Smashed On A Coral Reef

Description of a Wreck in the Tongan Islands

BY PASTOR W. G. FERRIS, OF SDA MISSION, MASTER OP THE ENDEAVOUR

THE Government despatch boat was away in Suva, and so we in the Endeavour assented gladly to the request of the authorities that we sail from Nukualofa, 160 miles, to the northern islands, to bring back the Chief Medical Officer and the Government dentist, who were wanted for urgent duties in Nukua lofa.

We left on December 17, in lovely weather. After visiting Vavau, we went to Pangai, and thence set out direct for home.

We set course through the only channel to the outer seas. The sails were hoisted, and with the engine running we were making sure and steady progress. We had negotiated this channel successfully many times, and had experienced no diffi culty. For eight miles the channel took us past reefs on both sides. Darkness quickly fell and the wind changed rapidly from north to north-west, and came with force. Anxiously we watched the log tick out the miles, till we should enter deep waters.

I warned the boys to watch for any sign of reef. On dark nights surf shows fairly clear. No surf showed; but an oily spot seemed strange—and then all called for a turn to starboard; reefs were ahead. Surf appeared close to port.

Then there was the horrible sensation of crunching coral under the ship, and a sudden stop. Things happened quickly.

The wind velocity increased, and enormous breakers lifted the Endeavour,

with all sails set, high up on top of the reef and brought her down with a sicken ing thud. The engine stopped.

The sails were lowered and a second wave lifted her again, taking her further in onto the reef. We dropped anchor, hoping to bring her head into the wind.

This quickly broke away.

Successive waves pounded the ship further and further across the reef, every fibre of her timber shuddering at each bump.

We then realised that she would rapidly break up and immediately lowered the dinghy. It sank, and the oars were lost in the darkness.

The main anchor was dropped, but it dragged with the ship, which was now half full of water, so that it was difficult to walk in the cabin.

IN the darkness it was hard to find any thing. What could we take? A boy rescued the dinghy and, with great difficulty, bailed it out. I passed out a tin of drinking water for the dinghy; it was washed out of my hands and floated away. I staggered up with a tin of bis cuits, and it also went to sea, as did the

luggage.

Mr. Edwards bravely struggled to save the ship. The doctor passed out life belts and blew up his air mattress.

My boy, Elwin, kept asking me if I thought the ship was sinking. I tried to assure him that we were safe and that he would see his mother again. Little Percy Kamea, from Vavau, clung tightly to his lifebelt and a few of his clothes.

Mr. Franzen, the dentist, could not

swim. We secured a life belt tightly around him and he clung to the top rigging.

I entered the cabin again and the once friendly cupboard came shooting up at me as the ships side hit the reef at the rear of a passing wave. The water was up to my waist.

The snip righted herself again and we tried once more to get her off the reef in the hope of reaching an island we could see in the distance. She would not

move. Larger waves came and drove her further onto the last ledge of the reef. She had come about a quarter of a mile over the reef in less than twenty minutes, The actua l height of water, at that tide, was eighteen inches; but the sea came across with terrific force, as if all the demons had stirred it up for the last blow A FINAL whopper turned the Endeavour over, with her mast under water, and

all on board were thrown into the boil ing sea.

The two small boys swam to the dinghy.

Mr. Pranzen struggled in, while dangerous rigging wires tried to trap those in the dinghy into a partnership dive.

I took an awning batten as an oar and gave to Mr. Franzen the oar we had been able to rescue. Mr. Edwards floated on the cockpit matting; the doctor was on his air mattress; and the two boys shared the wooden stairs from the cabin.

They all decided to stay that way, push ing at the stern of the dinghy, while we rowed. There was an island to the east, and towards this we struggled.

On touching the reef again, Mr. Ed wards trod on some poisonous creature, which left splinters in his foot and caused severe pain.

We must have been nearly an hour reaching the island. We carried the dinghy up to the top of the steep, sandy beach, and dropped it in tall grass. We lighted a fire, and with the dinghy turned up to give protection from the wind, we sat down to dry our clothes. The island was just a dot with a beach all around and without one coconut tree. There was no water. This was most disappointing.

The party curled up around the fire and tried to sleep. Mr. Edwards tossed in agony; taut some ointment soothed his injured foot and he finally slept.

As daylight came, with low tide, we scanned the ocean for a sign of our ship.

Sure enough, there she was on the £nd of the long reef, turned upside down, leaving engine and keel on the bottom and the rudder raised like a black flag of death.

We reasoned that the strong north-west winds, in combination with the rise of the ride, had produced a tide-rip of over four knots, on which we had not calculated in setting our course. This caused the fatal striking of the reef in the darkness. That

same rip would make it impossible for our small dinghy to negotiate the dangerous waters back to the mainland.

So here we were without water or food, and practically with only the clothes we were wearing.

ANXIOUSLY, we searched the sea for a sail. About 7 a.m., a small ship was sighted on the horizon.

Our fire was stirred up, a big SOS was tramped into the sand, and a frantic waving of shirts began when the craft seemed at its closest.

Its course was away from our island; but, when it was about three miles to the north of us, those on board happened to see us waving ashore.

They were crowded, in the usual Islands’ way but they came to investi gate our position.

It was possible that no other ship would come that way for days, so we accepted their offer of a return trio to port. They had no food; but a coconut was good drinking. We scrambled in among the passengers of their 15 ft. sail boat.

The wind was again at gale force, and coming from the north. This meant a head-wind, and we were six hours cover ing the eight miles. We were wet all that time, and the sun was furious in its assault upon our faces. Lips were sore and swollen.

It was a relief to reach civilisation again. Everyone was sympathetic.

Mothers made trousers for the boys, and we were offered valas to wear while our few rags were washed and ironed.

Launches went to the wreck next day and brought back some battered, twisted gear, the mast, and some clothing. They are there now, as I write, trying to salvage the engine. The chance of getting it is remote, unless dead calm weather per mits an approach.

The doctors went off on a sailing ship and took more than two days to reach Nukualofa. The rest of us remained for the police inquiry and now, nearly a week later, we are on our way home on another

sailing ship.

The ribs of our upturned ship revealed an alarming amount of decay, and to us it was a wonder that they held the craft together at all. Had we gone through another hurricane at sea I feel certain that the keel would have fallen off. Who knows—some worse tragedy may have been averted.