Eastern Pacific Notes

I7ISITORS to Auckland from ▼ Tahiti are liable to be pleas antly surprised these days on liscovering that the face through he cross-harbour-ferry ticket-office hndow is that of Mr. Karl Charlie) Swenson, who for many ears, and until recently, was ttached to the staff of Etablisse lent Donald, in Papeete.

New Era For Nassau

Mr. H. E. Maude, formerly of the administrative staff of the Western acific High Commissioner and now member of the South Pacific Com lission’s Research Council, in NZ i July, prior to his departure for assau, Northern Cooks, where he rganised another self-supporting 3lony, similar to the Commission’s tperimental project in Fiji.

About 100 settlers were transferred ) Nassau from Pukapuka by the ook Islands Administration last ;ar. The Island had been aban med since the Coastwatchers were ithdrawn at the end of the war.

Prior to the Japanese entering the ar, Nassau had been operated as copra plantation by Burns Philp, om Apia, for many years. Captain r illiams, now Union Steamship Co. evedore at Apia, managed the land during that period—and

reared a fine family on the 300acres outpost.

It is understood the Cook Islands Administration intends establishing a radio station at Nassau at an early date, this now being the only in habited Island of the Group with out radio communication. A new station recently came into operation on Manuae.

Another Ship For New

Hebrides

, According to a news item from Radio New Zealand on August 27, the well-known New Zealand coaster, “Holm Glen,” of the Holm Shipping Co., Wellington, has been sold to a New Hebrides shipping company, and was expected to sail for Vila early in September.

Latest News Of Hero Of

Drift

Sydneyites, hurrying down George Street past the GPO, probably little realise that the candid-camera man who operates there is none other than Mr. “Screwball” Johnson, whom PIM readers will recall figured in a remarkable 4-months’ drift voyage from just south of Hawaii to near destruction on the reefs of the Fiji Group in late 1947.

The story was told in an issue of PIM early in 1948, under the title, “Operation Screwball.”

Towed into Suva by a British ship which picked up the derelict war surplus sub-chaser to windward of the Fiji Group, Mr. Johnson had

her fitted out and converted to trading requirements. Later she was sold to W. R. Carpenter & Co., present owners, and Mr. Johnson, coming to Sydney, purchased a cruising yacht, aboard which he now lives in Sydney Harbour.

Asked whether he. is planning further “operations screwball” Mr.

Johnson was nonchalant, but sug gested that this may depend upon just how many of his George Street customers return with those little paste-board slips to collect their photographs.

Weather Man Moves On

Cook Islands residents will be interested to know that Mr. Jim Harper, former meteorologist at Rarotonga, has lately been pro moted from his position at Ohakea Airfield, NZ, to take charge of the Weather Office, Hokitika. Jim sometimes pines for a return to the

Islands, but Mrs. Harper is less enthusiastic, with a young and growing family on her hands, „„„

A Boom In Shell

The islands of Manihiki and Penrhyn, in the Northern Cooks, have been experiencing a wave of prosperity, with the price of mother-of-pearl black-lip shell con-

stantly on the increase, since oper ations resumed after the war. The price paid on the beach has risen in the past five years from 4d to as much as 1/8 per pound. Several diving machines are now operating below the minimum 15-fathom line permitted to machines—and every able-bodied man and boy is skin diving the shallower water.