Pearling Luggers Destroyed

In November Cyclone

From Our Own Correspondent

Brisbane. Jan. 25.

THE pearling fleet which was struck by a cyclonic blow in Torres Strait towards the end of November last resulted in the loss of four privately owned pearling luggers and two Island Industries cutters. It was the worst storm since 1922.

The luggers, the Willow, Minerva, Hes pia and Milton, were total wrecks when blown up on St. Pauls Mission beach on Moa Island. They were valued at be tween £1,500 and £2,000.

The Willow and Minerva were owned by the Bowden Pearling Coy; the Hespia, by Mr. J. Cadzow of Thursday Island; and the Milton, by a Mr. Witt, an ex-service man rehabilitating himself in the pearl ing industry.

The cutters, valued at £3OO and £5OO, were lost near Badu Island. No loss of life, however, was reported.

Harry Pitt, a Darnley Islander, gave heroic service. After rescuing the crew of a foundering cutter he took off the crews of other luggers and sailed into TI with about 70 Islanders on board.

He then went out again in search for other ships belonging to the pearling fleets.

Kubin village, with a population of 200 natives on the western side of Moa Island, was practically demolished by the cyclone; St. Paul’s village, with 120 natives, on the eastern side of the island, and Badu village, with 500 natives on Badu Island, two miles from Moa, were seriously dam aged.

The loss of pearling boats by cyclones recalls other notable pearling disasters.

On March 11, 1934, an intense cyclone in the Coral Sea wrecked the pearling fleet with a loss of 75 lives.

But the greatest tragedy in the entire history of pearling, was off Cape Mel ville, on Saturday, March 4, 1899, when 77 boats were destroyed, and 307 lives lost. The cyclone was followed by a huge tidal wave, which engulfed the ad jacent country for three miles inland, leaving in its wake a heavy toll of human life, dead beasts, fallen timber, as well as countless numbers of stranded fish.

The heroine of that terrible pearling disaster was also a Darnley Islander — Muara Lifu. That young native woman, wife of a diver, who was on one of the luggers, saved the lives of two white men by swimming with them on her back to the shore nearly two miles away.

Past and present events have proved that the life of a pearler is full of con stant peril, The new Government Auditor of Fiji, Mr. G. E. L. Lord, arrived in Suva from New Zealand by air in January. He was accompanied by his wife.