2009

CANTON

So it’s ’09, Thalia and I are in Pago Pago, American Samoa, it’s been an almost 2 yr work gig in perhaps not the most interesting location. (See Manlifts) Debrae, a lady I’d met in the south Pacific crewing on a friend’s boat has joined me and we need a destination. Debrae is an interesting lady, she has no idea how many sea miles she’s covered but my guess is 200,000, she is simply an awesome sailor as well as good company. The destination I have in mind is Canton, for years I’ve heard incredible stories of this mythical island, its part of the Kiribatti and as the only island with a lagoon in the Phoenix group, is inhabited. We’d met the folks on Caribee in Pago Pago, they’d been there and were returning, they called it paradise. We were in.

Our friends on Caribee went back and Debrae stayed in touch via SSB radio, I was at work, they were asking if we could bring things to the folk on Canton. “Sure, you know the boat we can fill the V berth, we don’t use it underway” we advised. “Ok we’ll get a list together, make sure they have the money and get back to you, thanks” was their reply. Well, the list was impressive, sewing machine (hand cranked of course), electronic keyboard, inverters, sugar, milk, rice, coffee, you get the idea, the supply boat from Tarawa was not that dependable. I’d only refused to bring them any of those $100 generators. So we’re a little bow heavy, we weren’t expecting an upwind slog. Debrae sourced the stuff on line and we had it shipped in by Chicken of the Sea where I was working. (See Chicken of the Sea) We stored it in Sam’s boat, a colleague of mine until we were ready to go, he’d moved ashore.

Our departure date loomed and we were off, we sailed past the Tokalus and the Tuvalus, 2 more places I’d like to go, but anchoring on a narrow coral shelf, offshoref and hoping for the best leaves me cold. Hence, they remain unvisited, at least by Thalia and I. It’s about 1,000 mi from Pago Pago to Canton, sailing due north ever closer to the equator into ever diminishing winds. Thalia has a range under power of about 400 mi, so that’s not an option. We just dealt with it. Debrae woke me up in the middle of the night with “We have a problem” “Are we sinking?” I asked blearily. “No, but there’s something wrong with the headsail, you need to get up” She was right, the furler was laying against the lifelines, the forsetay chainplate had snapped where it exited the bow plate. It was only blowing maybe 10 – 12 kts on the beam, so the mast wasn’t coming down. But I’d just had the chainplate replaced in Grenada where I’d been running the electrical department of a boatyard by Deiter, the best metal fabricator I know. It had maybe 6,000 mi on it. Weird. We furled the headsail manually and eased the backstay and I started digging out my collection of shackles and other stuff and found one that would go around the anchor chute and in under an hour we were sailing again.

We finally arrived at the lagoon entrance and motored into Canton. People waved from shore and called “Thalia, Caribee said you’d come.” We assembled the nesting dinghy and motored in, the reception was unbelievable. There are only 35 folks on Canton, they are essentially paid by Tarawa to man an outpost in the middle of the Pacific so fishing rights are enforced, they have no ability to enforce them, but merely having people there lends credence. It took 2+ trips with a full dinghy to bring the booty ashore, I felt like Santa Claus, I’m pretty sure those 40 kg rice bags are responsible for my current bout of sciatica. Everyone lined up very politely and received whatever they had asked for and formally paid us, as Caribee had impressed upon them. This took place at Nanisenee’s, the medical technician, house right on the beach. The distribution complete they announced that a Feast would take place in our honour the following evening. Nanisenee quietly played guitar in the background. I’ve tried mightily to learn the guitar, it’s just not going to happen and I had yet another guitar on Thalia, having given away easily 5 guitars in the past, this one was past due. When everyone dispersed Nanisenee and ourselves had a chance to talk, cool man. He asked me what I did for a living and I confessed “I’m a mechanic” his eyes lit up and he asked politely if I could have a look at his outboard, it was the last one running and they were dependent on it for fishing, an important staple in their diet. “Sure, no problem, but I have to ask you if I can give you a guitar?” “Yes, but I have a guitar” he said solemnly “Yeah, I know, I want to give away a guitar, but you’re the only person I’ve talked to and since you have a guitar you’d be perfect to decide who ought to have it.” I explained, wisdom of Solomon here. Nanisenee nodded and agreed it was a good plan that wouldn’t make any enemies, except for him and he figured he could handle it. So we were free to tour the island which doesn’t take very long, it’s a classic atoll with a sandy rim that usually isn’t more than a half mile or so deep. What we were unprepared for was the sense of being dropped in a Mad Max movie. Prior to WW 2 it had been a refueling station for the “clipper” flying boats, the runways were still laid out in the enormous lagoon, during WW 2 it had been been home to both the American and British pacific fleets. The infrastructure was still evident, rows of orderly bungalows, I suppose for the officers and many reinforced concrete structures housing all manner of gear, notably huge electrical switchboards all heavily looted. The road, a ring, was lined with fallen over power poles and at the “head” of the island a tracking station that dates back to the Apollo space project and a runway that will handle anything flying, it’s huge and rarely used. Close to it was the generator station, 4 enormous gen sets, that hadn’t run in certainly my lifetime, hunkered in a large shed stripped of its corrugated siding. Amazing place, a really strange sense of abandonment. We cleared in with Frank the local policeman, customs and immigration. Pago Pago has the quaint notion that it can collect $25/mth for anchoring fees, I’d been there almost 2 yrs, we left without clearing out, hence we had no zarpe for Frank. He wasn’t bothered in the least by it and formally cleared us in and stamped passports. As we chatted it became obvious he’d already heard about the guitar and said we should give it to him as he was better equipped to decide who should have it. I reiterated that Nanasinee, as already having a guitar was the perfect man for the job. He wasn’t happy with the response, but when I fixed his generator we were buddies for life, now he could watch DVDs and we did. We returned to Nanisenee’s I took a look at his outboard, it ran fine, but the rubber bushing in the prop was shot. Easy fix and I removed the prop and took it back to Thalia to drill, tap and fit machine screws.

The next day we had the Feast, it was amazing, the food just kept coming, even chocolate cake for dessert. Lots of dancing, singing and storytelling, we were called upon to recount a lot of our travels and a formal log book was produced so we could sign in and we reviewed the other boats that had preceded us. Really quite impressive, they get about 4 boats/year and some of the art was beautiful, Debrae is an artist and took the book back to Thalia to give us a full page layout in gorgeous colour. One enterprising couple had beached and rebuilt a plywood catamaran over the course of almost a year. All of the people living there are essentially squatting in the WW 2 era houses, the condition of the houses varies wildly from squalor to quite lovely. It was impressed on us that we were welcome to any of the unoccupied houses. The day following Nanasenee and the boys went fishing with the now working motor, they came by the boat with a 14’ Whaler about 1/3 full of fish, including a 5’ marlin. “Want some fish?” he asked “A bit of marlin would be lovely” we replied, getting him not to give us 25 lbs of just caught marlin was difficult, but finally he hacked us off around 5 lbs. Seriously nice people, we were getting to enjoy island life, they showed us how to make palm wine, actually pretty good, certainly better than Thunderbird or Night Train. You know, folks always ask the same things after your name, age, marital status, number of children and finally “What do you do?” And reflexively I reply that I’m a mechanic, then they drag out a procession of broken stuff. And of course Canton was no different, outboards, motorcycles, generators, etc, lovely people and very appreciative. But one of these days my reply will be “I sell insurance. Want to buy some?” I just have to remember to try it. The spear fishing in the lagoon was unbelievable, since no one did it the fish were almost tame, it was sort of a shame to spear a grouper who was just sitting there watching you with apparent interest.

Due to climate change Canton is experiencing a severe drought, they were down to 2 live breadfruit trees, there is essentially no water on the island, the wells are brackish and the roof rainwater systems are poorly maintained, the attendant cisterns literally alive with larvae. I’d built an engine driven watermaker back in ’96 while working for Necol in St Marteen and we’d unpickled it and had it working when we left Pago Pago, it made about 10 gph from a single 20” membrane, lots of water. About 2 wks into our planned stay of 2 – 3 mths I was reading down below and just happened to register the change in engine rpm and looked at the product water flow meter, it was off the scale. I shut down the system and quickly concluded that the system was pumping sea water into the product water. Not good. Upon disassembling the membrane I found the plastic tube carrying the product water through the high pressure area of the housing was broken. Damn, never seen that before. The tube had an interior diameter of ½” and I had lots of refrigeration copper that size, I figured I could slide a 4” sleeve into it c/w lots of JB Weld epoxy and it’d be fixed. After 48 hours of curing the repair lasted about 45 min at 700 psi instead of my usual 850. Tried one more time with even worse results and admitted defeat. Putting out calls on the SSB nets for boats coming to Canton yielded 0 results, getting one shipped in from Tarawa was ridiculous, they couldn’t be relied upon to keep Canton in rice. “Don’t worry, we’ll boil you water” assured our new friends, but that was a non starter, the only thing that grew on the low sandy atoll was scrub and coconut palms, firewood was at a premium and the people had enough trouble just boiling their own water and cooking, we’d just be a burden. Besides we’d seen their water, I’m not sure I’d trust it even boiled. Thalia only carries 50 gal in her main tanks and we had a further 10 in jugs, fortunately the tanks were full, we figured we had enough water for 2 more weeks and then we’d have to sail south to Tonga for water.

So with infinite sadness we bade farewell to our friends and the island, a fabulous place in the middle of nowhere that truly epitomizes the hackneyed cliché of Paradise I fully intend to return to Canton someday… George and Thalia

“If I’m lyin’…”