud of the plywood frame. It punctured one of the bladders and 100 to 200 litres of diesel leaked into the engine room and bilges.

No real danger, but what a stink, and we weren't even past North Cape. To make matters worse, the steering was misbehaving and keeping the boat on course was akin to a wrestling match.

A day later our fresh water gave out and the generator powering the radios died. On our second night, water leaked through a faulty hatch on to some electrics, causing an explosion and a small fire just before dawn.

We woke in terror, choking in a mix of smoke and carbon dioxide from the fire extinguishers.

If the 66-year-old Costello was beginning to have doubts about his new baby, he wasn't letting on, not in public anyway.

"I hope you're enjoying the trip. It's an experience isn't it?" It certainly is, Dan, thanks.

There seemed to be an unwritten rule that no one would take the mood down, despite our difficulties, but hushed whispers between Costello and skipper Mesake Senibua hinted that all was not well.

Mesake, a Fijian blue-water skipper recruited for the trip, wasn't giving anything away. Questions were answered with a disarming smile and a thumbs-up.

Costello, too, was being inscrutable. The only clue was that he didn't seem to be sleeping much.

Born in Fiji to Irish-Australian parents, Costello blends the charm of the Irish with the dignity of a Fijian aristocrat.

The face is Irish - thick hair and a fine beard, now turned silver, frame Celtic grey-blue eyes. But the body is chiefly - all 114kg of it.

I asked him about his rank in Fiji's complex hierarchy. "I carry a lot of weight around here," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "In fact I carry a lot of weight everywhere."

He was joking, but Costello is a legend in Fiji, and pioneered its main income-earner, tourism. His family came to Fiji from Australia in the wild 20s and built up a multi-million-dollar fortune through gold mining, cattle ranching, pubs, butchery, fishing, shipping and tourism.

For many years cattle were the mainstay of their fortune. (In Nadi after the voyage, I asked a hotel manageress if she knew Costello: "Oh, Ratu Bulumakau - that means King of the Cows," she explained.)

The staunchly Catholic Dan and his wife Annette, who was also part of our crew, now own the Beachcomber resort - a 2.4ha patch of sand known worldwide as a swinging singles destination.

It was named as one of the world's top five pick-up joints by Playboy magazine a few years ago. Dan complained, but you'd have to suspect that was more for form's sake. Before the present political troubles, swinging singles from all over the world gave it a 98 per cent year-round occupancy.

He's coy about the resort's reputation: "The young people seem to have fun." Annette is more forthcoming. "Sometimes I sneak down at midnight and boogie with them."

Although he's past retirement age and reputed to be extremely wealthy, Costello isn't about to retire. The LagiLagi is a bold gamble, a high-speed day boat which will open up Fiji's northern island, Vanua Levu.

But Vanua Levu is a George Speight stronghold and the scene of some of the worst racial hostility of the crisis.

So Costello has a lot on his mind. Beachcomber, like most Fijian destinations, is almost empty - 32 rather than 150 guests - his new business venture is clouded by racial turmoil, and to cap it all he's floundering along at sea in a far from fully functional boat.

But it doesn't seem to worry him unduly. On the coup: "Things will settle down. The tourists will come back." On the LagiLagi: "She's a good, strong boat, with some minor problems. But we chose a New Zealand builder (Q-West) because Kiwis have integrity. They stand by their products."

We're now 65 hours out from Auckland, about 20 hours over schedule and skipper Mesake is consulting his calculator half-hourly.

I catch sight of the figures over his shoulder and the truth is apparent. Fuel is critically low and we aren't going to make it. And we don't have radio contact. Enter Roly Cliffe, an avocado farmer from Whangarei who's along for the ride.

With that legendary Kiwi ingenuity, he hotwires the radio. A crackling voice from Lautoka is incredibly reassuring and Costello arranges for the Tui Tai, a 60ft schooner he owns, to load up with diesel and meet us out at sea.

But almost before that critical matter has been arranged, Costello is asking Lautoka for information on the crisis.

"What? Good, good. Australia, the US, and Japan? That's good."

It seems those countries have relaxed their travel advisory warnings. "And what about New Zealand?" Costello asks. The news isn't good, and oddly I feel responsible. But Costello smiles and contents himself with a joke against Helen Clark.

It's now critical to conserve enough fuel so the engines are working and can give us steerage when the Tui Tai comes alongside.

Costello keeps in radio contact with the schooner, skippered by his son John. Outside, the wind seems to be rising and to the west, gusts of 50 knots are reported on Conway Reef.

After six agonising hours, the Tui Tai radios to say they have radar contact. Fifteen minutes later we see lights on the horizon.

It takes a further 30 minutes for the Tui Tai to swing round and get ahead of us in a 5m following sea. Plans are quickly laid for what will be the most dangerous thing most of us have done.

The Tui Tai is now 8m away and a tow rope is thrown over, but Mesake misses it. He grabs it at the second attempt.

But the LagiLagi's heaving bulk is too much and the rope parts with a pistol-shot crack, whipping back into the Tui Tai's stern, thankfully missing everyone.

A second, thicker rope holds, and the fuel line is run through the bow door down to the fuel-fillers amidships.

If the tow line breaks again, the fuel line with its 10kg brass nozzle will whip through the cabin with enough force to take off a leg.

An adrenalin-soaked 75 minutes follow. On the bridge, Costello's cruise skipper Ned Hill wrestles with the throttles to ease the tension on the tow rope as the two boats pitch and toss.

On the Tui Tai, John Costello does the same. The tension is white hot, but slowly, agonisingly slowly, the fuel tanks fill.

Costello relays Hill's fears to the lower deck: "We can't keep this up much longer." But it's five more long minutes until ship's engineer Harry Swann yells: "Stop pumping!"

It's over, we're safe. Hill guns the throttles and all four engines roar into life as we head for home.

Once inside the calm waters of Fiji's protective barrier reef the LagiLagi tracks straight and true at 30 knots.

A day later we're on Beachcomber for the boat's official welcome. Hill brings the boat out from Lautoka, and carves out some fancy manoeuvres on the flat calm sea off Beachcomber.

We sip kava in a simple but dignified beach-front ceremony attended by the military, Indian and European businessmen, and high-ranking Fijians.

A Canadian girl in a pink bikini stands ankle-deep in the sea admiring the boat's sleek lines.

That advertising slogan: "Fiji, the way the world should be" drifts into my mind.

In these sheltered waters at this moment, it still seems to ring true.