# Guadalcanal - The Arrival.



## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

An hour after leaving the wharf in Apia, I stopped Debut four miles outside the harbour on the leading marks to take Dirty-Mike on board. He'd been standing up and waving his arms, the red smoke from his flare billowing into the sky. We connected up the steel towing bridle that we'd especially prepared in advance and took his fishing-boat in tow.
At 1100 hours, we passed Apolima Island, the last stronghold of the infamous Australian black-birder, Bully Hayes, where he fell to British guns at the turn of the last century. We passed through Apolima Straight and steamed along the south coast of Savaii. At 1800 hours, Debut passed the south-western point of Savaii Island and headed out into the wide South Pacific Ocean. The last we saw of Western Samoa was the setting sun reflected on the mountains. We watched until it faded, and were swallowed up in the blackness of night.
The next day, we crossed the International Date Line, and we did in a litre of rum between us to celebrate the occasion. The sea was calm, with a light breeze from the east ruffling the water. Dirty-Mike's Alia towed well behind us, only weaving a little on the end of her towline. Although the twin hulls were open, with a hard decking fastened between them, there were sealed buoyancy chambers fore and aft in each section.
By dawn on our fourth day at sea, we were off the reef on the south side of Wallis Island. At 0800 hours, Debut went through the passage into the lagoon, and we threaded our way through the coral-heads to anchor in 90 feet of water on the east side of the island, near the outer fringing reef. The customs and immigration came out to the ship to clear us inwards, then we went ashore in Dirty-Mike's fishing-boat to explore the island.
The three weeks we spent there was an idyllic time for us all. We were anchored near a small uninhabited island, cloaked in overhanging coconut palms that surrounded a small house in the centre. Each weekend, the young men of the small town would bring out their girlfriends to enjoy their favours, well away from the prying eyes of their parents. We met up with them the first weekend we were there, and they soon became friends with us, visiting the ship.
Dirty-Mike found himself a young, if overweight, local girl, and spent many a night with her in her parent's house in town. Even when he was placed under ship arrest by the French Gendarmerie when they found out about him illegally leaving Western Samoa, he would slip ashore at night to see her. They talked of deporting him back to New Zealand, but as he was broke they would have to pay for it themselves. Several years later, he found out that there was a baby Dirty-Mike running wild on Wallis Island.
At 1100 hours on 5th December, we left Wallis Island, bound for Fiji. We rounded Udu Point and passed through the Somosomo Straight, and the high wooded, island of Nasaroleru and Taveuni rose each side of us in the moonlight. Steaming across the calm, sheltered Koro Sea surrounded by the Fijian Islands, we passed close to Koro Island... a small volcanic cone jutting out of the water. Once Debut passed through the outer fringing reef on the south side of Vitu Levu into Suva Harbour, Dirty-Mike let go the anchor in the Quarantine Anchorage in Walu Bay.
Dirty-Mike moved on shore and spent Christmas with an old friend from Apia. When he finally managed to sell his fishing-boat as a scuba-diving tender, he flew back to New Zealand. But after ten years of being away in the South Seas, the organized, over-regulated lifestyle of Auckland didn't suit him. He decided to return to Western Samoa and face the music. Somehow, he managed to elude being sent to prison for his sins, and his wife took him back into the family.
The six months we were allowed to spend in Fiji passed pleasantly for us, with Mariana over-indulging herself with ice-cream, chips and jammy-doughnuts. Almost everyday, I went drinking and playing snooker in the R.S.A., while Mariana preferred the cinema in town. She would laugh her head off at the Bollywood films that she couldn't even understand.
There was no chance of me finding work for my ship in Fiji, as the only vessels allowed to ply their trade in Fijian waters must not only be owned exclusively by local businessmen, but must have actually been constructed in the Fijian Islands. After six months of high living, it was time to travel westward in the hope of earning some money on which to live.
At 1000 hours on 13th June, 1984, we got under way bound for Vila, in Vanuatu. By 1430 hours, Debut cleared the western end of Mbengga Passage, and I set the course of 270 degrees into the auto-pilot. The next day, the weather quickly deteriorated into a full storm. Large cresting swells, some up to 30 feet high, were crashing against the port quarter and breaking across the deck. The port side-deck was permanently filled with sea water to the height of the bulwarks, and the main deck was awash. Cooking became very difficult, but I managed a pot of boiled potatoes and hard-boiled eggs.
The seas moderated a little at dusk, and we ploughed on through the night on our westerly course. It was very tiring, running the ship with only the two of us on board, but there was no way we could stop the engine to rest. By dawn, the wind had increased again from the southeast, smashing large breakers against our port side.
When I managed to grab a quick noon sight through the overcast, it was found that we'd been set some 45 miles south of our course-line by the current. I altered the setting of the auto-pilot to 280 degrees magnetic. At 1351 hours, I managed an afternoon sight, which corroborated my noon sight. I brought the course round still further to 285 degrees to be on the safe side.
At 1630 hours the next day, Erromango Island was sighted off the port bow, and we passed it an hour and a half later, with Goat Island rock at 20 miles on radar. At 0700 hours on 17th June, the island of Efate was sighted visually off the starboard bow. Fifteen minutes later, I had a radar contact at 24 miles range. At 0945 hours, we entered Port Vila Harbour, totally exhausted from our arduous voyage. In all the hurricanes and cyclones I'd ever been through, the sea conditions on this trip had been the worst, the giant swells having come from some unknown storm in the Southern Ocean.
We ghosted up to the outer anchorage without a sign of life on deck. Ahead of us on our port side lay the brigantine, 'Eye of the Wind', which had left Plymouth Sound in England two weeks after Debut in September, 1978, on Operation Drake. This was the first time we'd seen them since. We were like the Mari Celeste, until I rang the telegraph for Slow Astern. I raced out of the wheel-house door, down the companion-ladder to the fore-deck to let go the anchor.
Once we got our inward customs clearance, we went on board the 'Eye of the Wind' to meet Tiger, and were made welcome by his crew. A full cooked meal in their messroom put us back on our feet. They had plenty of damage of their own to show us, caused by the same storm as we were in, on their way up from Noumea, in New Caledonia.
It was only a week after our arrival that Roger and his wife, Maureen, anchored ahead of us in the outer harbour in their yacht, 'Iron Butterfly'. They'd also been battered by the same storm, and the interior of their yacht was a wreck. Fresh water and diesel-oil had splashed over the cabin. They'd just sailed down from Port Moresby, on their way to Nuku'alofa, in Tonga. Roger had a contract to install a cellular telephone system for the Tongan Government.
The 17th July is the Independence Day for Vanuatu, and all the ships in the harbour were ordered to be dressed overall. The pilot launch motored about the anchorage, serving up written notices from the Harbour Master's Office, instructing each ship to fly all her flags. I rigged bunting from stem to stern, reaching to each masthead. 
There were parades and processions about the small town, with many of the outer islanders wearing their traditional dress. The women wore coconut frond trimming over their mother-Hubbard's, while the men sported their nambres... the woven bark sheath attached to a belt that holds the penis. Mariana squealed with laughter at their hanging testicles, excitedly snapping away with her camera.
It was near the end of our second month in the island that I found a job for my ship. The mayor of Port Vila came from Aoba... a small island further up the chain... and he wanted to go into business with me, using Debut to service his island for trade.
The British Voluntary Service Overseas also wanted to charter her to transport their building materials up through the islands. Although they were constructing concrete freshwater tanks for each island's communities, their cement and timber kept being stolen en-route to the intended site. They wanted to carry it on my ship to safeguard it's arrival.
But once more the green-eyed monster of envy reared it's ugly head. The other main carriers throughout the island chain weren't going to put up with any completion, especially as their own outfits were badly run and corrupt. I was ordered to the Immigration Office, where I was given 72 hours to get out of their territorial waters.
At 1245 hours on 21st August, we raised the anchor and got underway from Port Vila, with the intention of going to Noumea. It was sunny and calm, with a slight easterly breeze, as we left the harbour and put out to sea... quite a change from our arrival two months before. We weren't rally certain of where we wanted to go next, so once we got clear of the land we shut down the main engine and drifted. As we'd done before after leaving Wallis Island, we set a small tri-sail and headsails sheeted home hard to steady the ship.
The first two days at sea were calm under the lee of the land, although the wind blew fresh from the east. Just after lunch on the third day, Malekula Island was sighted off the starboard quarter bearing 20 degrees. By the fifth day out, we were finally out of the sight of land. It was sunny and calm, and the ship was steady. From my sun sights, I calculated our drift was towards the west at 290 degrees true.
Once we got clear of the land, large shoals of masi-masi started hanging around the ship. These are dorado, or dolphin fish, but are known by many names in the islands. They are highly sought after for their firm, white, succulent flesh. They were far too smart to actually take a bait, but had to be coaxed alongside the ship with a lure then speared with a harpoon. We spent many days designing and fashioning the best instruments for the job.
We saw the odd yacht passing on their own voyage of adventure, fishing-boats working their long-lines, and freighters steaming to distant destinations across the horizon. There were whales and whale-sharks... one that thought Debut was a potential mate, and stayed alongside for over six hours. After we'd been at sea a month, a pod of some 20 humpbacked whales passed 200 yards down the port side, heading east.
We caught many masi-masi to eke out our stores, and even a small turtle to make into soup. Once we even managed to land a four foot shark, that was soon turned into steaks. We hadn't much money left from working in Apia, so had to be very careful with what food we had left on the ship.
The 8th September was Mariana's 21st birthday, so I baked her a small cake as a present. It even had a candle to blow out, although it was only a big one used for emergency lighting. She dressed in my full, white tropical uniform to pose for her photograph up in the wheel-house, then I carried her to our comfortable bunk to make love.
We listened each day to a commercial radio station from the Solomon Islands, and laughed at the way they spoke pidgin English over the air. Mariana even tried to copy it, but couldn't get her tongue round many of the words. We liked what we heard from the station, so decided to head for Honiara, in Guadalcanal.
With only three small sails driving Debut along, there was no way we could actually tack or gybe her around to head north. It was with a feeling of excitement that we went down into the engine-room to start up the main engine, on our way to a new destination. It was out of the question to think of steaming there, as our fuel supply was so low, but we got her about and sheeted home the sails.
On 6th October, it was cloudy and overcast, with a hazy horizon all around. There was no sight of any land, but I was able to take my sun sights to fix our position. This was later confirmed by radar, showing Guadalcanal Island at 31 miles to the north-east.
When we where only four miles south of Koliula Point, we started the main engine to steam around to Honiara. Cape Hunter was two and a half miles on the starboard beam at 1900 hours, and two hours later we passed Masanbaga Point. At 2330 hours, I altered course to 350 degrees when the West Cape was six miles on our starboard beam.
At 0440 hours the next morning, the lights of Honiara were in sight. Twenty minutes later, Debut passed through the passage between Savo Island and Cape Esperance, and entered Iron Bottom Bay. I thought of the fiery horrors that took place here some forty years before, when the American fleet was humiliated and humbled before the world by the Japanese in the Battle of Savo Island. They now lay in peace, several hundred feet below my keel. Steaming south through Iron Bottom Bay, the smouldering mountains rose up in front of us.
At 0815 hours on 9th October, after spending more than six weeks at sea, Debut arrived off Honiara, in Guadalcanal. We anchored in 42 feet of water, a quarter of a mile offshore from the hospital, at the mouth of the Mattanical River. A strange stillness came over the ship after the machinery was shut down. We had made it, was what we were both thinking... sailing over 800 miles under jury-rig! What's in store for us now? To be continued. All the best, Cpt Dick Brooks.


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