Cocos Island

Having enjoyed three weeks in paradise it is now time to head off on my way to South Africa. It is also time to reflect on this island, its people and the yachties I have been living with.

Flip Flop
The island where I am anchored, Direction Island, would be less than a kilometre long and about 200 to 300 metres wide.  The height above sea level is only a few metres. The three sides that are exposed to the sea and the shores are made up of crushed white coral, with the lagoon side being lovely white sand.

As you walk around the island through the Cocos palms, coconut trees and low undergrowth you follow rough paths.  To give you the direction of the path, thongs or flip flops, are nailed to the trees. When you reach the shores exposed to the ocean you are amazed to see thousands of thongs washed up to the high water mark.  Thongs and sandals of all description, sizes and colours.

Having spent a good part of my life doing surveys for a living, a quick research program was undertaken on this thong finding.  The most popular colours are blue, green and purple. Many are in good condition and very few are from people with big feet – go figure, and there are more right foot thongs than left foot thongs. What does this mean other than I do not have a lot to do to amuse myself. It would appear these thongs have floated down from South East Asia. You have to wonder if they are thrown out, or are there people on beaches across South East Asia saying “bugger there goes one of my most popular means of footwear being washed out to sea. Does anyone have a spare size 5 right foot?”.

I have salvaged a few to make a sign to be hung under the shelter on the beach in the shape of a bowtie with the name Bowtie Lady painted on it.  It is a tradition by boats that have visited the island to leave a sign with the name of their boat and the year that they visited. The signs are made from floats, drift wood and of course thongs.  Others thongs have been taken aboard my lady to be cut up to form large washers that are placed on the arms that hold the wind electric generator to cut down the vibration. They are excellent and should last a good number of years.

Enjoying the locals
Now that I have been here three weeks and regularly visit Home Island where the Cocos Malays live, I have met many of the locals and so much enjoyed their friendship. Last week, for example, two trips to the island were made early in the morning to purchase diesel for the engine. The little dingy carried some 8o litres in the barrel at a time. Another trip was for visits to the store, post office and the internet office. Timing is the key and I am never disappointed if I get it wrong.  A woman famous on the island for her cooking has explained how, and helped me buy the right ingredients, to cook a most tasty curry and a quick noodle dish. Having been married to Christine for 23 years you can image my cooking skills were a little below par and I had gained little experience at doing instead of eating.  Christine was a wonderful cook, always expanding her skills and made gravy to die for. So you can appreciate how chuffed I am to be able to make a tasty curry dish that fellow yachties are impressed with.

To travel to West Island where most of the Australians live you board a ferry from Home Island for a thirty minute trip costing $2. Then onto a small bus to travel from the wharf to the other end of the island costing 50 cents.  The bus trip always has local music playing on the sound system. On the return trip last week one song (obviously a top ten hit) was being played. Up the front of the bus were older people and of course down the back of the bus were the school children. The people on the bus just started singing along to the song as naturally as could be. It was such a happy bus ride that did not appear to be out of the ordinary.  Maintaining the ordinary were the high school kids with their i-pods or CD players plugged into their ears or two people sharing a headphone each. On the ferry the boys sit on the left hand side and the girls on the right and you do receive funny looks if you do not follow what appears to be an unwritten rule.

When these people speaking in Malay are gathered together there is much laughter and joking taking place.  The children of all ages are always very well behaved and full of laughter. In their culture children are extremely important and people refer to mothers and fathers as the mother or father of child’s name. Saturday morning at the local store was a hive of activity. Fresh fruit and vegetables are flown in the night before from Perth and families gather to do the shopping. Young children wander around the store and I never heard any whinging or performances over “Mummy I want”. Instead, as I was selecting apples from the fridge, a little girl appeared next to me with a open plastic bag ready to collect my apples. She would have been about 3 or 4 years old and with eyes and a smile to treasure. The older children ask you where you are from and when and where you are going and try to teach me local words which, as you could understand with my learning skills, results in much laughter and just good fun.

At the moment it is the Islamic period of Ramadan where people fast during daylight hours.  They rise at 3 in the morning to eat and pray and eat after sunset. They then go to the mosque to pray. When you ask how Ramadan is going they will say “I have lasted ten days and I am tired”.  On the ferry it is a very quiet time as people take the opportunity to have a sleep.  The village is very quiet and on Friday afternoon the streets are deserted. Having grown up as a Catholic, I well know that going to mass presented by a priest who kept up the pace, gave a short sermon and brought the mass in well under an hour, was very much welcomed.  I was therefore not surprised when the locals said they liked their current Islamic priest who had a good track record of bringing the ceremony in early.  We are all the same in so many ways no matter what our religion..

Getting ready for sea
I am so looking forward to heading off to sea again.  Each night I talk on the high frequency radio to yachts that are currently sailing to Mauritius.  We speak of the weather and the size and the direction of the sea and how they are coping. This radio is wonderful for you can speak to others thousands of miles away often very clearly.  Before they left we had arranged to speak at an allotted Universal Standard Time and on a certain frequency.

I have also had the pleasure to spend time with Nick who is on his fourth time around the world.  Besides his great stories and photo collection, he is a wealth of knowledge about the oceans and the ports of call.  I have many notes on where to go and who to meet at the next few ports. He also gave me copies of charts that show what you need to know when approaching land. His boat is a delight to visit. He refers to it as his new boat, only 27 years old, that he built out of steel in New Zealand. A very simple set up with an impressive library on boats, people and places. He uses kerosene for lights and the stove, has a wood heater and a car radio with cassette tapes. The boat’s engine is an old petrol engine taken from a car built in the forties.  The car’s dashboard makes up his engine control panel and the engine runs on a mixture of fuels. Square drawers from an old treadle sewing machine are used in the galley.  Up the bow he has a huge work bench with a bench vice and a great array of tools and spare parts that are all neatly stowed.  When he built the boat he built the workbench first so he could complete the rest of the fit-out inside the boat.

Monday night my electronic gear that Ingrid and Nuala have arranged should arrive on the twice-a-week flight from Perth.  The locals say that I can be excited but not to be disappointed if the freight is offloaded in Perth for some reason to do with weight. I hope the plane is full of very thin people with small bags. All going well I will collect and install the gear on Tuesday and head off on Wednesday if the weather is kind.

Doing little repairs and maintenance on the boat have become a daily part of life. At the moment the outboard engine is just about ready to fall off its mountings. Holes have been drilled for the new cables for the electronics, the bottom of the boat cleaned and the self steering gear overhauled and set up ready to perform. I dropped my side cutters pliers over the side of the boat the other day. As the water is so clean I could see them sitting in the sand. I could also see the reef sharks swimming around the boat.  No matter what size the sharks are, they are still sharks and give me the willies. I have had these pliers since I was 15 when I was an electrical apprentice in Brisbane. Therefore I was most grateful to my neighbour Mark who dived for them and left them on the deck. A wonderful surprise when I returned to the boat later in the day.

Food stocks are ready and sorted into weekly ration packs. Fresh fruit and vegetables are in green fridge bags and I am making up precooked dinners.  The vacuum packed meat bought in Darwin some 6 weeks ago is still in good condition and the water tank is almost full as I make water everyday with the desalinator.
 
Attendance on the beach for sundowners in the late afternoon is dropping off. There are only 3 yachts left with Matthew in his catamaran heading off to sea last night. A funny chap in his fifties who had never sailed until he built his boat in Darwin few years ago. It looks more like a twin hull canoe with a capsule sitting in the middle. He claims his water tight capsule is his life raft that he can detach from the pontoons if needed. With the amount of gear he carries inside I am not sure how far above the water it would float. I wish him well on his travels to Africa.

Please stay in touch
I am delighted to hear from so many people who receive this blog.  I have dropped a line to all thanking them. Others of you ring for a quick chat which is always a great delight. I know that many of you send the updates on to others who are interested and Ingrid, my wonderful assistant in Sydney is always happy to add your friends and colleagues to the mailing list.

For the next three weeks my updates will be shorter as I make my passage across the Indian Ocean with a full report when I reach Rodriguez some 1986 miles away.

Satellite phone 0011 873 761 142 659, call at any hour, I will be at home in my capsule living a 24 hour day.

I am still having the time of my life and always grateful to many for the opportunity.

Love to you all
Peter

Thank you to my supporters:

–     Medical Industries Australia for an extensive offshore medical kit
–     JSE Marine Electrical for extensive spare parts and tools
–     Endeavour Marine for spare parts for the Volvo Penta engine