It's the quintessential fantasy: to escape to your very own tropical island.
For most of us, it's an unattainable dream, except a fortunate few such as Canberra-based business owners Alex and Suzie Hoitnik.
In 2018, they bought Mamasa, a private island to the north of Vanuatu that is only accessible by boat.
The fantasy was Alex's first.
As a young boy, he visited Fiji with his uncle, coming face-to-face with tropical landscapes that he had only seen on TV shows such as Gilligan's Island.
"It was at that point that it planted the seed that, one day, I'd like to own my own island. And I sort of never really let go of that," he said.
For decades after that moment, Alex would look up islands for sale online, imagining life in his very own pocket of the Pacific.
Finances were one obstacle.
Usually the domain of celebrities and the super-rich, most Pacific islands come with a multi-million-dollar price tag.
"We had been looking in Fiji, and that is completely out of our ballpark price range," Suzie said.
"But Vanuatu is really quite still undiscovered. And so, for us, it was a shock to realise it was within our reach."
The Canberra couple — who sold their healthcare business in 2017 — wouldn't say exactly how much the island cost them, but did say it was "under $5 million".
Despite the vast amounts of money traded on the island market, and the hundreds of Pacific islands currently for sale, it can be a highly secretive industry.
In fact, privacy is often the main drawcard for those wanting to invest in the far-flung real estate.
However, behind the glamour of island ownership, there are risks and controversies, particularly when it comes to the rights of Indigenous Pacific Islanders over this land.
'A crazy journey'
Despite Alex's longing to buy an island, his wife Suzie saw it as a "pipedream" that was just a "bit of fun" to fantasise about.
However, one day, during a holiday to Vanuatu, Alex was scrolling through island listings on his phone — as he usually did — and suddenly stopped on one, exclaiming to Suzie "I found it!"
"'You are a lunatic'," Suzie said. "It's this 300-acre island. It's in the middle of nowhere, got nothing on it."
However, willing to indulge her husband's fantasy, she grabbed the phone and found a smaller island nearby that had a house on it.
That compromise set in motion "a crazy journey", culminating in the couple inspecting the island in a small banana boat with the local realtor.
"As we were pulling up, I'm just looking down — you can see to the bottom of the sea floor, and there's turtles, there's beautiful tropical fish. It's just crystal clear," Alex said.
Suzie and Alex had found the island of their dreams.
'Bargains' leave buyers with nothing to show
Now, all they had to do was tell the accountant.
"We sat down, we said, 'We're going to buy an island'," Suzie recalled.
"And he was just like, 'No, you're not, no'."
The accountant went on to list the challenges facing the couple, from not knowing ni-Vanuatu culture, to the risks of buying property overseas.
Warren Moore — a real estate agent in Vanuatu who sold Alex and Suzie the island — said the accountant was right to be cautious.
"Too often, I have seen people who think they have purchased a 'bargain' and they have no documentation and no title," he said.
"They think they have saved money by avoiding an agent and, in many cases, have lost all that they have paid and have nothing to show for it."
'Indigenous dispossession' a concern
Many Pacific countries have introduced regulations to control the sale of Indigenous land to foreigners.
These include strict "titles" over the land, which — rather than conferring ownership — allow foreigners to lease the land from traditional owners (usually chiefs or villages) for a set period of time.
In Vanuatu, leases are granted for up to 75 years. In Fiji, it's often 99 years.
"It's important to understand that [customary landowners] have never lost their land, as all titles are leasehold," Mr Moore said of Vanuatu's laws.
"Provided that the purchasers respect the people — and respect and look after and improve the property and pay their land rent — then the Indigenous 'kastom' (custom) owners are happy with the situation."
Despite the regulations, some Indigenous Pacific Islanders say the laws don't go far enough.
In Vanuatu, about 10 per cent of Indigenous land is under lease, with rates particularly high in cities, where almost half of all land is no longer under Indigenous control.
The country's Minister for Climate Change and former lands minister, Ralph Regenvanu, recently co-authored a research paper, suggesting more protections were needed to ensure Indigenous, or kastom, land wasn't sold off to foreigners.
"Leasing customary land, particularly where it results in the eviction of the Indigenous population — as is increasingly happening in Vanuatu — has profound implications," Mr Regenvanu wrote with his co-author Siobhan McDonnell from the Australian National University.
"It is concerning that issues of large-scale land leasing and Indigenous dispossession have occurred in post-colonial Indigenous-governed states, including Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea."
Fijian historian Tarisi Vunidilo says private islands can alienate generations of Indigenous people from their homeland.
"As Indigenous Fijians, land is more than just the physical entity that we see on islands or in places where we come from. Land is, you know, very spiritual, it also connects to our cultural identity," Dr Vunidilo said.
Celebrity islands expose inequalities
In one infamous case reported by media at the time, people claiming to be the Indigenous landowners of Mago, a Fijian island, took owner Mel Gibson to court, alleging the land had been stolen from their families generations ago.
It's understood the case was eventually abandoned.
However, Dr Vunidilo said there were many other instances where Indigenous people were removed from their islands hundreds of years ago and contemporary titles may not acknowledge their authority over the land.
"Some of the sales were very questionable, particularly of land that was sold by chiefs themselves, or land that was forced to be sold by pressure from the colonial government," she said.
"So, there's a lot of other examples like the island of Rabi, the island of Kioa, they were sold under dubious circumstances, and the people who lived there were forcibly relocated to other places."
Pandemic parties
In other cases, the wealth invested on private islands exposes uncomfortable inequalities with the surrounding populations.
Kim Kardashian stirred controversy on a private island during the pandemic, celebrating her 40th birthday on Marlon Brando's private French Polynesian island while much of the world spent their milestones isolated in lockdown.
Google co-founder Larry Page — who owns a Fijian island — was another celebrity reportedly able to ride out much of the COVID-19 pandemic in Fiji, at a time when the country, whose borders were closed, was struggling with high infection rates and economic losses.
"Some say that an island is the ultimate status symbol," Mr Moore said.
"However, I don't see any of my island-buying clients as people who flaunt their possessions."
Mr Moore has sold more than a dozen private islands in Vanuatu, mostly to wealthy foreigners, either keen for a "sea change" or to develop the islands into lucrative resorts.
He said the pandemic had led to a "small flurry" of interest in private island sales when borders opened in 2022.
'The best decision ever'
After speaking with their accountant, Alex and Suzie decided to take their time before signing the lease documents for Mamasa.
They were put in touch with the Canadian couple selling the island, who put their minds to rest about the risky venture.
By April 2018, the island was theirs.
"It's been the best decision that we've ever made," Suzie said.
Alex said there had been "some friction" with Indigenous landowners, particularly when it came to land access.
However, he says, he's tried hard to overcome culture shock and engage with local communities, even learning the local Bislama language.
"The ni-Vanuatu, they were trying so hard to communicate with me, which I just really respected," he said.
"I just thought, 'Well, if they're making the effort, I'm going to make the effort to integrate'."
Mr Regenvanu said existing laws provided adequate protections for Indigenous people, but enforcement can be a problem.
"The laws are essentially OK," he said, "they just need more resourcing, so the government can respond to demand from Indigenous citizens for resolution of disputed land."
Meanwhile, Dr Vunidilo said it was possible for Indigenous landowners to also reap benefits from private island sales, as long as foreign owners were respectful.
"Be familiar with what land means to us," she said.
"If they understand that, that can help them make an informed decision in owning islands or owning land in Fiji."
