# Guadalcanal - The Island.



## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

At 0815 hours on 9th October, 1984, 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. What's in store for us now? We had very little fuel left... not much more than a ton... and that wouldn't get Debut very far. And we were down to only a few hundred dollars, too! We both hoped that something would turn up for us, so we could have a decent future together.
Once we were cleared inwards we went ashore to explore the small town... and what a dump it turned out to be! Apart from the noise and fumes of the heavy trucks from the docks, the dust rose from their wheels and hung in the humid, steamy air. The place seemed to be one large building site, where the workers had knocked off for lunch and never bothered coming back. It wasn't long before we needed to sit down under a fan to cool ourselves with an ice-cold beer, so we headed for the yacht club. And what a surprise! Roland and Gabby, who'd joined Debut in Nuka Hiva, were there with their new yacht. Shane and Tina, who's tiny yacht was one of only two to survive the cyclone that wrecked Neiafu Harbour in Vava'u, had made it this far in one piece. Among the other yachties were many who'd seen Debut throughout the South Seas.
Mariana became friends with Unis and Violet... two Tongan women, who were married to whites working in the Solomon Islands on contracts. Violet had a beautiful 14 year old half-caste daughter from her Australian husband, and Unis's German husband took us along to the Bavarian Beer Fest.
A young Australian couple with a baby daughter... John and Meredith and little Emily... had just refitted their authentic Torres Straight pearling lugger in Malaita Island, using local hardwood and craftsmen to complete the job. During their time on the slipway, their engine had got sawdust in the oil seal of the gearbox, and it was badly leaking oil into the bilge.
We towed Patricia the half mile from the yacht club anchorage to Debut with the Rabalo and moored her alongside. Using our crane on the boat deck, we lifted their engine on to our deck for repairs, and they stayed alongside us until they left for Australia a month later. To show their appreciation, they taught me how to make rice wine from a few simple ingredients.
We explored all over the mountainous island with a local taxi driver, who was married to a Western Samoan girl. His wife and Mariana even knew each other from when they were at school together. Driving down a tree-lined lane, passing two abandoned armoured personal carriers, we came upon Red Beach, which had flowed red with American blood. Ironically, it was now carpeted with thick green verdigris right down to the water's edge.
They took us to the Japanese war memorial, high on a hill overlooking the main battlefield of the island. The four concrete columns gleamed white as they thrust like reaching fingers of a hand up into the sky. Coachloads of Japanese pilgrims came each day to grieve for their loved ones, and see the place where they'd fallen in battle... and where their bodies still rested.
The hillsides are honeycombed with tunnels and caves, dug into the earth by willing hands to escape the rain of death from above. Whether they were American or Japanese, I don't know... perhaps they were shared by both. Their history is lost in the mists of time, as they are now overgrown and forgotten themselves. I explored as far inside them as I dare with my small torch, snapping away with my camera-flash into the gloom.
With a group of other yachties from the club, we set out to find the fabled cave at the head of the Mattanical Gorge. After an exhausting climb up into the hills... still littered with the flotsam of war... we came upon its maw and climbed down inside.
Water cascaded upon us from above, splashing into the deep pool in the centre of the cave. Over 30 feet down into its murky depths are reputed to be the bones of the last Japanese defenders of the island, grenaded to their death by the advancing American troops in The Battle of Guadalcanal.
It was a pleasant relief to follow the icy stream down to the sea, slipping and sliding through the rapids in the fast-flowing current, and swimming in the slow-running deep pools between the rocks.
The two months we spent at Guadalcanal seemed to flash by, and it was soon time for us to leave. Without a residency permit, it wasn't possible to stay longer in their country. There was no chance to work with the ship within their territorial waters, and what little money we had left we spent on stores. Although fuel was very cheap at the fuel wharf... a quarter of the price elsewhere... we had no money with which to buy any. Despondently, we lifted the anchor and headed north across Iron Bottom Sound with the last of our precious fuel. We steamed past the smouldering peaks of Tulagi, which had seen its own baptism of fire in the last war. The passage between Santa Isabel and Malaita Island opened out in front of us, and Debut headed for the South Pacific Ocean.
As fate would have it, a heavy rain storm engulfed the ship as we entered Indispensable Straight, blacking out what little we could see of the island through the darkness. The wind moderated a little and the rain stopped, and I got a radar bearing on the eastern tip of Santa Isabel at six miles. Just before midnight, we passed Ramos Island, and the radar packed up on us for good. The old Decca had died long before, and now it was the turn of the Furuna, leaving us with nothing.
At 0200 hours on 12th December, we stopped the main engine and drifted 20 miles north of Ramos Island. At ten in the morning, we set all the sails, including a large genoa I'd cut down and strengthened from the Gulf Stream in Acapulco. The owners had asked me to strip her out of everything that wasn't essential, as they wanted to use the 75 foot Camper and Nicholson yacht to carry ten tons of marijuana from Colombia to the islands in Santa Barbara Bay, off Los Angele. It set well in the light air and helped give us some forward movement.
For a week, we tried to clear the northern coast of Santa Isabel under sail, but the current kept taking us towards the shore. Many days were flat calm, without so much as a ripple on the glassy sea, and we had to take in the sails to stop them from slatting.
At 0800 hours on 18th December, two whales passed close by the ship heading north-west. The wind was light and variable, as we were still being effected by the coastal weather system. Just on dusk, we started the main engine to take Debut as far away from the land as we dare, leaving us with no more than a few hours of fuel in the tank.
For another week, the wind was light and variable, with the occasional rain squall to liven things up a little. But at least we were out of the sight of the land, and I resumed my celestial navigation again to check our position.
I wanted to catch the first cyclone of the season and ride its wind towards the east... as Mariana's Polynesian forefathers had done on their migrations some 2,000 years before, when they left south-east China as the Lapito tribe. But there was no way to predict their arrival, because this was the cyclone breeding ground... the place of their birth.
The first cyclone struck in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, with storm force winds gusting up to 70 knots from the north-west. There was spume all over the sea, and visibility was down to zero. The large genoa split from its foot to the peak in a second, exploding like a cannon shot. We had to get out there on the fore-deck and retrieve it before it brought the main-mast down with its flogging. It was too badly damaged to repair until we could buy enough strong twine to restitch the seams completely. We hear during the evening on the radio that the storm had been christened Cyclone Monica.
With the two remaining sails still set, Debut was making over six knots towards the east... not bad for a thousand tons of ship being driven by a few pieces of rag! She rode along through the storm like the true lady she was, her decks remaining steady under our feet. We regarded this cyclone as the best Christmas gift we could ever have.
The weather deteriorated, with cyclone following cyclone, one after the other. Our days were spent in coaxing as many miles out of each blow as we could get, then spending the time in between repairing the sails and damaged rigging. We only pulled down the sails as a last resort, as we needed the strength of the storm to drive us forward... and it was too dangerous on deck, anyway. With there only being the two of us on board the ship, we couldn't afford taking any risks with each other. During the night we let Debut get on with it herself, while we slept cuddles together in our comfortable double bunk.
We didn't have to actually steer the ship with the wheel, but just set it amidships and locked the hydraulics. To adjust the direction in which we were heading, we used the trim of the sails. Debut covered over 400 miles towards the east in the first fortnight after Christmas.
The masi-masi had abandoned us in this part of the ocean, and it was too rough most of the time to do much fishing, anyway. We did manage to spear a nice Spanish mackerel, though, which gave a little variety to our diet. After having the water about us teaming with fish while in the Solomon Sea, it was strange to see such a barren wilderness now. We had to make do with tinned produce, rice and beans. 
At 10 o'clock in the morning on 16th January, we heard over the radio a warning for Cyclone Erick, some 600 miles behind us towards the west. It was moving east at seven knots, and would catch up with us in a day or two. Within an hour and a half of the broadcast there were large swells building up from the north, with numerous line-squalls bringing strong gusts of wind. During the night, Erick was reported some 450 miles astern of us, heading east-south-east at 10 knots, with winds of 70 knots. The next day, Erick was catching up with us fast, increasing its speed to 15 knots, then later to 20 knots. By plotting its track on our chart, I calculated it would pass well south of us, to smash into the Fijian Islands.
We were now very close to Funafuti Islands, in the Tuvalu Group, so agreed to head there before deciding what to do next. Cyclone Erick would be the last of the season, and there was still 600 miles to go to Western Samoa. The El Nino effect hadn't been as strong as we'd hoped, and the further east you go the less effect it has.
At noon on 18th January, 1985, I calculated our position using my morning sight, and adjusted our course to take us as near to the passage on the southern side of the atoll as we could get. At 1230 hours we started the main engine, heading 50 degrees for the passage into the inner lagoon. I was making diesel-oil with any hydro-carbons I could find on the ship, to keep the engine running. The tops of the coconut palms were sighted at 1355 hours on the starboard bow, and the course was brought round to 60 degrees.
At 1720 hours, Debut entered the lagoon through the Te Puapua Pass, and we weaved our way through the marked channel past the coral-heads towards the main island. Just over an hour later, we anchored off the village of Fongafale in 45 feet of water, with two shackles of chain.
In just under four weeks, we'd sailed and drifted some 1,200 miles since the first cyclone struck. This had been towards the east, against the prevailing winds and currents of the South Pacific Ocean. Whatever happened now, we were well up wind to fetch to any destination we wanted to go. All the best, Cpt Dick Brooks.
To view the photographs of this voyage under sail, go to the Books forum and see the details of 'The Black Ship's Odyssey, Book Two.'


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