Central Division

The Central Division of Fiji wraps the south-eastern coast of Viti Levu, the country's largest island, with Suva the working capital on the southern shore at the head of Suva Harbour and the long Coral Coast running west along the southern shoreline toward Pacific Harbour and Sigatoka. Fiji sits in the South Pacific between Vanuatu to the west and Tonga to the east, and the country's coastline is dominated by fringing and barrier reefs that ring almost every island. The tide here is a moderate mixed semidiurnal signal: mean range at the Suva harbour gauge is about 1.0 metre, climbing past 1.4 metres on the largest spring tides and dropping near 0.5 on neaps. Two highs and two lows of unequal size each day, with the asymmetry varying through the lunar month. The Suva Harbour basin connects to the open Pacific through the narrow Suva passage between Nukulau Reef and the southern reef edge, and tidal currents through the passage run sharper than the height swing implies. The defining seasonal force is the cyclone calendar. The South Pacific cyclone season runs from November through April with peak activity from January through March; Cyclone Winston in February 2016 was the most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere with sustained winds exceeding 250 kilometres per hour, killing 44 people and reshaping the agricultural calendar of the Northern Division. The Coral Coast surf passes at Frigates, Wilkes, and Restaurants along the southern reef edge open up on certain tide stages and ring the reef shelf at low water for the working dive operations. The Suva fish market at the harbour reads the boat-return calendar for the inshore tuna and reef-fish fleet, and the inter-island ferry to Levuka on Ovalau and the Yasawa group reads the table for the Suva passage windows. The Fiji Meteorological Service publishes the authoritative tide tables.