PACIFIC HIGHLIGHTS

Clive King

(Clive joined the OCC in 1975 and is currently Rear Commodore USA West Zone. He wrote from aboard Sonoma of the Isles, a 55ft steel ketch.)

It has been too long since I have contributed and I apologize for the hiatus. A long article about Fiji died in the bowels of my last computer and preparations for our new passage have taken much time.

Sonoma took a cruise of the South Pacific from 1988 to 1991, a voyage so full of tales and events, insights and experiences, that I must needs for this article limit my recounting.

In July 1988 we sailed from San Francisco to the Marquesas, the Tuamotus and the Society Islands in French Polynesia, thence to Aitutake and Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, and on to New Zealand by December 1988.

The simple charm of the Tuamotus, coupled with the fascinating architecture of their creation, this immense chain of atolls, each a reef island of small motus encircling a lagoon, give a magic to these islands that has lost no lustre over the centuries. The black pearls of the South Pacific are grown here, the `seed' planted by visiting Japanese specialists in this delicate art, but their price places all but a few beyond the means of most. A good pearl will fetch $1000 with ease. Living in simple huts, with the occasional generator for power, the islanders have picked and chosen from the wares of the 20th century. The supply vessel calls once or twice a month, bringing the inevitable corned beef and pilchards which all south sea islanders have adopted as a staple, along with the latest videos for their multi-system VCRs, another newer staple of island life. There is a feeling of anachronism to dining en famille outside a thatched hut, while half the family is inside watching Rambo on a video/hi-fi system that fills a wall, oblivious to the put-put-put of the little generator around the back.

Tahiti is now a ribbon development around much of the island with the capital, Papeete, the only sizeable town. Here, stuck dab in the middle of the Pacific, is a hectic French city, where the camembert avion flown in twice weekly from Paris is squeezed and sniffed to ensure it is just ripe, where the young women are truly beautiful and carry themselves with that fascinating French air of nonchalance (naturally a French word) coupled with the sway of the islands.

Aitutake, much like Bora Bora, has a host of small uninhabited islands within the greater barrier reef surrounding the whole lagoon, and was once famous as a stopover for the Pan-Am Clipper flights. Those days are long gone, and the island's difficult and limited anchorage makes for fewer visiting yachts and shorter stays than it deserves.

The hospitality of the Port Officer, George Bateman, and his wife at Opua in New Zealand's Bay of Islands is well known to many members, and he was a most gracious and helpful host. Each year some 300 yachts descend on this small village to await the end of the southern hemisphere hurricane season. Frank King, also an OCC member and hospitable, lives just across the Bay, and the mere writing brings back fond memories of his company.

We resumed the voyage in June 1989, returning to the tropics and to Tonga. The northern Tongan islands of Vava'u are truly one of the most enchanting of archipelagoes, and the less visited central islands of the Ha'apai group retain their gentle lifestyle.

It was in Tonga that my daughter, then aged five, first experienced the pleasures of tropical cruising, although she had spent much of her life aboard and had sailed both in San Francisco Bay and through the Gulf Islands of Canada with me. Upon arrival at Tongatapu airport in the middle of the night she wrinkled her nose and said, "pooh, rotten vegetables". So much for the rich tropical aroma of the islands. Within an hour of coming aboard we were in the dinghy in Swallow's Cave, and then on the beach, Meredith bedecked in leis and clutching shells, gifts from a local couple. How quickly children learn to communicate with each other -- toa lili (baby chicken) and all the words of import when you are five. At each village it was as if Meredith had a hundred aunts and uncles, all waiting, welcoming, tolerant of this little pa'alangi, amused and curious as she treasured the flowers and shells that to them were so commonplace.

The next hurricane season was passed in Vava'u, uneventful save that the main engine refused to start and we were obliged to wait until Fiji to have it repaired.

Fiji, by far the most populous of the myriad island groups, is really two nations sharing one country. The Indians, brought in a century ago by the British, and the endemic Fijians are parallel communities sharing the same turf. Mixing, trading, and daily living side by side, they rarely intermarry and keep their own cultures and religions. The Indians are traders, while to the Fijians (though I hesitate to use that word because they are all Fijians now for many generations) such practice is antithetical to their philosophy of a communal village culture.

It was in Fiji in late November 1990 that we experienced Hurricane Cena, scarcely mentioned in the western press at the time -- just another tropical hurricane winging its rather early way through the western tropics. We were at anchor (numerous anchors) and Sonoma survived unscathed. I was ashore -- there is little to nothing that one can do aboard and the force of the wind precludes any expedition outside.

From Fiji to American Samoa, whose virtues are limited and whose vices are best left unrecorded, and thence to `the Big Island' of Hawaii before returning to San Francisco in July 1991.

The remainder of 1991 and much of 1992 was spent in fitting a new engine, repairing, restoring, replacing and redecorating. I had remarried, and Bonnie and I began to consider another voyage. Bonnie was already a transpacific sailor some two decades earlier on a 27ft double-ender. She imbued Sonoma with the elegance and grace that only a loving female can, imperturbably and with no remorse dumping most of my cherished junk (and all of my cherished old clothes). I think it's the clothes I miss the most.

In 1992, as Port Officer for San Francisco, we held an OCC dinner at the San Francisco Yacht Club. The attendance was small but many members were either cruising or lived too far away (we wrote to all members in the western states). I was also elected to the post of Rear-Commodore (West Zone) and I thank all those members who wrote to support my nomination. It is an honour, and though I have resisted the temptation to get rings of gold braid plastered all round my blazer and hat I do have a very smart burgee. It is hard to get Californians to wear ties, turn up on time or join anything, but we have kept a small but steady supply of new members coming into the club. Bonnie and John Row, longstanding members whom I met in Canada in 1986, have agreed to `sub' for me as Port Officer while we are away.

In January 1993, after some of the worst weather in memory for the Bay area (at least the drought is over), we found a small window of weather and slipped our lines for Santa Barbara, San Diego and thence to Cabo San Lucas at the foot of the Baja California peninsula of Mexico, some 700 miles south of San Diego. We are now part way down the mainland coast, firmly in the tropics (I know that because here are the first palm trees since San Diego, and washing in cold water actually feels good again), and on our way south to Costa Rica.

Since our departure we have met Ed van Os (OCC) at the San Diego Yacht Club, which club extended to us courteous hospitality and use of their superb facilities, and Luke and Connie Ahrens (OCC) of Windvis IV in Cabo San Lucas. For the next year or so your Rear Commodore USA West Zone will be likely heading further afield (a-sea?), and we look forward to again meeting many members as our burgee wafts blue and gold aloft.

I end my writing as I began, with an apology -- but this time for the noise of the generator. I hope it is not too distracting as you read this article, but 'fridges must freeze, batteries be boosted, and San Wawamaker change salt into sweet, as we lie at anchor, calm seas and warm sunshine, February 1993 in Bahia Tenacatita, Mexico.