Seven Months

In An

Open Canoe

Y'HE story of an •Ocean Islander’s

epic voyage, as told Toy hen

Usher, Public Relations Officer, Suva,

Fiji:

ACCOUNTS have often been given of phenomenal endurance by mariners adrift for many days in open boats.

Few of these stories can equal that of Nabetari, a 24-years-old Gilbert Islander, who last year was at sea in a small canoe for seven months.

Nabetari was working for the British Phosphate Commission on Ocean Island when the Japanese arrived in 1942. As with many of the natives on the island, Nabetari was pressed into Japanese ser vice. His job was to help to catch fish to supplement the island’s scanty food supplies, and was one of a party of seven who operated in three small canoes.

By April, 1944, the pressure of the Allied blockade was being severely felt on Ocean Island, and as food stocks dwindled the rations doled out by the Japanese became progressively smaller.

The seven fishermen discussed this fre quently, and one night they decided that they would get away from Ocean and would make for the Gilberts, where food would be more plentiful. One of their number was sure that he could navigate sufficiently well to find land.

They collected a few coconuts and filled some Japanese w’ater bottles. These they placed in their canoes and under cover of darkness they set out. Nabetari had one companion with him, a man named Reuera. The second canoe also con tained two men and the third, the largest, carried three. It was midnight when the men left, and when daylight came they found that they were still within sight of Ocean Island. They apparently were not noticed, however, be cause the Japanese made no attempt to prevent their escape.

On the second night the wind freshened

and the canoe with the three men in it became separated from the others, and was not seen again. The four men in the remaining two canoes decided that each night from then on they would lash their craft together so as to avoid the risk of being parted.

The men lived on fish which they caught with feather baits. When they had a good catch they preserved some of the fish by drying it in the sun. When rain fell they were able to catch water for drinking. At other times they drank the blood of sharks they caught.

During the coursl of several storms the sails of both canoes were lost, and the four men then drifted where wind and sea took them. They saw no point in paddling because they had no idea where they were, or in which direction land lay. rE days stretched into weeks and the tfeeks into months. Then one night the rope which held the two canoes together parted, and the second craft dis appeared. Nabetari and Reuera then carried on alone until one day while they were trying to get a shark into the canoe, Reuera was attacked and his arm was badly torn. In spite of the loss of blood he still lived, but nearly a week later while he and Nabetari were asleep, the canoe capsized. Nabetari managed to right it again, but when this had been done there was no answer when he called Reuera’s name.

By this time Nabetari himself was very weak, but he still clung tenaciously to life, and continued to drift in the canoe.

Twice he saw aircraft, but 'they . were very high and evidently he was not seen.

He was passed at a distance also by two ships.

Late in the afternoon .of a day in November, seven months after he had set out from Ocean Island, Nabetari saw land. It was the island of Ninigo, about 140 miles north of New Guinea and 1,800 miles from Ocean.

His canoe drifted slowly towards the island, and some time during the next afternoon it was washed up on the reef.

Nabetari crawled ashore and fell ex hausted on the beach. Next morning he set out to find a village. He was too weak to walk, but he crawled into the shallows near the beach, and let the water hold him up as he dragged him self along. Late in the afternoon four local natives found him and took him to their village. They sent word to the Australian headquarters at Manus, and from there a launch was sent to take Nabetari to hospital.

Gradually his story was pieced together and a message was sent to the Gilbert and Ellice authorities at Tarawa to tell them where he was. A District Officer shortly afterwards arrived to take him home, and this time Nabetari travelled in very different fashion. He flew in an aeroplane high above the waters through which his canoe had made such painful progress for seven weary months.

Nabetari is now fully recovered, and he is once more on Oceean Island. He was especially chosen to be one of the official party with the Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony to be present at the surrender of the Japanese garrison. Nabetari then re mained to work.

But he is willing to stop work at any time to tell the story of why he left Ocean Island in April, 1944, and of what befell him in the seven months that followed.

Mr. Ralph H. Hunt was recently ac corded formal recognition as Vice-Consul of the United States in Suva, with juris diction in Fiji.