# Where are you, Alex?



## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

Because of all the adverse publicity we'd received since our arrival in Tahiti, and the many crew changes we'd made during our stay in Moorea, the Gendarmerie gave us 72 hours notice to leave their island and put to sea. At 0530 hours on 12.1.81, we got underway for Trahan, in Raiatea. After leaving Cook's Bay as dawn was breaking, a course of 275 degrees was set into the auto-pilot. It was raining, with poor visibility, and there was a large ground-swell setting in from the east.
I thought we would get inside the reef before dusk, but just as we were approaching the south of the island, a heavy rain-storm descended upon us from the north-west. The wind went from strong to gale force in only a few minutes, and before we knew it, we had a full cyclone on our hands. I hove-to under the lee of Raiatea until the wind dropped an hour later.
We got under-way again, but had missed our chance of entering the lagoon through the passage before dark. I took Debut to a position off the west side of Raiatea to wait until morning. By 2050 hours, the wind had changed to the west, so we stopped the main engine and drifted for the night. Using the RDF beacons at Bora Bora and Raiatea, I plotted our position at 30 miles west of the island.
The wind got up again from the north-west, gusting at force eight. There was a heavy ground-swell accompanying the wind, but good visibility between rain squalls. We got under-way again at 0415 hours, and I set a course for Bora Bora. The passage into Bora Bora was straight forward and wide enough for the largest ships.
At 0625 hours, the island of Bora Bora was sighted just on the starboard bow, and an hour later we entered the Passe Teavanui into the lagoon. Debut anchored at 0755 hours in Baie Faanui in fifteen fathoms of water, with five shackles of chain. When the gendarmes came out to see us in their launch, they were amazed that anyone was moving about at sea because of the cyclone. I explained to them about being ordered out of the harbour at Moorea, and they promised me that we would be made welcome at their island.
It is said that Bora Bora is the most beautiful place on earth, and I'm inclined to agree with them. The central island rises to lofty peaks, with a deep encircling lagoon. The Americans used it as a sea-plane refuelling base during the Second World War, because the spacious harbour is so deep. The outer fringing reef completely encloses the lagoon, save for the deep-water passage on the western side of the island. All the windward part of the outer reef has built up into a palm-covered strip of land, where the main aviation runway is built.
It was at the yacht club that I first met Alex. He set up the club with his wife, Michelle, after sailing the Pacific in their small yacht. It was here that we did most of our serious drinking while staying in Bora Bora. We'd sit up half the night telling yarns of the sea, and cracking barrack-room jokes between us. He'd show us photographs of himself dressed as a GI when he was an extra in the feature film, 'Bora Bora', set during the Second World War. His hard-done-by wife would often bang on the bedroom floor with a broom-handle to get us to stop our raucous laughter.
While diving in the lagoon for black coral, we came upon a mass of rusting scrap-metal scattered about the sandy bottom. As had happened in other islands of the Pacific Ocean at the end of the Second World War, all the military equipment left over from the war was pushed into the harbour when the French Government declined to pay for it. Among it, we found a large amount of scrap copper and brass, and two matching galvanized 500 pound patent ship's anchors.
On searching still further out in the bay, we found one of the main oil-tanker moorings from the American fleet. The Gendarmerie refused to let us commence salvage operations to recover the two anchors and chain, so Alex introduced me to Tauto Moano. He was the grandson of the last King of Bora Bora, before the French did away with the monarchy with their act of dissolution.
Every one called him 'No Problem', as it was his favourite saying to anyone who knew him. Owning most of the land in the island and having his relatives in many of the key government positions, meant that he could fix just about anything. And as he had no love for the French Administration anyway, he arranged for his uncle, who was the Mayor of Bora Bora, to grant us permission to salvage the mooring. The condition of the deal was that we kept the 25 tons of three inch stud-link chain, and gave him the two fifteen ton anchors.
Tauto was building himself a WWII museum around his log-built A-frame house. He'd bought himself a D7 Caterpillar bulldozer, and with it had dragged one of the large guns on the summit of the island to his museum. There were eight fourteen inch naval guns from a First World War heavy cruiser, and had been mounted on top of the mountain by the Americans to protect their base from Japanese naval attack.
After lifting the massive anchors with our main deck-winch and carrying them underwater to the wharf, Tauto paid the captain of the main inter-island freighter to lift them on to a road trailer. At only a snail's pace, they were each in turn transported along the only tarmac road in the island, accompanied by most of the cheering, singing islanders. He mounted them across the road leading to his museum, forming a ceremonial gateway at the entrance.
We found a very lucrative market for our black coral pendants at the Club Med. After being introduced to the manager by Alex, we were made welcome whenever we wanted to visit. All the crew would spend the day cutting and polishing the black coral into pendants until it glistened like obsidian, then hanging them on lengths of sail-twine around their necks. We'd drink up the profits between us in the evening, after selling the pendants to the guests in the hotel lounge.
At 1630 hours on 12th March 1981, we got underway for Suvorov Atoll, in the Cook Islands. We'd waited an extra week for the third cyclone of the season to pass Bora Bora, the previous cyclone pulverizing the island and smashing up the yacht club veranda. We steamed close in among the many yachts to salute Alex and his family, sounding the Marseillaise on the ship's horn. It was a bright, sunny day, with a large ground-swell of sixteen feet from the north-west. Because of the cyclone, there was a confused sea... waves breaking in all directions.
I last heard from friends while I was based out of Pago Pago that Alex ran away to Tahiti with his teenage girlfriend, leaving his wife and young family to carry on running their yacht club. Get in touch, Alex, and give us all the lurid details, and how you've survived through the years. All the best, from your old drinking buddy, Cpt Dick Brooks.


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