In Papeete, yachts are not just visitors—they are integral parts of the community. The Phoenix was moored stern first to the sea wall on the harbor side of the main street, between the luxury cruising schooner Te Vega and the 30-foot ketch Tahiti. Like them, we laid out a gangplank to the shore and, since the rise and fall of the tide is negligible, it needed no adjustment during the month of our stay.
Thus established as semipermanent residents, we settled down to enjoy our central location. From the cockpit or while working on deck (always there was work to be done) we could watch the world of French Oceania as it went by, ceaselessly, from before dawn on one day until the wee small hours of the next. Here comes a woman, pushing her bicycle with a small and squealing pig dangling from the handle bars by its trussed trotters; there go a group of laughing Polynesians, loaded with bundles and crowned with circlets of leaves and brilliant hibiscus blossoms, on their way to board an interisland schooner bound for the Tuamotus. Sometimes a squad of tidily uniformed children passes by, shepherded by a nun in a white habit; or a bearded priest in a round-crowned hat cycles past, his cassock flying.
The center of town, however—and one of the most fascinating aspects of Papeete—is the open-air market. From 4:30 A.M. on, buses full of humanity, with roofs piled high with stalks of bananas, bunches of coconuts, strings of fish, trussed fowl and indignant pigs, pour in from the outlying districts. On the waterfront similar cargoes are being unloaded. Stalls in the market fill rapidly and the whole town pours in with baskets to shop for the day’s supplies.
Most visitors make an effort to get up early—or stay up late enough—to pay at least one visit to the Papeete market, but for Barbara the 5:30 trip to market was not only fun but essential. By seven o’clock most of the fresh vegetables are gone and the fish are beginning to wilt in the heat. By eight nothing is left but the picked-over discards. The buses, loaded once again with produce which looks the same but which has, presumably, changed hands, pull noisily out of the market square and head back to the villages. By 8:30 the market is deserted and, had we overslept, it would have been impossible to buy fresh food for that day.
Usually I went with Barbara for companionship and to help bring home the booty, but mostly to marvel at the display. The Papeete market is the only place I know where a magnificent branch of bleached coral, a fresh pig’s head, and a flagon of Chanel No. 5 may be found sharing counter space in a single stall. Surprises were never-ending and, after we had made our purchases for the day—red-fleshed tuna chunks threaded on a string, a small mound of tomatoes at an exorbitant price, or a woven palm-leaf basket of fresh limes for practically nothing, basket included—we usually wandered through the crowded aisles admiring the color and variety of the wares.
On the way home, in broad daylight, we would stop at a little café to enjoy a prebreakfast café au lait, served in a cup the size of a soup bowl.
Back at the Phoenix, the rest of the gang would still be asleep, awakening only reluctantly at the insistent clanging of the breakfast bell. Although they shared an inclination to lie abed, we were actually very proud of our crew and received frequent compliments on their industry. Old-timers, who had seen many a yacht come to grief in Tahiti on the rocks of crew trouble, were greatly impressed with Nick, Mickey, and Moto. Far from spending their time in the bars, they worked for a part of every day on the endless small jobs of upkeep without which a boat—and a cruise—begins to come apart at the seams. This was a routine we had established in Hawaii, even in the midst of a whirlwind round of hospitality: half a day for the boat, half a day for fun. Nights didn’t count!
My own tasks, though less obvious than painting in the hot sun or greasing stays, included the ever-onerous and time-consuming jobs of locating and purchasing needed supplies, current or for the future, and the cutting of red tape in preparation for further voyaging. For instance, while in Papeete I obtained permission from the Governor to visit “Les Iles Sous Les Vents”—The Islands Under the Wind—in the French Oceania Group; I cabled the New Zealand authorities for permission to visit Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands; and I wrote the American Consul in New Caledonia about the possibility of visiting Samoa. Since there were Japanese nationals as well as Americans in our group, we didn’t dare be too casual about our island hopping.
Most of my local negotiations, of course, had to be carried on in French, of which I knew even less than Japanese. Just to convey our thanks to the proprietors of the Cercle Polynesienne for their offer of shower facilities, or to order a drink, became a frustrating or a challenging adventure, depending on the situation and one’s temperament. We began to see the sense in having an international language which would be a second tongue to all and could be dusted off and used anywhere in the world.
Tahiti has always been a Mecca for yachtsmen. During our stay, we met several—some of them transients like ourselves; others who had succumbed to the charms of Tahiti and settled themselves more or less permanently. Outstanding among the latter was William Robinson, who circled the globe many years ago in his famous Svaap. Robinson seemed to be very shy and reserved, but when he came aboard he soon lost his shyness, when the talk shifted from social nonessentials to a discussion of the best rig to use in trade-wind cruising.
Another yachtsman of former days deserves special mention: Robert Argod, who sailed out from France with his wife and children and several others on Fleur d’Océan and has remained as captain of an interisland schooner. He is the uncontested senior host to all visiting yachts and has a fascinating logbook with pictures and accounts of all the yachtsmen they have met, a treasury of cruising yachts. We began to understand more clearly the close bond that grows up between those who sail, the gradual accumulation of anecdotes and experiences which one hears and passes on so that, although we may never meet many of the yachts mentioned in the Argod logbook, we feel that we are old friends.
As June passed into July, preparations for the Bastille Day fete began to get under way in earnest. Because of our location—practically a part of the Midway—we had ringside seats for everything and could stroll out a dozen times a day to see how the work was getting along. The concessions themselves were not unlike those of any honky-tonk state fair, but there was a charm and novelty to the French and Tahitian songs that poured out of every sidewalk café, a gaiety to the brilliant pareu, or wrap-around skirt, with which the dark-haired women clothed themselves, and a bit of humor in the fact that the frequent parking areas, labeled “Garage,” were to accommodate bicycles instead of cars. Cold pop vied in popularity with drinking nuts—the natives drinking the pop and the tourists the coconut milk!
Most fascinating of all was the transformation of the large park in front of the Governor’s Palace, which was to be the scene of the Bastille Day ball and the subsequent dance contests. A huge wooden dance floor was fitted together and laid down on the grass. Around it were set coconut palms, clumps of plants, and flowering ginger—all transplanted for the occasion. Strings of colored lights were festooned across the area and dozens of little tables were set up around the edges of the floor, changing the open lawn into a fairy-tale ballroom. On the night of July 14 hundreds of couples completed the picture, a picture as evanescent as Cinderella’s own finery, for the very next day the palms and the torch ginger were discarded, the dance floor was carted off, and a new phase of the construction got under way with the erection of grandstands and bleachers around the smooth expanse of grass where the dance contests would next be held.
The fete itself opened officially with a bang—with twenty-one bangs, in fact—as the government fulfilled the promises made on all the posters: Vingt et un coups de canon!!! That afternoon (while Mi-ke was on the boat giving birth to a long-awaited brood of kittens), the various dance teams, in costume, paid ceremonial calls on the Mayor and the Governor and presented gifts of bananas, breadfruit, and coconuts, as well as bundles of live chickens, ducks, and even suckling pigs. (After the formal presentations had been complete, the gifts were quietly returned to the donors.)
As soon as the opening ceremonies had been disposed of, the booths along the Midway went into full swing. Soon the dancers themselves became a colorful part of the scene, their grass skirts discarded and slung over their shoulders as they wandered along the street in more conventional garb, licking ice-cream cones.
Throughout the week of the fete, events came thick and fast. The most widely publicized feature, of course, is the series of dance contests in which teams from most of the neighboring islands as well as of the many districts on Tahiti itself take part. The Tahitian hula, justly famous, has to be seen to be believed. The girls vibrate with such frenetic yet effortless activity, to the insistent rhythms of native drums, and their hips perform such incredible gyrations that the dance leader not only has to call the figures but must constantly circulate among the dancers to retie a skirt or adjust a bra that a performer has danced herself right out of!
In addition to the nightly dance contests there was an overflowing program of events: sailing canoe races, spear-throwing contests, soccer games, swimming and diving competitions, horse racing, greased-pole climbing, and to climax all, the hotly contested outrigger canoe races, both single- and double-hull canoes which are propelled at incredible speed by teams of men or women rowers.
The fete was officially over, but the Midway was still going strong when we left Papeete on the 20th of July. The palm-bedecked booths were turning yellow in the heat, the flowers had long since wilted, but the performers, loath to return to their outer island homes, still wandered the streets doing brief dances for a few francs here and there or selling their dance costumes outright if a buyer could be found. We thought it time to sail on.
The island of Mooréa is eight miles and one universe away from Tahiti. After living for twenty-four hours a day in the midst of a never-sleeping carnival atmosphere, it was a blessed relief to drop anchor in Papetoai Bay, which many have called the most beautiful in the whole world. Certainly it is one of the most spectacular. The mountain peaks are a vivid emerald green and quite unreal in shape, rising almost vertically to end in a surrealist play. In fact the whole scene, the changing blues of the sky, the glowing greens of the land, the clear, translucent blue and green and turquoise shades of the water seemed like something dreamed up by a Technicolor consultant gone berserk.
From our anchorage just off the palm-lined shore we could see a couple of native houses with woven walls of split bamboo and roofs of pandanus thatch. Beyond the houses, but visible only from the top of the mast, ran the narrow crushed coral road which is the main highway around the island—a distance of some 36 miles. The nearest village, a cluster of a dozen or so houses, an octagonal church with a red spire, and two rather dispirited Chinese stores, was two miles to the east. We walked there, to present our credentials and to buy some supplies. Neither of the stores offered anything in the way of fresh fish, meat, or vegetables, and no one seemed at all interested in our papers, so we settled for four bottles of warm “lemonade”—a sweetish soft drink—a large bag of unroasted peanuts, and a handful of vanilla beans. Then we returned to the boat to open cans for the first time since our Tahiti landfall.
Outside of Tahiti, life was dreamy and time lost its sharp insistence. There was no radio, no newspaper—and not even the possibility of receiving mail. It was a relief not to have one’s anxieties and ulcers churned into unrest each day, as they had been during our stay in Hawaii, where every newscast, each fresh edition of the daily papers, had kept us aware of the manufacture of each new ice cube in the Cold War.
We stayed five days in Mooréa, and would have postponed our departure much longer had it not been for the lure of such names as Huahiné, Raïatéa, Tahaa, and Bora Bora.
From Mooréa, we sailed to Huahiné, about a hundred miles downwind. It was an overnight trip and gave us another lesson in How Not to Navigate, as recorded in the log:
Last night, just after Nick came on watch (2400), I could feel a definite change in the motion of the boat and heard the staysail flapping and the foresail boom swinging. Went up and found Nick working hard to keep the set course but unable to do so.... Noticed the stars weren’t in the proper position and checked the compass. (It is a grid-type airplane compass, on which the course is preset.) Saw at once that course was set for 252°—not proper 292°—and trouble was caused from this and not from a sudden change in the wind direction.
What must have happened: After setting proper compass direction, I presumably forgot to lock the rotating portion and one of the men, at change of watch, brushed against it, changing the course by 40°.... Learned new lessons: (1) Check the compass at each watch. (2) Keep it locked.
To this I added one more rule, just to be on the safe side: No one adjusts the compass but the Skipper.
We spotted Huahiné just at dawn and were able to get a bearing and set a course to round the north end before the island was lost in a series of rain squalls. Working our way through the reef, we dropped anchor off the town, and chalked up another South Seas landfall.
Fare, the port of Huahiné, is a village of perhaps a score of small Chinese-owned stores along the waterfront, including cafés, bars, and a hotel. We were quickly introduced to one of its most charming features. A couple of times every day, one or another of the storekeepers would roll a large ice-cream freezer—hand-cranked—out onto his porch and chalk up a sign on the blackboard in front: Glace en vent!! This was the signal for customers to gather, with Jessica and Ted well in the front rank. First comers—solid ice cream; stragglers—soup!
One afternoon we took a hike around the north end of the island, looking for the ruins of a two-storied temple site, known locally as a marae—which was rumored to be in that area. The road along the shore narrowed to a trail and in an hour or so we were walking single file along faint paths. At the end of the trip, we found a small settlement with the ever-present Chinese store, but no marae—and no one who could tell anything.
Disappointed, we started back. A good-looking young Tahitian, his guitar slung over his shoulder, flashed us a smile and stepped off the path to shake hands with each of us as we passed, according to the hospitable custom of the islands, and to wish us “Iorana!—Good Day!” When we asked him, in halting French, if he knew anything about the lost marae, he answered in quite understandable English and volunteered to take us there!
The marae, it seemed, was across the lagoon on a wide stretch where the fringing reef had risen above the sea and was covered with undergrowth and trees. Getting there was no problem at all. Our guide simply commandeered a pirogue, complete with boatman, and arranged for us all to be ferried across, three in each load. Reassembled on the other side, we set off across the hundred yards or so of trackless vegetation, accompanied by a host of interested Friends and Acquaintances of our new-found guide and/or the boatman. Each had equipped himself with a musical instrument of sorts, and our South Seas safari was accompanied by an impromptu orchestra composed of guitar, dry sticks, flat stones, hollow coconuts, and an empty kerosene tin.
In this irreverent fashion we reached the ruins, a rather extensive edifice of volcanic rocks in a fair state of preservation though, of course, quite overgrown with plants and even trees. Our guide led us to the top and, with a sureness born of knowledge, lifted aside a slab of stone. From a cavity beneath he lifted out two gleaming skulls, handling them with a lack of awe that showed scant regard for the last two chiefs of olden times, whose remains he claimed them to be.
I examined the relics with interest, the anthropological side of my nature uppermost, and decided that if these were indeed the skulls of Tahitian chiefs, then chiefdom in those latter days must have followed the female line. None of the natives seemed to know or to have any interest in the history or legends surrounding the people who had built the structure long ago.
The next day, with Ted at the masthead to con us through, we worked our way down inside the reef to the south end of the island, where the charming little village of Haapu nestles in isolated quiet. No roads connect it with the outer world and only an occasional visit from a motor launch, with mail and supplies, keeps the people in touch with the world outside.
Here we tied up to the dock and took our first stroll down the main street between rows of woven and brightly decorated native huts, many of them raised on stilts. Everywhere we were given a warm welcome. Haapu struck us at once as the kind of South Seas community we had read about and dreamed of and we gladly accepted the urging of the villagers to make ourselves at home and stay awhile.
Our location once again was central, right next to the community laundry—fresh-water tap on the shore beside the dock. Here the housewives gathered every morning for washing clothes and gossip and Barbara, who had not done any laundry since Mooréa, took her sack of dirty clothes ashore and joined them. Soon she was the center of an ever-increasing throng and I strolled over to see what the excitement was about.
Now, it should be explained that the women of the Societies do their washing by first soaping the clothes thoroughly on a large flat board or stone laid on the ground and then they pound the soap in—and the dirt out (or such, I suppose, is the theory)—with a rounded wooden stick. No wonder they were impressed by our American know-how and the laborsaving devices enjoyed by American women! With envy and admiration they were watching Barbara scrub our dirty boat clothes with efficiency and ease on a corrugated washboard before rinsing them in a galvanized iron tub!
In Haapu we had our first taste of real entertaining. It was simple to issue invitations: we just sent Jessica up on deck with the portable phonograph and told her to start playing records. Within minutes villagers had begun to gather and soon the party was in full swing. Breaking it up was not so easy, for in spite of frequent showers and the coming and going of the dinner hour no one deserted.
The dancing—both Tahitian and modified European—took place beside the boat, on the dock. After each dance the men boarded the boat to squat around and talk, while the girls retreated down the dock to the shadows of the road. With the beginning of a new tune the men would seek out their partners and lead them back into the lighted area around our pressure lantern. During the frequent showers, everyone crowded aboard and took giggling refuge below so that, at times, we had over a hundred people packed into the cabins, the bunks, and the aisles, examining our possessions as they waited for the rain to stop and making excited comments about our accommodations.
Nothing, I hasten to add, was missing when the last guest had finally gone, but the next day our ship’s inventory was increased alarmingly by gifts of bananas, breadfruit, necklaces of shells, carvings of wood and coconut, and hats of woven pandanus.
Nick’s birthday fell on the day before we were to leave Haapu, so we gladly accepted an invitation to eat Tahitian style with a local family. We provided the pig—bought from one of the villagers—and our friends agreed to cook it for us, Tahitian style, in their family oven. Early in the afternoon we gathered to watch them disjoint the pig and place the large chunks of meat in a huge, saucer-shaped cooking pot which was then placed directly on a bed of hot coals in the hollowed-out dirt floor of the “cookhouse” behind the main dwelling. Around the chunks of meat were laid quartered breadfruit and dozens of peeled bananas. These were roofed over with long branches, and upon the frame were piled layer upon layer of green banana leaves followed by numerous mats of pressed dried leaves and bark which had been stored in stacks around the cookhouse walls. Finally, heavy burlap sacks were spread over everything and the oven was complete.
While our Polynesian dinner was baking, Barbara decided she would whip up a birthday cake—not because she was afraid the dinner would be inadequate but because she thought our hosts might be interested in our birthday customs. Birthday candles and fancy holders she had stored aboard in quantity, but for a time the lack of an egg threatened to spoil her plans.
It is impossible to walk anywhere in Haapu—or in any other Polynesian village, for that matter—without flushing a chicken a minute, not to mention ducks and pigs. Getting hold of an egg, however, was something else again. When we inquired at the store, the Chinese proprietor seemed to be quite taken aback at the very thought of anyone wanting to buy an egg.
“Perhaps,” he suggested finally, in barely intelligible French, “madam might ask chez le médecin?”
As she didn’t have a headache—yet—it seemed unlikely that the doctor could help, but Barbara went there and tried again. The doctor and his wife seemed completely nonplused, but the daughter of the family, who had been to school in Tahiti and could speak French, not only grasped the situation but was able to make it intelligible to her parents. Immediately they went into action.
Taking Barbara in tow, they set off on a house-to-house canvass of the village. Every passer-by was stopped and, after the usual exchange of greetings and handshakes, our problem was presented. People waved from their porches as the growing crowd moved on and when they were informed of the dilemma they, too, came over to join in the discussion—and the search. Children were excitedly recruited and sent off in all directions—mostly into the bushes. Haapu was aroused into a fever of activity and concern.
Eventually results were achieved. A child came proudly out of the jungle with—an egg! It was rather small and very dirty, but it was an egg. Barbara accepted it with private reservations and paid the little girl the astronomical sum of a five-franc piece—the smallest change she had. This staggering reward of industry (almost eight cents) caused a near panic and other eggs began to be pressed upon her. One, which a small boy delivered at a run, was fortunately broken when its owner tripped and fell in his eagerness to hand it over. (It had obviously been almost ready to hatch.) Two others were safely delivered, however, and of the three, one proved to be edible and the birthday cake was duly made and proved to be a tremendous success.
After the dinner, and to top off Nick’s birthday celebration, we went to the weekly movie—for the products of Hollywood have penetrated even this remote outpost. The theater itself was no bigger, nor did it look any different, than any of the other woven houses along the meandering main street, but inside the single room was lined with rows of backless benches—very hard and very crowded. The whole village seemed to be there, young and old, babies and octogenarians—even pets. We were given seats of honor, right in the middle, but since our area was slightly less crowded than the rest of the house, we were each given a youngster to hold.
The show began with newsreels, all of which had long since been withdrawn from regular circulation. Scenes of the fighting in Korea were succeeded by a documentary of ancient vintage about the armistice negotiations—a development which obviously pleased the audience immensely. The sound track, which was in French, alternately bellowed or broke down altogether but it hardly mattered as no one was listening. Action was what these people liked and when there was no action, they called back and forth, made comments at top voice, or bounced the babies. Every horse that failed to clear a barrier, every bomb that blasted a house into splinters, every soldier who fell in battle was greeted with much clapping and with screams of delight and appreciation.
The feature itself had enough action to please even the most critical, but the dialogue was unintelligible, having been dubbed in in French. This was of no consequence, however, as the sound track was considerately turned down to a murmur so that a running translation and commentary on the development could be shouted out in Tahitian by the manager as the movie progressed.
At the end of the feature it was announced that it would be run again immediately, at no extra charge. This was our cue and, bowing politely, we turned our seats—and the babies—over to the women and made our way outside.
Here we discovered that not all the village had been inside after all. In the dooryard of packed earth a number of vendors had set up tables and were selling food and drink. A circle of men played cards around a lantern in one corner while a group of women in another part of the yard gossiped, nursed their babies, or gave casual comfort or an absentminded slap to various little ones who romped about them in the dirt. Every once in a while a young couple would come out of the theater, hand in hand, and stroll off into the shadows, or someone would leave the movie long enough to shove a fussy baby into the arms of someone outside. Although it was after eleven when we walked back to the boat, no one else in Haapu seemed in the least prepared to call it a night.
The next morning we left Haapu, stopping at Fare only long enough to pick up a few loaves of bread and say hello to Buz and June Champion, fellow yachtsmen who had just arrived on Little Bear. Then we took our departure for Raïatéa, the next island to the west, which beckoned to us across some 20 miles of intervening ocean.
It was an easy half-day trip and by early afternoon we were tied up at the main dock of Uturoa, capital of the “Islands Under the Wind.” It didn’t take long for word of our arrival to get around and, as he has done for yachts before us and, no doubt, since, Charles Brotherson turned up promptly to take us in tow and make our brief stay in Raïatéa a pleasant one. His cordial friendliness lengthened our one-day stopover into four, climaxed by an evening of mutual cordiality during which we gave a showing of our slides and a large and appreciative crowd in Uturoa reciprocated with a program of dances and ended by presenting us with a slit drum belonging to the official Uturoa band, as evidenced by the initial “U” carved on it. Another souvenir that money couldn’t buy!
We did not take the Phoenix to Tahaa, the other island enclosed with Raïatéa in a single fringing reef, but we did spend an entire day going around Tahaa on the weekly “mail” boat, an eye-opening experience. In addition to a few letters, the launch carried meat (which dangled in bloody chunks from the overhead beams during transit), sacks of kapok, inner-spring mattresses, cases of canned goods, people—and for a good part of the trip—two horses. The horses were got aboard after much difficulty and tethered in the cabin with the passengers. When their port of debarkation was reached they were off-loaded by being goaded over the side and left to swim ashore, where they were promptly lassoed.
The last island on our passage through the Societies was Bora Bora, another half-day’s sail from Raïatéa. Throughout the islands we had heard much of Bora Bora—and little of it good. The natives, we were told, had been spoiled by the Americans during the war. They were greedy and insolent, out for all they could get. Moreover, many warned us that we would not even be able to get bread on Bora Bora—or fresh water!
We were already learning that it is not wise or fair to form judgments in advance so, in spite of Charles Brotherson’s dire predictions—and his tempting offers of expeditions to fabulous marae on the far side of Raïatéa if we would only remain a few more days—we decided we must push on.
With Jessica very proudly manning the tiller, we edged cautiously out Paipai Pass through the Tahaa reef. Bora Bora, its distinctive rocky pinnacles rising through the early-morning mists, could be seen to the west, its distinctive profile like a giant molar making a sharp break in the horizon. As we sailed nearer we began to understand why many have called this island the loveliest in the South Pacific. Green, precipitous, cloud-capped, it beckons the seafarer from afar and its beauty only increases as one draws closer to where the tumbling line of crashing surf on the reef divides the deep-sea indigo from the clear turquoise of the shallower lagoon. Along the shore, eternal symbol of the tropic isle, we could see a fringe of coconut palms.
One of our first visitors was the local schoolmaster, Francis Sanford, beloved of yachtsmen. He took us to his house to meet his vivacious French-Tahitian wife, Lysa, and half of his brood of children—the other five being away at school in Papeete. We also met Coco, the 300-pound pig, who insisted upon settling himself in the midst of any gathering and who, once settled, was unbudgeable. He had been, Lysa explained apologetically, only a very leetle pig when one of the children brought him home as a pet, but he had grown!
The abandoned dock where we tied up during our stay in Bora Bora was a relic of the war. Here, during the late unpleasantness, several thousand American troops had directed round-the-clock activity, a state of affairs that remains a highlight in the memory of many on this island. As one of them expressed it, “Maybe everybody have another war pretty quick, yeah? Maitai!—Good! Then maybe more soldiers come—we work like hell all day, all night—see plenty movies—eat plenty ice cream—get plenty American babies!”
The Bora Bora attitude toward the mixed-blood children left on the island was a strange contrast to the attitude toward war babies in Japan. Every family on Bora Bora who has an “American” child is very proud, and the children themselves are eager to brag, in hesitant English, “I—am—Américain!” even if they look the very model of a perfect Polynesian. When an article about the war babies of Bora Bora was published in an American magazine a few years ago, a number of people from America sent letters offering to adopt a child and take him back to the States where he would have “all the advantages.” Not one family could be found, however, who could be persuaded to give up so valuable a treasure!
Because of their association with the U.S. military during the war, the Bora Borans found it difficult at first to understand the anomaly of an American family traveling in company with feared and hated Japanese.
“They good boys?” everyone demanded doubtfully. “They want to fight?”
We assured them that our companions had no desire to fight, but the community reserved judgment for a day or two and kept an eagle eye on the behavior of Nick, Mickey, and Moto. It didn’t take long to convince them, though, and soon the Three M’s were in greater demand than any of us. Day after day they squatted tirelessly on the dockside in the midst of a crowd of admirers, and displayed postcards, magazine pictures of Japan, and various souvenirs of their distant home.
It soon became evident that, if the French administration and the people of the other islands had no affection for the people of Bora Bora, they, in turn, had no affection for the French. “Bunch of thieves!” was the way one of the Bora Boran natives described them, and he explained to us how French officials had helped themselves to all the plumbing, the quonset huts, and the fluorescent lighting which the Americans had left behind “for the people of Bora Bora” and had carried them away to install in Raïatéa, making Uturoa perhaps the best-lighted town of its size in the entire South Seas.
I remember the day a French official, resplendent in gleaming whites, came aboard for a social call. Big Joe, our nearest neighbor and the one who spoke the best “American,” watched the proceedings anxiously from the dock and as soon as Barbara had ushered our visitor below he drew me aside.
“You want me throw him overboard, boss?” he whispered loudly.
“No—why?”
“He French—no good. Bunch of thieves. You want me punch him good?”
“It’s okay, Joe. He’ll be here only a short time.”
“I stay,” said Big Joe grimly. He settled himself on the gunwales and remained there until our visitor had returned to his jeep (the only one on the island) and driven out of sight.
Actually, Bora Bora was personified for us by Big Joe. He lived nearby with his wife and an “American” daughter of about Jessica’s age, in a compact house of woven side walls and a thatched roof, set high on stilts. Working together, he and his wife made a living by making the dance costumes of bleached fibers, elaborately decorated with hundreds of yellow and brown cowrie shells, which sell for $25 to $30 American in the tourist shops of Papeete. What Big Joe and his family made on the deal we never did find out, although we suspected that the Chinese storekeeper to whom they turned over their entire output managed to do very well on the transaction.
In our own case, I am able to quote the price exactly, for I ordered two of the outfits for Barbara and Jessica, complete with “grass” skirt, a brassière of fine bark cloth trimmed with shells, and the handsome crownlike headdress. When Joe brought over the completed costumes—and Jessica’s, at least, had been made to order, for it fitted her small size exactly—Big Joe waved away any mention of cost.
“But, Joe, you’ve got to tell me how much! We’re sailing tomorrow. If you don’t tell me how much to pay you for these, I can’t take them!”
“Aw—never mind money. What I do with money?”
“But there must be something you need?”
Joe thought that one over. At last he asked, hesitantly, “You maybe got an old pair pants? I could use pants. Or maybe old blanket?”
We had plenty of blankets on board—all bought at the Australian salvage depot for a couple of shillings apiece. I gave Joe a couple, plus a pair of pants that were hardly large enough for his vast size, and weighted the whole down with a carton of cigarettes.
Joe looked at the items soberly, then said, “Wait a minute.” He went over to his house and returned with two massive necklaces and two bracelets made of large and beautifully matched cowries, one to adorn each costume.
“Now okay,” he said, with a grin. He had no intention of letting me get the best of him by adding something more than the exchange he’d suggested.
So many memories come crowding back that even in writing it is almost as hard to leave Bora Bora as it was in August, 1955, when we reluctantly said good-bye to the Societies. How is it possible to pass on without mentioning the dockside parties that foregathered nightly beside the Phoenix, parties which sometimes started by a song or two in Japanese by one of the Three M’s, or a cowboy or hillbilly record on our portable victrola, but which always ended with the soft plucking of a guitar, the strumming of homemade coconut ukuleles, and a completely spontaneous exhibition of Tahitian dancing to the compelling rhythm of slit drum, kerosene tin, or just the slapping of hands on a bare thigh. Everybody sang—everybody joined in the dances—and the natural, unself-conscious grace of even the little ones made it obvious why, year after year, the dance teams of Bora Bora continue to walk off with all the prizes at the Papeete fete.
And how can we fail to recall the simple services that were held three times every Sunday at the small village church, services we will never forget, not because we were inspired by the sermons, which were in Tahitian and may or may not have varied from one service to another, but because of the singing—the most beautiful and inspiring we have ever heard. Everyone sang, some singing the words while others chanted or hummed the melody or a kind of antiphonal accompaniment which filled the room with such tremendous rolling resonance that we could hardly believe there was not an organ somewhere, concealed behind the woven screen of the altar or, perhaps, beneath the floor!
But nothing can be recaptured completely and there were other landfalls ahead, other memories to gather.
“Please let us hear from you!” Lysa Sanford begged, adding a bit wistfully, “Sometimes we don’t know if the yachtsmen we’ve entertained even got to their next port!”
And, “Don’t forget—you promise to send us picture!” Big Joe reminded us, referring to the many snapshots we had taken of him and his family. “Plenty people take picture—but we never see!”
We remembered the Sanford’s yacht register, containing many blank spaces for pictures that had been promised and never sent. We reminded ourselves of the tiny Kodacolor print, now faded almost to invisibility, which occupied an honored spot in the middle of Big Joe’s living room wall—the only picture of himself that had ever been sent to him of all that had been taken by passing yachts.
Then and there we resolved that the friends we made during our various stops would not be forgotten; that the promises we made would be kept. The hospitality, the favors, the gifts of fruit and vegetables and souvenirs that were pressed on us everywhere were gifts we could never repay in kind, but at least we would send, at the first opportunity, the snapshots we had taken and a postcard to say we had not forgotten. The chance to share vicariously in our experience, to travel with us by means of whatever reports we could send, would perhaps be thanks enough for the wonderful hospitality we had received.
And so we sailed from Bora Bora on August 16, knowing that no matter what enchantments might lie ahead we would never see its like again.