Part 9

After the dinner, and to top off Nick’s birthday celebration, we went to the weekly movie—for the products of Hollywood have penetrated even this remote outpost. The theater itself was no bigger, nor did it look any different, than any of the other woven houses along the meandering main street, but inside the single room was lined with rows of backless benches—very hard and very crowded. The whole village seemed to be there, young and old, babies and octogenarians—even pets. We were given seats of honor, right in the middle, but since our area was slightly less crowded than the rest of the house, we were each given a youngster to hold.

The show began with newsreels, all of which had long since been withdrawn from regular circulation. Scenes of the fighting in Korea were succeeded by a documentary of ancient vintage about the armistice negotiations—a development which obviously pleased the audience immensely. The sound track, which was in French, alternately bellowed or broke down altogether but it hardly mattered as no one was listening. Action was what these people liked and when there was no action, they called back and forth, made comments at top voice, or bounced the babies. Every horse that failed to clear a barrier, every bomb that blasted a house into splinters, every soldier who fell in battle was greeted with much clapping and with screams of delight and appreciation.

The feature itself had enough action to please even the most critical, but the dialogue was unintelligible, having been dubbed in in French. This was of no consequence, however, as the sound track was considerately turned down to a murmur so that a running translation and commentary on the development could be shouted out in Tahitian by the manager as the movie progressed.

At the end of the feature it was announced that it would be run again immediately, at no extra charge. This was our cue and, bowing politely, we turned our seats—and the babies—over to the women and made our way outside.

Here we discovered that not all the village had been inside after all. In the dooryard of packed earth a number of vendors had set up tables and were selling food and drink. A circle of men played cards around a lantern in one corner while a group of women in another part of the yard gossiped, nursed their babies, or gave casual comfort or an absentminded slap to various little ones who romped about them in the dirt. Every once in a while a young couple would come out of the theater, hand in hand, and stroll off into the shadows, or someone would leave the movie long enough to shove a fussy baby into the arms of someone outside. Although it was after eleven when we walked back to the boat, no one else in Haapu seemed in the least prepared to call it a night.

The next morning we left Haapu, stopping at Fare only long enough to pick up a few loaves of bread and say hello to Buz and June Champion, fellow yachtsmen who had just arrived on _Little Bear_. Then we took our departure for Raïatéa, the next island to the west, which beckoned to us across some 20 miles of intervening ocean.

It was an easy half-day trip and by early afternoon we were tied up at the main dock of Uturoa, capital of the “Islands Under the Wind.” It didn’t take long for word of our arrival to get around and, as he has done for yachts before us and, no doubt, since, Charles Brotherson turned up promptly to take us in tow and make our brief stay in Raïatéa a pleasant one. His cordial friendliness lengthened our one-day stopover into four, climaxed by an evening of mutual cordiality during which we gave a showing of our slides and a large and appreciative crowd in Uturoa reciprocated with a program of dances and ended by presenting us with a slit drum belonging to the official Uturoa band, as evidenced by the initial “U” carved on it. Another souvenir that money couldn’t buy!

We did not take the _Phoenix_ to Tahaa, the other island enclosed with Raïatéa in a single fringing reef, but we did spend an entire day going around Tahaa on the weekly “mail” boat, an eye-opening experience. In addition to a few letters, the launch carried meat (which dangled in bloody chunks from the overhead beams during transit), sacks of kapok, inner-spring mattresses, cases of canned goods, people—and for a good part of the trip—two horses. The horses were got aboard after much difficulty and tethered in the cabin with the passengers. When their port of debarkation was reached they were off-loaded by being goaded over the side and left to swim ashore, where they were promptly lassoed.

The last island on our passage through the Societies was Bora Bora, another half-day’s sail from Raïatéa. Throughout the islands we had heard much of Bora Bora—and little of it good. The natives, we were told, had been spoiled by the Americans during the war. They were greedy and insolent, out for all they could get. Moreover, many warned us that we would not even be able to get bread on Bora Bora—or fresh water!

We were already learning that it is not wise or fair to form judgments in advance so, in spite of Charles Brotherson’s dire predictions—and his tempting offers of expeditions to fabulous marae on the far side of Raïatéa if we would only remain a few more days—we decided we must push on.

With Jessica very proudly manning the tiller, we edged cautiously out Paipai Pass through the Tahaa reef. Bora Bora, its distinctive rocky pinnacles rising through the early-morning mists, could be seen to the west, its distinctive profile like a giant molar making a sharp break in the horizon. As we sailed nearer we began to understand why many have called this island the loveliest in the South Pacific. Green, precipitous, cloud-capped, it beckons the seafarer from afar and its beauty only increases as one draws closer to where the tumbling line of crashing surf on the reef divides the deep-sea indigo from the clear turquoise of the shallower lagoon. Along the shore, eternal symbol of the tropic isle, we could see a fringe of coconut palms.

One of our first visitors was the local schoolmaster, Francis Sanford, beloved of yachtsmen. He took us to his house to meet his vivacious French-Tahitian wife, Lysa, and half of his brood of children—the other five being away at school in Papeete. We also met Coco, the 300-pound pig, who insisted upon settling himself in the midst of any gathering and who, once settled, was unbudgeable. He had been, Lysa explained apologetically, only a very _leetle_ pig when one of the children brought him home as a pet, but he had grown!

The abandoned dock where we tied up during our stay in Bora Bora was a relic of the war. Here, during the late unpleasantness, several thousand American troops had directed round-the-clock activity, a state of affairs that remains a highlight in the memory of many on this island. As one of them expressed it, “Maybe everybody have another war pretty quick, yeah? Maitai!—Good! Then maybe more soldiers come—we work like hell all day, all night—see plenty movies—eat plenty ice cream—get plenty American babies!”

The Bora Bora attitude toward the mixed-blood children left on the island was a strange contrast to the attitude toward war babies in Japan. Every family on Bora Bora who has an “American” child is very proud, and the children themselves are eager to brag, in hesitant English, “I—am—_Américain_!” even if they look the very model of a perfect Polynesian. When an article about the war babies of Bora Bora was published in an American magazine a few years ago, a number of people from America sent letters offering to adopt a child and take him back to the States where he would have “all the advantages.” Not one family could be found, however, who could be persuaded to give up so valuable a treasure!

Because of their association with the U.S. military during the war, the Bora Borans found it difficult at first to understand the anomaly of an American family traveling in company with feared and hated Japanese.

“They good boys?” everyone demanded doubtfully. “They want to fight?”

We assured them that our companions had no desire to fight, but the community reserved judgment for a day or two and kept an eagle eye on the behavior of Nick, Mickey, and Moto. It didn’t take long to convince them, though, and soon the Three M’s were in greater demand than any of us. Day after day they squatted tirelessly on the dockside in the midst of a crowd of admirers, and displayed postcards, magazine pictures of Japan, and various souvenirs of their distant home.

It soon became evident that, if the French administration and the people of the other islands had no affection for the people of Bora Bora, they, in turn, had no affection for the French. “Bunch of thieves!” was the way one of the Bora Boran natives described them, and he explained to us how French officials had helped themselves to all the plumbing, the quonset huts, and the fluorescent lighting which the Americans had left behind “for the people of Bora Bora” and had carried them away to install in Raïatéa, making Uturoa perhaps the best-lighted town of its size in the entire South Seas.

I remember the day a French official, resplendent in gleaming whites, came aboard for a social call. Big Joe, our nearest neighbor and the one who spoke the best “American,” watched the proceedings anxiously from the dock and as soon as Barbara had ushered our visitor below he drew me aside.

“You want me throw him overboard, boss?” he whispered loudly.

“No—why?”

“He French—no good. Bunch of thieves. You want me punch him good?”

“It’s okay, Joe. He’ll be here only a short time.”

“I stay,” said Big Joe grimly. He settled himself on the gunwales and remained there until our visitor had returned to his jeep (the only one on the island) and driven out of sight.

Actually, Bora Bora was personified for us by Big Joe. He lived nearby with his wife and an “American” daughter of about Jessica’s age, in a compact house of woven side walls and a thatched roof, set high on stilts. Working together, he and his wife made a living by making the dance costumes of bleached fibers, elaborately decorated with hundreds of yellow and brown cowrie shells, which sell for $25 to $30 American in the tourist shops of Papeete. What Big Joe and his family made on the deal we never did find out, although we suspected that the Chinese storekeeper to whom they turned over their entire output managed to do very well on the transaction.

In our own case, I am able to quote the price exactly, for I ordered two of the outfits for Barbara and Jessica, complete with “grass” skirt, a brassière of fine bark cloth trimmed with shells, and the handsome crownlike headdress. When Joe brought over the completed costumes—and Jessica’s, at least, had been made to order, for it fitted her small size exactly—Big Joe waved away any mention of cost.

“But, Joe, you’ve got to tell me _how much_! We’re sailing tomorrow. If you don’t tell me how much to pay you for these, I can’t take them!”

“Aw—never mind money. What I do with _money_?”

“But there must be something you need?”

Joe thought that one over. At last he asked, hesitantly, “You maybe got an old pair pants? I could use pants. Or maybe old blanket?”

We had plenty of blankets on board—all bought at the Australian salvage depot for a couple of shillings apiece. I gave Joe a couple, plus a pair of pants that were hardly large enough for his vast size, and weighted the whole down with a carton of cigarettes.

Joe looked at the items soberly, then said, “Wait a minute.” He went over to his house and returned with two massive necklaces and two bracelets made of large and beautifully matched cowries, one to adorn each costume.

“Now okay,” he said, with a grin. He had no intention of letting me get the best of him by adding something more than the exchange he’d suggested.

So many memories come crowding back that even in writing it is almost as hard to leave Bora Bora as it was in August, 1955, when we reluctantly said good-bye to the Societies. How is it possible to pass on without mentioning the dockside parties that foregathered nightly beside the _Phoenix_, parties which sometimes started by a song or two in Japanese by one of the Three M’s, or a cowboy or hillbilly record on our portable victrola, but which always ended with the soft plucking of a guitar, the strumming of homemade coconut ukuleles, and a completely spontaneous exhibition of Tahitian dancing to the compelling rhythm of slit drum, kerosene tin, or just the slapping of hands on a bare thigh. Everybody sang—everybody joined in the dances—and the natural, unself-conscious grace of even the little ones made it obvious why, year after year, the dance teams of Bora Bora continue to walk off with all the prizes at the Papeete fete.

And how can we fail to recall the simple services that were held three times every Sunday at the small village church, services we will never forget, not because we were inspired by the sermons, which were in Tahitian and may or may not have varied from one service to another, but because of the singing—the most beautiful and inspiring we have ever heard. Everyone sang, some singing the words while others chanted or hummed the melody or a kind of antiphonal accompaniment which filled the room with such tremendous rolling resonance that we could hardly believe there was not an organ somewhere, concealed behind the woven screen of the altar or, perhaps, beneath the floor!

But nothing can be recaptured completely and there were other landfalls ahead, other memories to gather.

“Please let us hear from you!” Lysa Sanford begged, adding a bit wistfully, “Sometimes we don’t know if the yachtsmen we’ve entertained even got to their next port!”

And, “Don’t forget—you promise to send us picture!” Big Joe reminded us, referring to the many snapshots we had taken of him and his family. “Plenty people take picture—but we never see!”

We remembered the Sanford’s yacht register, containing many blank spaces for pictures that had been promised and never sent. We reminded ourselves of the tiny Kodacolor print, now faded almost to invisibility, which occupied an honored spot in the middle of Big Joe’s living room wall—the only picture of himself that had ever been sent to him of all that had been taken by passing yachts.

Then and there we resolved that the friends we made during our various stops would not be forgotten; that the promises we made would be kept. The hospitality, the favors, the gifts of fruit and vegetables and souvenirs that were pressed on us everywhere were gifts we could never repay in kind, but at least we would send, at the first opportunity, the snapshots we had taken and a postcard to say we had not forgotten. The chance to share vicariously in our experience, to travel with us by means of whatever reports we could send, would perhaps be thanks enough for the wonderful hospitality we had received.

And so we sailed from Bora Bora on August 16, knowing that no matter what enchantments might lie ahead we would never see its like again.

6 WESTWARD THROUGH THE SOUTH SEAS: RAROTONGA, SAMOA, FIJI

“A broad reach, a quiet sea, a full moon....”

We set out for Rarotonga, capital of the Cook Islands. Although we had official permission to visit these islands, we had no idea what our reception would be—especially for the Japanese. The Cooks are possessions of New Zealand, and of course that country and Australia have Oriental exclusion policies. Moreover, we knew that World War II was still well remembered in this part of the world.

For five days we had good trade-wind sailing, then a day of calm followed by a sudden sharpening of the breeze. It looked like an easy passage. Crew relations were good, although there still remained a gulf to be bridged—either of communication or of differences between Western and Eastern psychology.

One morning, after the wind had dropped off during the night, I was awakened by the sound of the foresail boom slatting around. I went up to the cockpit where Nick, at the tiller, was staring ahead as if in a trance.

“Good morning,” I began. “Looks as if the wind’s dropped.”

Nick did not answer.

After a pause I said, “I wonder, if we rigged the foresail more forward, would it work better?” There was no answer.

“What do you think, Nick?” I pressed.

“I don’t know,” he replied, in a completely indifferent tone. (Didn’t know whether it would work? Didn’t know what I was talking about? Or didn’t want to be bothered?)

“I’ll go take a look,” I said, and did so. While I was forward, adjusting the sail, Nick called Ted to the next watch and went below. I fought down my rising irritation and tried to understand, to put myself in Nick’s place. The incident was trivial, and yet it was one of those things that could be significant. True, there had been no emergency and one man could easily do the job. Nick was tired and looking forward to going off watch. On the other hand, why the silence which seemed rude or sullen at the very least? What was the answer? I didn’t know.

The only conclusion to be drawn was that, at this stage, subtleties, suggestions, and hints were out of place. If I wanted a job done I must give a simple direct order even if it made me a Captain with a capital C, rather than a yachting companion. So far as the work of the boat was concerned, nothing must be left unclear. On the other hand, I couldn’t look to Nick or the others for the kind of companionable discussion of pros and cons of procedure that I was sharing more and more with Ted. The Japanese seemed to prefer clear-cut orders and to look upon preliminary discussions as an indication of inefficiency on the part of their skipper. This placed an additional burden on me!

On the sixth day, just after noon, we sighted land off the port bow. Simultaneously, with a noise like an explosion, the main after chain plate on the port side parted. Immediately I put the boat about to take the strain off the port shrouds. Everything else held.

When we inspected the damage, it was easy enough to see what had happened. It was a matter of poor design—my design—in having made the neck too narrow. This was a serious matter and meant that all the chain plates would have to be replaced at the first opportunity. In the meantime, we jury-rigged the shroud, reduced sail enough to ease the strain, and worked our way gradually toward Rarotonga. By the middle of the next afternoon we were off the entrance to Avarua, port of entry for the Cook Islands.

The channel was easy enough to spot. It lay between the wrecks of two ships that had missed the entrance and ended their trips, one on each horn of the encroaching reef. The pass was narrow and the harbor beyond obviously too small to maneuver in. Feeling less than happy about the situation, we dropped the sails, and I started the engine, prepared to go in cautiously under power.

At this moment a small tug came out and offered to take us in for 30 shillings (about $4). Never was a deal closed more swiftly. The captain gave us a shouted rundown of the procedure: “Get lines ready at each quarter—pass them to the native divers as soon as you get in.... As soon as you’re inside, drop your anchor _at once_ and put the tiller hard over ...” etc. I, in turn, repeated the orders to my crew in slow and careful English, and assigned each man his position and function. Only then, and under tow, did we tackle the entrance. It was a narrow squeeze, but after much shouting and more sweating, we were finally fixed in place like a fly in a spiderweb, with two anchors forward, two lines aft to the dock, four set out to rings in the underwater coral, and a final line secured to an interisland trawler, _Inspire_, which lay to the tiny dock and threatened to overturn from the sheer weight of the crowd that had rushed aboard her for a grandstand view of the proceedings.

We were not left long in doubt about the hospitality of the Cook Islands. Ten minutes after we were secure, a note was handed to me:

Dr. Earle Reynolds and Mrs. Reynolds:

Welcome to Rarotonga and the Cook Group. I hope you will call at the Administration Building sometime at your convenience and please let me know if there is anything we can do for you.

Yours sincerely, G. Nevill, Commissioner.

While we cleaned up the boat and ourselves and donned our shore clothes, we savored to the full the satisfaction of having arrived safe and of being warmly welcomed. All of us were looking forward to the amenities of shore living. As far as Nick, Mickey, and Moto were concerned, hot baths were at the head of the list—the hotter the better. Personally, I also wanted a cold beer, a good steak, and a crisp salad.

Just to make sure, I asked the bearer of the note whether it would be possible for us to dine out in Rarotonga. He told me that the only public dining room was at the Government Hotel, just off the docks, and he offered to go there directly to make arrangements for hot baths and dinner reservations for our entire group.

Barbara and I went ashore first, to pay our respects, and arranged to meet the rest at the hotel. The Commissioner was quite as cordial as his note. He invited us to tea at the Residency the following afternoon and promised to put a car and driver at our disposal so we could all make a trip around the island at our convenience.

When we reached the hotel, glowing with good cheer, we found our group were not so happy. They had had the promised baths, but had been told that dinner “for so many” was out of the question.

To the Japanese, sensitive to polite circumlocutions, this meant discrimination and they were all for withdrawing forthwith. I could not believe, judging from our reception, that any slight had been intended and I approached the manager directly.

I found him full of welcome and apology. “It’s just that you came in so late, sir—the government freezer closes at three, and each day we draw our rations from there. We might have squeezed in one or two, but trying to do for seven on such short notice would be hopeless. I trust you do understand?”

“Then how about tomorrow night?” I wanted something definite to take back to my companions.

“Oh, that would be excellent, sir! I think we can do you very well indeed.”

And very well indeed they did do us, well enough to make up completely for the letdown of having to open cans again on our first night in port.

There were few times during the rest of our stay when we had occasion to eat on board, for the hospitality of Rarotonga was overwhelming. As a family, we had little contact with the native Cook Islanders (whom the government is careful to refer to as “Maori”), but Nick, Mickey, and Moto saw a great deal of them. This disparity was quite against our own inclinations. We simply had no invitations to native dances or gatherings and were quite envious of the reports brought back by the Three M’s, who had their choice of both worlds—and frequently chose the more colorful!

From Rarotonga we again headed north, bound for American Samoa. We set our course to sight Aitutaki, then headed northwest. It was good sailing—a broad reach, a quiet sea, a full moon, and a seven-knot breeze. Two days out I noted in the log: “Just informed today is Labor Day. Well, not working too hard, anyway.”

At dusk on the seventh day out, we sighted the mass of Tau Island, looming out of the mist, and jibed to the west for the night, turning northwest again at dawn. At 0735 we picked up Tutuila, dead ahead, and worked our way into the entrance of Pago Pago harbor, one of the best protected in all the South Pacific.