Homeward Bound

Homeward Bound

On Friday morning I woke at 6:30am to the sound of an outboard motor, and knew that I was waking to my last day on Nanumea.  The outboard motor was the sound of one of the launches from the MV Naviga II ferry/supply ship, announcing the arrival of this ship outside the American passage – only one week, and then one more day, later than originally scheduled.  (The extra day had been needed to complete unloading goods at Nanumaga.) 

So time for a few last chores, and to arrange permission to climb up the church steeple with Heather – the views from here give some impression of the Nanumea island.  Here is the view looking north, with the lagoon on the right, the sea on the left, and the American passage dug out of the reef at the end of the island:

And here is the view looking south – the electricity generating station is on the edge of the village in this direction – then it is jungle and pigs, as the island curves round the lagoon on the left:

Here is the view looking east across the lagoon – immediately below the church is the village community hall, then the school playing field and the primary school:

And here is the MV Naviga II, waiting to take me home:

I had been told that I should be down at the wharf by 4:00pm – it is difficult to tell how many of these people are waiting to get on the ferry, and how many are just hanging around:

It was obvious from the timber still being unloaded manually, plank by plank, that it would be some time before the Naviga set sail:

But the story was that they wanted all passengers loaded onto the ship while it was still daylight and high tide.  The good news is that my name is included in the passenger list, with cabin 3A assigned – well done Heather.  (The cabin has not been paid for, but I am assured I can pay for it at the Govt offices once I get to Funafuti.) The other good news is that Fulani, one of the TEC officials, is travelling on the same ferry, and so he will look after me to some extent.  Fulani finally decides we should board a launch, which looks like it might be less crowded –  there is no organization around the loading of the launch - it is sort of a polite scrum, until there is general agreement that it is full enough.  Here are some launch pictures:

I don’t think the locals actually book to travel on the ferry – it is just a matter of getting on.  Of course, since the ferry does a round trip of several islands, there are already many people on the ship.  Most of the locals travel in the open back section of the ship, sitting and sleeping on the mats, pillows, etc. they have brought:

They also bring their own food – much of this is in white buckets (ex breakfast cereal) with their name scrawled on it.  The corridors on the ship also fill up with people sleeping on mats.

None of the cabins seem to have any identification, so it takes some time to work out which is cabin 3 – there are two bunk beds and a day bench, and a porthole to provide some air.  But most importantly this is a first class cabin, and so it has an ensuite toilet/ shower (other first class aspects of the accommodation are less obvious to discern).  It takes some time to work out who my cabin companion is, but in the meantime he has several mates who appear to have his permission to use the ensuite facilities.

As a booked passenger, with a cabin, I qualify to eat in the ship’s mess.  After the evening meal I go up on deck to watch the unloading and loading progressing.  My interest in all of this is in my hope that we don’t spend extra days either here or at Niutao (our scheduled stop), thus compromising my schedule to get on the plane out of Funafuti on Tuesday.  Anyway, there is nothing I can do about it, down to my hot cabin to try and sleep – when I wake in the middle of the night we are on the move, so all good.

Next morning we arrive at Nuitao.  A major issue here is the poor shipping infrastructure – I got on an early launch, and it was high tide, so the launch was able to virtually get right up to the beach.  Here are the passengers on my launch wading ashore:

Note that the post in the water marks where the channel has been cut in the reef – even at high tide this channel is required.  But the unloading continued all day, and here is what it looks like once the tide has gone out – the cutting in the reef is now clearly visible, and acting as a rudimentary harbor:

But all the goods have to be manhandled across the slippery reef and up the beach – all very labour intensive and time consuming.  It is interesting to see what is being unloaded.  Cardboard boxes of frozen chicken (remember we are in 30+ temperatures):

Ice Cream:

Eggs:

Mounds of rice:

They delayed unloading the barrels of diesel until the tide came in again – by that time I was back on the ship and did not see how they got these up the beach and on to the high ground.  There was also several large bundles of building timbers, and roofing iron, all manhandled up somehow.

On this trip there was also a lot of emergency equipment being unloaded to be stored in the Red Cross Emergency shed.  There were tents:

Family cooking kits, with pots and plates etc:

Plus a lot of other unlabelled emergency gear.  To be stored for the next 100-year cyclone!

So when the tide came back in, the passengers were taken back out to the ship:

 Back into the scrum:

But the loading and unloading continued into the night – here are empty gas cylinders being backloaded:

And, of course, lots of empty diesel drums:

These guys work hard – they had been going since about 9:00am – and I understand they finished around midnight (by which time I was long in my cabin).  And the work requires a lot of care – several times the guys on the launch end up in the sea when a load swings their way.

It was not a very well kept secret that the ferry was also going to do a brief stop at Vaitupu, for some important passengers (they did not want to encourage more less important Vaitupu passengers).  There still appeared to be about two launches full of Vaitupu passengers.  We were all allowed ashore for a few hours.  The interesting thing here is how much better the shipping infrastructure is on this island.  There is still a cutting through the reef, which is only navigable by launches, but, once through the reef, there is a proper harbour for the launches to dock at.  Here is the harbour from the sea:

And here is the harbour from the shore::

The return trip to the ship was in the dark:

On Monday morning we arrived back at Funafuti, where the ship can dock right up to the port.  Here is a welcome stack of empty flatracks, which indicates that the Baldur has left for Nanumaga:

It was good to see that the project to fill in the borrow pits has progressed, from filling in the garbage pits, to filling in around the houses:

On Tuesday morning my flight arrives on time to take me to Fiji:

Unfortunately the driver of the fuel truck had not got out of bed – so our departure was delayed somewhat until he could be roused and the plane refueled.  This flight goes to Suva, then there is a long delay before the flight to Nadi.  On Wednesday morning I get the good news that my seat has been upgraded to business class from Nadi to Sydney – quite a change from travelling on the Nivaga:

But I leave you with a view of the completed solar power station on Nanumea: