PAPEETE TO PAGO PAGO
Situated well around on the leeward side of the island of Tahiti, with
the great 8000-foot peak of Orohena cutting off all but stray gusts
of the Trade wind, Papeete harbour is ordinarily as placid a bit of
looped-in water as ever mirrored in its depths the silver disc of the
tropic moon. Seaward the reef intercepts the surf as completely as
does the volcano the wind from the opposite direction, and with the
latter blowing from the southeast, where it belongs, the inner bay is
safe for even the slenderest of outrigger canoes when the state of the
weather outside is such as to keep the mail steamer at its dock. The
trading schooners, each with a couple of frizzled mooring lines run
out to convenient _buraos_ or banyans, lie right against the tottering
sea-wall, and even the dock of the San Francisco and Auckland boats
is hardly more than a raised platform on the bank.
No one seems to dream that there is ever going to be other than
southeast weather, and no one makes provision against anything else.
Then some fine day a hurricane comes boring in from the north or west,
and when it is over the survivors salve pieces of ship out of the tops
of the coco palms, and perhaps some of them living a quarter of a mile
inland, finding a schooner lodged in their _taro_ patch, prop it up
on an even keel and use it in place of the house of thatch which has
been resolved into its component parts by the storm. In a few weeks
every one but the missionaries--who, by the way, are much given to
picturing hell for the natives, not as a hot place, but as an island
where the lost souls are endlessly tossed by æon-long hurricanes--has
forgotten all about the storm, and is as liable as ever to be caught
napping when the next one comes along.
We reached Tahiti somewhat too early for hurricanes, but a very good
imitation one in the form of a northwest squall was brought off for
our benefit, which left very little to the imagination regarding what
a real blow from that direction might mean. It is only the unexpected
that is a serious menace to the careful skipper, as I have mentioned
before, and it is in this respect that one of these sudden twisters,
coming with a fierceness beyond description from an unlikely quarter,
may work irreparable harm in spite of all precautions, where a
hurricane, heralded for hours, perhaps days, by a falling barometer,
may, in a large measure, be prepared for or avoided.
The thing occurred one evening shortly following our arrival in
Papeete, just after three days of hard work had obliterated all traces
of the internal and external wear and tear incident to the 3000 miles
of sailing the yacht had done since leaving Hawaii. She had received a
fresh coat of white paint, decks had been scoured, hardwood newly
oiled and the brass work rubbed to the highest degree of resplendency.
Sails were in covers, awnings up fore-and-aft, deck cushions out of
their sea jackets, and, in short, everything made ready to receive
official calls. She was lying to her port anchor with twenty-five
fathoms of chain out. A kedge astern held her head to the prevailing
southeast wind and kept her from swinging with the tide.
So empty of threat was the evening that the crew, with the exception
of the single sailor whose turn it was to stand the anchor watch, had
been given shore leave. The rest of us, tired from an afternoon of the
ceremonious calling exigent upon the newcomers who would break the
ice of officialdom in any French colony, were lounging on the
quarterdeck and in the cockpit, glad of the chance to unstiffen and be
quiet.
It was a night drowsy with soporific suggestiveness. Seaward the air
was pulsing to the drowsing monotone of the surf upon the reef,
rising and falling at regular intervals like the heavy breathing of a
tired sleeper. Landward, a league of liquid lullaby, the tiny wavelets
of the bay tinkled on beach and sea-wall, and through the rondure of
blue-black foliage which masked the village, lights blinked sleepily,
with here and there the tracery of a palm or banana frond showing in
dark outline against the warm yellow rectangle of an open doorway.
The yacht, rocking gently as a cradle, set the Japanese lanterns around
the awnings nodding in languorous lines, and, above and beyond,
clouds and stars rubbed lazily against each other in somnolent jumble.
The spirit hand of the land breeze in the rigging was sounding the
"stand-by" call for the watch of Morpheus.
The arms of the Sleep God must have enfolded with especial tenderness
the hulking frame of Heinrich, the husky Teuton who was standing
anchor watch, for an inky splotch of cloud had grown from a speck on
the northeastern horizon to a bituminous blur that blotted out
everything in that quarter from the zenith down, before he raised his
head from where he had pillowed it in his arms upon the forecastle ice
chest and roused the ship with an explosive "_Gott in Himmel!_"
Simultaneously with that of Heinrich there was another explosion, like
the bursting of a Vial of Wrath, and forthwith the gathering squall came
charging in across the Motu Iti Quarantine Station on the reef and
began systematically scooping dry the bottom of the bay. Spreading like
an inverted fan, it blotted out the stars to east and west, and, with the
roar of a battery of quick-firers, swept down upon us in a solid wall of
air and water, only a few short, nervous puffs of wind scurrying
uneasily in advance.
The squall was swooping down to strike the yacht on her port quarter,
realizing which, we hurriedly buoyed the line to the now useless
kedge and cast it loose. So quiet was the water and air in the
half-minute-long interval before the wind came that the yacht lay
motionless, half-broadside to the squall's advance, just as she had
been stretched to the kedge, and when it struck her inertia was so
great that the lee rail was hove well under before she began swinging.
The lines of Japanese lanterns snapped in a half dozen places and
went streaming off to leeward like the tails of kites. The awnings
bellied monstrously and began splitting under the terrific uplift of the
wind; and here and there lashings gave way and left corners threshing
desperately for freer play.
There were no waves at first; only sheets of water torn from the top
of the sea and thrown on ahead. The air was fairly clogged with spray,
and the yacht was deluged with water, fore and aft, as though she had
no more freeboard than a plank. The boats, which were made fast to
booms run out on either side amidships, worked like the arms of Dutch
windmills, and one of them, as the yacht reached the end of her cable,
was tossed bodily over its boom, to land bottom up and fill.
The yacht was driven across the arc of her cable-sweep as a frightened
broncho rushes to the end of his picket rope, and with a somewhat
similar result. The anchor fouled and began dragging. So swiftly were
we carried down the bay that it seemed inconceivable that there was
any anchor at all at the end of the cable, and it was not until later
that we ascertained definitely that the chain had not parted. We were
heading--or rather backing--at an angle toward the sea-wall, and in a
direction which allowed the yacht something over a quarter of a mile
to go before she would crash into the line of schooners moored
beyond the American Consulate, the grinding and pounding among
which became distinctly audible as the interval decreased.
The port anchor was our only hope, and on the getting over and letting
go of this the Commodore and Heinrich began furiously working, while
to me, with the assistance of a press-gang composed of the Mater,
Claribel and the Chinese cook, was delegated the task of reducing the
awnings, the great spreads of which were acting as sails in driving the
yacht the quicker to an apparently inevitable doom. That there would
be ample chance to get ashore in safety, no one had much doubt; but
more indubitable still appeared the fact that we were scheduled to
have a graphic illustration of the meaning of that commonest of South
Sea expressions, "piling up on the beach."
The port anchor was let go and the awnings brought to a fashion of a
furl at about the same time, and six white faces, peering anxiously
shoreward for results, only paled the more as the foam-white belt that
marked the line of the submerged sea-wall continued to grow perceptibly
nearer. Stars were appearing under the lower line of the squall along the
northern horizon, but the centre of the disturbance was now overhead,
and the wind had increased to a force before which the coco palms along
the bank were bending to the ground and snapping with sharp, explosive
detonations. A piece of steel cable, used as a "hurricane guy" to hold
down a corner of the Consulate in just such an emergency as the present,
had parted under the strain and was swiftly flailing the galvanized iron
roof of the veranda to pieces. The clang of bells resounded through the
town, summoning aid for the pounding schooners along the sea-wall,
and in sheltered corners ashore could be seen black knots of men
gesticulating wildly in the light of lanterns.
We were now a scant fifty feet from the wall in front of the Consulate,
and perhaps twice that distance from the first of the jumble of
pounding schooners, the big _Eimoo_, the largest and fastest trader
that sailed from Tahiti. The seas were streaming over her as though
she was a surf-beaten rock on a stretch of iron-bound coast, but in
the smother on her forward deck some of her crew could be seen
surging round the capstan in a frantic effort to haul her off the deadly
wall. From the ships beyond came a babel of shoutings that rose above
the grind and pound of keels, and presently these keyed higher into
yells of excitement and dismay as one of the schooners--luckily the last
in line--broke loose and began battering to pieces against the barrier of
stone.
[Illustration: THE INEVITABLE END OF EVERY SOUTH SEA
TRADING SCHOONER]
[Illustration: A TAHITIAN COUPLE]
For us on the _Lurline_ there was nothing more to be done. Jewelry and
other portable valuables had been tossed into a canvas sack, and the
Mater and Claribel, swathed in life-preservers, hurriedly coached as
to the proper manner of jumping ashore from the taffrail of a grounded
yacht. White figures had appeared, clinging to the pillars of the
Consulate veranda, ready--as we afterwards learned--to rush to our aid
when the schooner struck. There was still some question as to whether
it was the _Eimoo_ we were going to bump first, or the wall; or first
the former, and then, in company with her, the latter. The Commodore
was just grimly opining that salvage operations would be simpler if
_Lurline_ and _Eimoo_ struck separately, when the squall gave up its
rain, the wind and sea fell sufficiently to allow the anchors to hold,
and the worst was all over in a minute.
The squall had blown itself out not a moment too soon, for when the
anchors finally stopped dragging one could have stood in the cockpit
and skimmed a biscuit over the port quarter to the veranda of the
Consulate, while flung to starboard at a similar angle it would have
sailed to the deck of the _Eimoo_. For the present we were safe until
another squall blew up, in which event, especially if it came from
anywhere to the east of north, the twenty-five fathoms of chain out to
each of the anchors would be enough to allow us to swing around onto
the sea-wall. Plainly it was imperative that the yacht be worked into a
safer position without delay.
The sky was darkening again to the north as the Commodore sent me
ashore with orders not to return without the crew, or a working
equivalent. The town was in an uproar, and the impracticability of
rounding up a "working equivalent" of the crew was at once apparent.
Two schooners and a sloop were loose and pounding to pieces upon
the wall, and these had first claim to volunteer or "pressed" aid. The
gendarmerie, assisted by soldiers from the barracks, were going
about the streets and into the clubs and hotels requisitioning relief
forces, and I was at my wit's end for half an hour dodging the
minions of the law and avoiding service with one of these press
gangs.
At last the crew was run to cover at the end of a fragrant tunnel of
blossoming _burao_ and flamboyant, where the wail of concertinas
and the throb of hard-hit drum logs told me that a _hula_ was in
progress, even before I had pushed aside a cluster of hibiscus and
peered in at a window. Bill, the light-footed Dane of the port watch,
the axis of a vortex of capering _vahines_, was leaping in the
maddest of hornpipes to the music of an accordion, with bugle
obligato by Perkins, who had mastered that instrument while in the
navy. Big, blond Gus, surrounded by another nimbus of tropic
loveliness, was draining a newly-cracked coconut as he would have
tossed off a _seidel_ of lager, and Victor, the mate, a white _tiare_
blossom behind each ear, was shifting a cat's cradle from his rack of
stubby, red fingers to a frame of slender brown ones. It was a shame
to put an end to their innocent fun, but the north was blackening
again, and--well, a sailor must learn to take his pleasure as a patron
of a railway lunch counter does his food, in hasty gulps. Besides,
there would probably be other evenings ashore, and the way of a
stranger in Tahiti to a session of song and dance is the turning to
the first open door.
How thoroughly engrossing these little parties are may be judged from
the fact that the crew came along only under protest, swearing, jointly
and severally, that they had heard nothing whatever of a storm which,
as was afterwards estimated, did a hundred thousand francs' damage on
the water front of Papeete and destroyed the season's crop of bananas
and plantains!
There was a sinister tower of cloud piled up beyond the reef by the
time I had brought my reluctant charges back aboard the yacht, but its
east side was showing blacker than its west, and before long we had
the satisfaction of seeing it bear off in the former direction and
disappear, roaring mightily, behind Point Venus. The rest of the night
we were left in peace to haul off out of danger.
For the last two or three hundred yards the yacht had backed in
a course which lacked but a few degrees of being parallel to the
sea-wall, so that the anchors were but little further from the shore
than the schooner herself. "Hauling off," therefore, was a tedious and
not entirely simple proceeding. We first hove short on the starboard
anchor, broke it out and brought it just awash. Several lashings were
then passed through its ring and round and round the port life-boat,
just aft of the beam, after which a line from the yacht was made fast
to the anchor and the shackle knocked off. This left it suspended in
the water in a manner best calculated to trim the boat and not
hamper the rowers.
While the boat pulled offshore and dropped the starboard anchor the
port was broken out and catted. Then the line from the former was put
on the winch and the yacht hauled offshore as far as possible. Here the
port anchor was let go, following which the starboard was hove up,
re-shackled and dropped again. The next morning, taking advantage of
a favourable slant of wind, we dropped back to within a hundred feet
of the sea-wall and ran mooring lines to a couple of cannon which
projected from the coral, a berth which proved both safe and
convenient.
* * * * *
Friday, the 13th of May, was set for our day of departure for Samoa,
but the unlucky coincidence of the day of the week and the month
evoked such a storm of protest from the sailors that the Commodore
postponed sailing for another twenty-fours and thereby lost a fair
wind out of the harbour. On the morning of the 14th a fitful N.W.
wind blowing directly down the passage made it impossible to get
under weigh without running a strong chance of piling the yacht
up on the beach. After a bootless wait of a couple of hours for a
shift of wind, a line was finally carried to the mail-boat's buoy,
out to which the yacht was laboriously hauled by winding in on
the winches. Letting go here at noon, we sailed down the bay
with a beam wind, dipping in turn to the flags of the American
and British Consulates and the gunboat _Zelee_.
As we hauled up to thread the entrance the wind was brought dead
ahead, and for the next fifteen minutes the yacht was put about so
often in the scant working room of the narrow passage that the sails
were hardly filled on one tack before, with shoaling water and an
imminent surf, it was necessary to go off on the other. The trading
schooners make it a rule never to attempt the passage with a head
wind, but _Lurline's_ superiority in pointing up, as well as the
greater ease with which she handled, made comparatively simple a
performance that for the others would have been really hazardous.
At 12.30 P. M. we were clear of the harbour, and at two o'clock took
departure, Point Venus Light bearing S.E. by S., distant eight miles.
Close-hauled to a baffling N.W. wind, a course of due N. was sailed
until ten o'clock, when the yacht was put about to a westerly course
for the rest of the night, her speed averaging less than six miles an
hour. Tahiti was still visible under a dense cloud rack at daybreak,
while the northern side of Moorea presented a crazy skyline of sharp
pinnacles. Toward noon Neahau was sighted, Raiatea almost
immediately appearing beyond. At sunset all the leeward islands
were in sight, Tahaa and Bora Bora showing up beyond Raiatea.
Between the two former a sharp sail-like rock appeared, the tips of
the pinnacles of Moorea were still visible to the south, while above
and beyond them a heavy cloudbank betrayed the position of the
veiled Orohena.
The north line of Bora Bora showed forward of the starboard beam at
daylight of the 16th, our course then being due west. At eight o'clock
Tubai raised a fogged outline to the south, and just across its leeward
end the hazy form of Marua, the most westerly of the Societies, was
dimly visible. Marua and the skyline of the great cliff of Bora Bora
held places on the horizon till sunset, and with darkness we saw the
last of the French islands.
The wind, which had been light for the last two days, had fallen away
entirely by the morning of the 17th, the calm for the next eighteen
hours being so complete that the yacht had not enough way to
straighten out the log-line. From midnight of the 16th to that of the
17th but twenty-six miles were covered, most of the distance being
made in one watch. By morning of the 18th, however, the renegade
Trade-wind again began asserting itself, to stand faithfully by nearly
all the rest of the way to the Samoas.
The coming of the Trade-wind was coincident with another happening
which served graphically to illustrate the dangers that little-navigated
seas hold for the most careful skippers. From the observations of the
17th it appeared that Bellinghausen Island, a low uninhabited reef of
considerable extent, lay directly upon our course to Tutuila, and at a
distance which made it probable that we would come up to it toward
the end of the night. Findlay's "Directory" gave warning of a southerly
setting current of a mile an hour, allowing for which our course was
so altered as to give the dangerous reef an amply wide berth. That
course, we figured, would carry us from ten to twenty miles north of
the island in spite of the current, but at midnight, to make assurance
doubly sure, it was decided to edge still farther to the north, and the
course was altered to N.W. by W. This we were to hold until daybreak
and then, the danger being past, head off due west for Tutuila again.
Of course we would pass out of sight and sound of the reef, we
thought; but that was the safest way, and there wouldn't be much to
see anyhow.
Just before daybreak, as the yacht, driven by the newfound Trade-wind,
was settling contentedly down to an easy eight knots, the excited
hail of "Breakers on the lee bow!" brought every one rushing on deck,
and presently, out of the dissolving mist ahead, we saw long lines
of surf tumbling over a submerged reef, and beyond low drifts of sand
scantily covered with scrubby coconuts and pandanus. There was no
need of altering our course. Still heading in a direction which we had
figured would carry us twenty miles to the _north_ of Bellinghausen
Island, we slipped quietly by, a mile off its sinister _southern_ line,
before hauling up again for Tutuila. Every point we had altered our
course had only brought us nearer to the danger we had sought to
avoid, and the chances are, if we had made assurance a bit surer,
that, with the added speed of the incidental slant of wind, the yacht
would have sailed into the breakers before daylight.
There was nothing wrong with our reckoning on this occasion except
the allowance made for the current, and this was figured according
to the only authority available. Probably not an average of one ship
a year makes the voyage from the Societies to the Samoas, and only
the occasional government vessel keeps a record that is likely to be
reflected on the charts. The southerly set of the current past the
western end of the Societies is, at least in the Fall months, certainly
much greater than Findlay estimates it.
With mainsail and foresail wing-and-wing and both gaff topsails set,
good speed was made all day of the 18th. Morning of the 19th found
the wind dead astern, however, and this, in combination with an
exasperating swell which set in from the south for no apparent
reason whatever and made it impossible to run wing-and-wing,
compelled us to steer a point wide of our course of due west. It was
our original intention to rig up a square foresail for this run before
the Trade from Tahiti to Samoa, but the baffling headwinds of the
first few days made the use of such a sail impossible, and the
advantage was deemed hardly worth the trouble for the few days
that remained.
We learned later that the heavy seas from the south were the
result of a tremendous gale which swept the Pacific beyond the
Tropic of Capricorn a few days previously. Beam seas and a strong
following wind make about the most uncomfortable combination a
fore-and-after can encounter, and the next four days were lively
ones aboard _Lurline_. A sea would come rolling up out of the
south in a great sky-scraping ridge of pea green and heel the yacht
to starboard until the mainboom dipped into the water and buckled
under the strain like a rod before the first rush of a ten-pound
salmon. Then it would pass on, leaving the yacht to tumble off its
back and roll her port rail under just in time to dip a deckful out of
the next wave. Much of the time the foresail was lowered with the
boom hauled amidships, and the mainsail, double-reefed, carried to
starboard. The jib and forestay-sail were usually set but rendered
little service, most of such wind as they caught being shaken out in
the roll.
Under these circumstances very creditable speed was made. The run
to noon of the 19th was 195 miles, and for the three following days
193, 174 and 175 miles, respectively. The wear and tear on sails and
sheets and halyards was very great, however. On the 21st the fore
peak halyard chafed through at noon, and at ten P. M. of the same
day the forestay-sail sheet came to similar grief. Nothing else carried
away before we reached port, but the steady banging of these four
days made a general overhauling of the rigging necessary before we
were in shape to put to sea again from Pago Pago.
The several small islands which constitute the Manua division of the
Samoan group were sighted to the N.E. at daybreak of the 23rd. The
peaks of Tutuila, distant forty miles, came above the horizon at four
in the afternoon of the same day, but as there was no hope of
reaching Pago Pago before dark in the light airs then prevailing,
canvas was shortened to mainsail and forestay-sail and the night
was spent in standing off and on. Morning of the 24th found us
twenty miles off shore, and for several hours the yacht scarcely
made steerageway in an almost dead calm. Toward noon a light
easterly breeze sprang up, and taking advantage of every puff we
managed to worry in through the cliff-walled entrance of the
remarkable bay of Pago Pago by three o'clock.
The port doctor met us as we came abreast of the quarantine station
and piloted the yacht up the bay to an anchorage, but through a faulty
diagnosis of the lay of the bottom, combined with a faulty prescription
when his original mistake was discovered, missed only by the
narrowest of margins leaving his patient a subject for the marine
hospital. A few of the details may be worth recording in their bearing
on the much-mooted question of the advisability of placing surgeons
in command of the government hospital ships.
The doctor boarded the yacht as she came gliding up before the gentle
evening breeze, and after satisfying himself that she bore no
evidences of plague or yellow fever in cabin or forecastle, kindly
volunteered, in the absence of a harbour master (which functionary
the port did not boast), to show us the way to the safest and most
convenient anchorage available for a visiting craft. We accepted his
well-meant offer without misgivings, and the quarantine boat, its
gaily-turbaned _fita-fitas_ leaning lazily on their oars, was soon
trailing astern, while the doctor, clearing his throat, began
"piloting."
"Straight down the middle," was his first order; and "Straight down
middl', Sir," muttered Perkins at the wheel, holding the yacht to her
even course up the bay in apparently correct interpretation of the
direction as meaning something akin to the regulation "Steady as
she goes."
"Now in past the _Wheeling_," was the next command; and when we
had swept smartly in past the U. S. S. _Wheeling_, "Now edge in a
bit toward the shore," carried the yacht under the shadow of the
towering southwestern harbour walls.
At this juncture the doctor went forward to reconnoiter, and while
we still slipped at no mean speed through the water--quite without
apprehension because of the considerable distance still intervening
between the yacht and the apparently steep-to-shore--the excited
order came booming back to "Keep her off! Keep her off!"
Here was a properly phrased nautical order at last, and Perkins
grinned appreciatively as he spun the wheel up, mechanically
muttering "Keep 'er off, Sir." An instant later the Commodore,
dashing wildly aft, cleared the cockpit rail at a bound, and, knocking
the surprised Perkins backward with his shoulder, began climbing up
the spokes of the wheel like a monkey as he threw it hard down. The
yacht wavered for an instant, as though confused by the unwonted
treatment, and then, with a slatting of canvas and banging of blocks,
came up into the wind and paid off on the other tack just in time to
avoid the thrust of a jutting point of coral. We felt fully justified in
setting aside our volunteer pilot and finding our own anchorage
after that.
Regarding which it might be in order to explain that the shores of
Pago Pago Bay, though the volcanic walls themselves shelve off
abruptly to a great depth, are fringed with a hundred-yard-wide table
of coral which rises to within three or four feet of its surface all the
way around. The outer edge of the latter drops off sheer to deep
water, and anywhere beyond is good anchorage. The doctor, of
course, knew of this coral bank but had miscalculated its position.
When its jagged brown rim suddenly leered up at him through the
green water, quite correctly anticipating that if the yacht drove in
upon it she might do herself harm, he very naturally shouted to
"Keep her off!" which order the man at the wheel, quite as naturally,
interpreted to mean "Keep her off the wind." This he did, with the
result that he was heading her more directly than ever onto the
reef, when the Commodore, catching the lay of things and
realizing the danger of complicating an already hopelessly mixed
situation by giving orders, sprang to the wheel himself, threw the
yacht up into the wind and avoided by a scant dozen feet the
jagged edge of the coral bank.