RECOLLECTION

Chester Hill 1989

SOUTH PACIFIC, WE ARE HERE.

We left Panama under sealed orders, and only after we were well at sea did we open them and learn our destination, Milne Bay, New Guinea. We crossed the line, with all due ceremonies, and a few hours later made a brief fueling stop at, I believe, San Christobal in the Galapagos Islands, made famous by Charles Darwin over a century earlier with his studies of the evolution of species, particularly in that area. These islands are so desolate that some have referred to them as the end of the world. I personally feel that world’s beginning would be more apt. Captain Robertson and a few others sampled the world famous fishing from the whaleboat, but I chose to wander around on shore for the few minutes that I could.

Fascinating.

Then we set out on probably one of the longest and straightest runs we ever made, arriving as dawn was breaking onto the spectacular peaks surrounding the circular lagoon inside the reefs forming the island of Bora Bora. It is in the Society Islands, near fabled Tahiti and Moora. Later it itself was to become almost legendary when it was described by James Michener as “The most beautiful island in the world. “I’ll never argue with his description, as it was nothing short of spectacular, with little western civilization except for a fueling barge, Our pilot in the channel through the reefs was a young Jay Gee, who was quick to make us believe that he himself was not overly familiar with the passage.

Our Captain agreed with me about that in later years!

Liberty in that lovely jewel was again very limited and brief, but I did get ashore long enough to chat a bit with a couple of natives near their thatched-roofed homes, and bought an exquisite mother-of –pearl bracelet strung with coconut fiber from one of them. It was stolen years later when my daughter’s house was burglarized.

Back on the ship I saw that those who had not been ashore had also been busy acquiring beautiful souvenirs of native handiwork from visiting outrigger canoe bumboats.

GRASS SKIRTS! Literally by the scores they had bought them. Beautiful garments they were. There were many demonstrations in progress of how to dance in them – by our crew.

Sadly to relate, however, a major problem developed not too many hours after we had sailed on the next leg of our trip, enroute to another memorable spot, Pago Pago, in American Samoa. Problem was that just every soul on board began scratching just like he fallen in a bed of fire ants. At first we were blaming the cooks for feeding us poison, but pretty soon we saw them! LICE! We were infested with them, and it didn’t take long to figure out the source. And so, the fondly remembered hula skirts were almost ceremoniously cast upon the blue Pacific waters, one by one from the fantail, leaving a memorable trail!