several—some of them transients like ourselves; others who had succumbed
to the charms of Tahiti and settled themselves more or less permanently.
Outstanding among the latter was William Robinson, who circled the globe
many years ago in his famous _Svaap_. Robinson seemed to be very shy and
reserved, but when he came aboard he soon lost his shyness, when the
talk shifted from social nonessentials to a discussion of the best rig
to use in trade-wind cruising.
Another yachtsman of former days deserves special mention: Robert Argod,
who sailed out from France with his wife and children and several others
on _Fleur d’Océan_ and has remained as captain of an interisland
schooner. He is the uncontested senior host to all visiting yachts and
has a fascinating logbook with pictures and accounts of all the
yachtsmen they have met, a treasury of cruising yachts. We began to
understand more clearly the close bond that grows up between those who
sail, the gradual accumulation of anecdotes and experiences which one
hears and passes on so that, although we may never meet many of the
yachts mentioned in the Argod logbook, we feel that we are old friends.
As June passed into July, preparations for the Bastille Day fete began
to get under way in earnest. Because of our location—practically a part
of the Midway—we had ringside seats for everything and could stroll out
a dozen times a day to see how the work was getting along. The
concessions themselves were not unlike those of any honky-tonk state
fair, but there was a charm and novelty to the French and Tahitian songs
that poured out of every sidewalk café, a gaiety to the brilliant pareu,
or wrap-around skirt, with which the dark-haired women clothed
themselves, and a bit of humor in the fact that the frequent parking
areas, labeled “Garage,” were to accommodate bicycles instead of cars.
Cold pop vied in popularity with drinking nuts—the natives drinking the
pop and the tourists the coconut milk!
Most fascinating of all was the transformation of the large park in
front of the Governor’s Palace, which was to be the scene of the
Bastille Day ball and the subsequent dance contests. A huge wooden dance
floor was fitted together and laid down on the grass. Around it were set
coconut palms, clumps of plants, and flowering ginger—all transplanted
for the occasion. Strings of colored lights were festooned across the
area and dozens of little tables were set up around the edges of the
floor, changing the open lawn into a fairy-tale ballroom. On the night
of July 14 hundreds of couples completed the picture, a picture as
evanescent as Cinderella’s own finery, for the very next day the palms
and the torch ginger were discarded, the dance floor was carted off, and
a new phase of the construction got under way with the erection of
grandstands and bleachers around the smooth expanse of grass where the
dance contests would next be held.
The fete itself opened officially with a bang—with twenty-one bangs, in
fact—as the government fulfilled the promises made on all the posters:
Vingt et un coups de canon!!! That afternoon (while Mi-ke was on the
boat giving birth to a long-awaited brood of kittens), the various dance
teams, in costume, paid ceremonial calls on the Mayor and the Governor
and presented gifts of bananas, breadfruit, and coconuts, as well as
bundles of live chickens, ducks, and even suckling pigs. (After the
formal presentations had been complete, the gifts were quietly returned
to the donors.)
As soon as the opening ceremonies had been disposed of, the booths along
the Midway went into full swing. Soon the dancers themselves became a
colorful part of the scene, their grass skirts discarded and slung over
their shoulders as they wandered along the street in more conventional
garb, licking ice-cream cones.
Throughout the week of the fete, events came thick and fast. The most
widely publicized feature, of course, is the series of dance contests in
which teams from most of the neighboring islands as well as of the many
districts on Tahiti itself take part. The Tahitian hula, justly famous,
has to be seen to be believed. The girls vibrate with such frenetic yet
effortless activity, to the insistent rhythms of native drums, and their
hips perform such incredible gyrations that the dance leader not only
has to call the figures but must constantly circulate among the dancers
to retie a skirt or adjust a bra that a performer has danced herself
right out of!
In addition to the nightly dance contests there was an overflowing
program of events: sailing canoe races, spear-throwing contests, soccer
games, swimming and diving competitions, horse racing, greased-pole
climbing, and to climax all, the hotly contested outrigger canoe races,
both single- and double-hull canoes which are propelled at incredible
speed by teams of men or women rowers.
The fete was officially over, but the Midway was still going strong when
we left Papeete on the 20th of July. The palm-bedecked booths were
turning yellow in the heat, the flowers had long since wilted, but the
performers, loath to return to their outer island homes, still wandered
the streets doing brief dances for a few francs here and there or
selling their dance costumes outright if a buyer could be found. We
thought it time to sail on.
The island of Mooréa is eight miles and one universe away from Tahiti.
After living for twenty-four hours a day in the midst of a
never-sleeping carnival atmosphere, it was a blessed relief to drop
anchor in Papetoai Bay, which many have called the most beautiful in the
whole world. Certainly it is one of the most spectacular. The mountain
peaks are a vivid emerald green and quite unreal in shape, rising almost
vertically to end in a surrealist play. In fact the whole scene, the
changing blues of the sky, the glowing greens of the land, the clear,
translucent blue and green and turquoise shades of the water seemed like
something dreamed up by a Technicolor consultant gone berserk.
From our anchorage just off the palm-lined shore we could see a couple
of native houses with woven walls of split bamboo and roofs of pandanus
thatch. Beyond the houses, but visible only from the top of the mast,
ran the narrow crushed coral road which is the main highway around the
island—a distance of some 36 miles. The nearest village, a cluster of a
dozen or so houses, an octagonal church with a red spire, and two rather
dispirited Chinese stores, was two miles to the east. We walked there,
to present our credentials and to buy some supplies. Neither of the
stores offered anything in the way of fresh fish, meat, or vegetables,
and no one seemed at all interested in our papers, so we settled for
four bottles of warm “lemonade”—a sweetish soft drink—a large bag of
unroasted peanuts, and a handful of vanilla beans. Then we returned to
the boat to open cans for the first time since our Tahiti landfall.
Outside of Tahiti, life was dreamy and time lost its sharp insistence.
There was no radio, no newspaper—and not even the possibility of
receiving mail. It was a relief not to have one’s anxieties and ulcers
churned into unrest each day, as they had been during our stay in
Hawaii, where every newscast, each fresh edition of the daily papers,
had kept us aware of the manufacture of each new ice cube in the Cold
War.
We stayed five days in Mooréa, and would have postponed our departure
much longer had it not been for the lure of such names as Huahiné,
Raïatéa, Tahaa, and Bora Bora.
From Mooréa, we sailed to Huahiné, about a hundred miles downwind. It
was an overnight trip and gave us another lesson in How Not to Navigate,
as recorded in the log:
Last night, just after Nick came on watch (2400), I could feel a
definite change in the motion of the boat and heard the staysail
flapping and the foresail boom swinging. Went up and found Nick
working hard to keep the set course but unable to do so.... Noticed
the stars weren’t in the proper position and checked the compass. (It
is a grid-type airplane compass, on which the course is preset.) Saw
at once that course was set for 252°—not proper 292°—and trouble was
caused from this and not from a sudden change in the wind direction.
What must have happened: After setting proper compass direction, I
presumably forgot to lock the rotating portion and one of the men, at
change of watch, brushed against it, changing the course by 40°....
Learned new lessons: (1) Check the compass at each watch. (2) Keep it
locked.
To this I added one more rule, just to be on the safe side: _No one_
adjusts the compass but the Skipper.
We spotted Huahiné just at dawn and were able to get a bearing and set a
course to round the north end before the island was lost in a series of
rain squalls. Working our way through the reef, we dropped anchor off
the town, and chalked up another South Seas landfall.
Fare, the port of Huahiné, is a village of perhaps a score of small
Chinese-owned stores along the waterfront, including cafés, bars, and a
hotel. We were quickly introduced to one of its most charming features.
A couple of times every day, one or another of the storekeepers would
roll a large ice-cream freezer—hand-cranked—out onto his porch and chalk
up a sign on the blackboard in front: Glace en vent!! This was the
signal for customers to gather, with Jessica and Ted well in the front
rank. First comers—solid ice cream; stragglers—soup!
One afternoon we took a hike around the north end of the island, looking
for the ruins of a two-storied temple site, known locally as a
marae—which was rumored to be in that area. The road along the shore
narrowed to a trail and in an hour or so we were walking single file
along faint paths. At the end of the trip, we found a small settlement
with the ever-present Chinese store, but no marae—and no one who could
tell anything.
Disappointed, we started back. A good-looking young Tahitian, his guitar
slung over his shoulder, flashed us a smile and stepped off the path to
shake hands with each of us as we passed, according to the hospitable
custom of the islands, and to wish us “Iorana!—Good Day!” When we asked
him, in halting French, if he knew anything about the lost marae, he
answered in quite understandable English and volunteered to take us
there!
The marae, it seemed, was across the lagoon on a wide stretch where the
fringing reef had risen above the sea and was covered with undergrowth
and trees. Getting there was no problem at all. Our guide simply
commandeered a pirogue, complete with boatman, and arranged for us all
to be ferried across, three in each load. Reassembled on the other side,
we set off across the hundred yards or so of trackless vegetation,
accompanied by a host of interested Friends and Acquaintances of our
new-found guide and/or the boatman. Each had equipped himself with a
musical instrument of sorts, and our South Seas safari was accompanied
by an impromptu orchestra composed of guitar, dry sticks, flat stones,
hollow coconuts, and an empty kerosene tin.
In this irreverent fashion we reached the ruins, a rather extensive
edifice of volcanic rocks in a fair state of preservation though, of
course, quite overgrown with plants and even trees. Our guide led us to
the top and, with a sureness born of knowledge, lifted aside a slab of
stone. From a cavity beneath he lifted out two gleaming skulls, handling
them with a lack of awe that showed scant regard for the last two chiefs
of olden times, whose remains he claimed them to be.
I examined the relics with interest, the anthropological side of my
nature uppermost, and decided that if these were indeed the skulls of
Tahitian chiefs, then chiefdom in those latter days must have followed
the female line. None of the natives seemed to know or to have any
interest in the history or legends surrounding the people who had built
the structure long ago.
The next day, with Ted at the masthead to con us through, we worked our
way down inside the reef to the south end of the island, where the
charming little village of Haapu nestles in isolated quiet. No roads
connect it with the outer world and only an occasional visit from a
motor launch, with mail and supplies, keeps the people in touch with the
world outside.
Here we tied up to the dock and took our first stroll down the main
street between rows of woven and brightly decorated native huts, many of
them raised on stilts. Everywhere we were given a warm welcome. Haapu
struck us at once as the kind of South Seas community we had read about
and dreamed of and we gladly accepted the urging of the villagers to
make ourselves at home and stay awhile.
Our location once again was central, right next to the community
laundry—fresh-water tap on the shore beside the dock. Here the
housewives gathered every morning for washing clothes and gossip and
Barbara, who had not done any laundry since Mooréa, took her sack of
dirty clothes ashore and joined them. Soon she was the center of an
ever-increasing throng and I strolled over to see what the excitement
was about.
Now, it should be explained that the women of the Societies do their
washing by first soaping the clothes thoroughly on a large flat board or
stone laid on the ground and then they pound the soap in—and the dirt
out (or such, I suppose, is the theory)—with a rounded wooden stick. No
wonder they were impressed by our American know-how and the laborsaving
devices enjoyed by American women! With envy and admiration they were
watching Barbara scrub our dirty boat clothes with efficiency and ease
on a corrugated washboard before rinsing them in a galvanized iron tub!
In Haapu we had our first taste of real entertaining. It was simple to
issue invitations: we just sent Jessica up on deck with the portable
phonograph and told her to start playing records. Within minutes
villagers had begun to gather and soon the party was in full swing.
Breaking it up was not so easy, for in spite of frequent showers and the
coming and going of the dinner hour no one deserted.
The dancing—both Tahitian and modified European—took place beside the
boat, on the dock. After each dance the men boarded the boat to squat
around and talk, while the girls retreated down the dock to the shadows
of the road. With the beginning of a new tune the men would seek out
their partners and lead them back into the lighted area around our
pressure lantern. During the frequent showers, everyone crowded aboard
and took giggling refuge below so that, at times, we had over a hundred
people packed into the cabins, the bunks, and the aisles, examining our
possessions as they waited for the rain to stop and making excited
comments about our accommodations.
Nothing, I hasten to add, was missing when the last guest had finally
gone, but the next day our ship’s inventory was increased alarmingly by
gifts of bananas, breadfruit, necklaces of shells, carvings of wood and
coconut, and hats of woven pandanus.
Nick’s birthday fell on the day before we were to leave Haapu, so we
gladly accepted an invitation to eat Tahitian style with a local family.
We provided the pig—bought from one of the villagers—and our friends
agreed to cook it for us, Tahitian style, in their family oven. Early in
the afternoon we gathered to watch them disjoint the pig and place the
large chunks of meat in a huge, saucer-shaped cooking pot which was then
placed directly on a bed of hot coals in the hollowed-out dirt floor of
the “cookhouse” behind the main dwelling. Around the chunks of meat were
laid quartered breadfruit and dozens of peeled bananas. These were
roofed over with long branches, and upon the frame were piled layer upon
layer of green banana leaves followed by numerous mats of pressed dried
leaves and bark which had been stored in stacks around the cookhouse
walls. Finally, heavy burlap sacks were spread over everything and the
oven was complete.
While our Polynesian dinner was baking, Barbara decided she would whip
up a birthday cake—not because she was afraid the dinner would be
inadequate but because she thought our hosts might be interested in our
birthday customs. Birthday candles and fancy holders she had stored
aboard in quantity, but for a time the lack of an egg threatened to
spoil her plans.
It is impossible to walk anywhere in Haapu—or in any other Polynesian
village, for that matter—without flushing a chicken a minute, not to
mention ducks and pigs. Getting hold of an egg, however, was something
else again. When we inquired at the store, the Chinese proprietor seemed
to be quite taken aback at the very thought of anyone wanting to _buy_
an egg.
“Perhaps,” he suggested finally, in barely intelligible French, “madam
might ask chez le médecin?”
As she didn’t have a headache—yet—it seemed unlikely that the doctor
could help, but Barbara went there and tried again. The doctor and his
wife seemed completely nonplused, but the daughter of the family, who
had been to school in Tahiti and could speak French, not only grasped
the situation but was able to make it intelligible to her parents.
Immediately they went into action.
Taking Barbara in tow, they set off on a house-to-house canvass of the
village. Every passer-by was stopped and, after the usual exchange of
greetings and handshakes, our problem was presented. People waved from
their porches as the growing crowd moved on and when they were informed
of the dilemma they, too, came over to join in the discussion—and the
search. Children were excitedly recruited and sent off in all
directions—mostly into the bushes. Haapu was aroused into a fever of
activity and concern.
Eventually results were achieved. A child came proudly out of the jungle
with—an egg! It was rather small and very dirty, but it was an egg.
Barbara accepted it with private reservations and paid the little girl
the astronomical sum of a five-franc piece—the smallest change she had.
This staggering reward of industry (almost eight cents) caused a near
panic and other eggs began to be pressed upon her. One, which a small
boy delivered at a run, was fortunately broken when its owner tripped
and fell in his eagerness to hand it over. (It had obviously been almost
ready to hatch.) Two others were safely delivered, however, and of the
three, one proved to be edible and the birthday cake was duly made and
proved to be a tremendous success.
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.