Norfolk Veteran

Helped Raise

Famous Anchor

From Merval Hoare on Norfolk Island On a pedestal in Macquarie Place, Sydney, not far from Circular Quay, is the anchor of the First Fleet ship Sirius that was wrecked in a storm on the reef at Kingston, Norfolk Island, in 1790.

ITS presence in Macquarie Place since 1907 is partly due to one of the old school of seafaring Norfolk Islanders, Isaac Goldie Christian, who helped to raise the anchor in 1905. The anchor was then firmly cemented to the reef by more than a century of coral growth.

Because he was an expert swimmer and diver, Isaac Christian was chosen to place the charge that blew away the coral. He still vividly recalls that day.

“It was a beautiful day with a good sea,” he says. “I dived from outside the reef, under the ledge and found the position of the anchor.

I felt the fluke and went up again to get the charge.

“I dived down again, put the charge under the ledge, and tied a rope to the shaft. There were two boats waiting and I gave an end of the rope to each boat.

“I then set the fuse which took a couple of minutes to burn. In the meantime I hung on to one of the boats.

“The charge exploded and two great waves hit the boats, pushed them apart and caused the rope to tighten.

“The anchor, which turned out to be long and heavy, was lifted between the boats and towed to Kingston pier.

“As it was so heavy it was not

brought ashore, but left on the bottom beside the pier, until the Induna came from the islands. She took it back to Sydney.

“This was in 1905, when Captain Walton Drake was in charge of the island. In fact, it was he who organised the lifting of the anchor.”

In his youth, Isaac Christian worked for a local whaling company and hunted whales round Norfolk’s coast in the long, narrow boats then built by the Islanders.

Whaling was a hazardous business in those days. After the chase and the hand-harpooning of the victim a boat was often towed miles out to sea by the whale and the long pull back was hard work.

At the turn of the century when the cable ship Iris came to the island to lay the Norfolk section of the Pacific cable, Isaac Christian was one of the 68 Islanders chosen to train in seamanship and replace the Welshmen who manned her.

For some years afterwards the Iris carried a complete crew of Norfolk men.

Isaac Christian has been a lands man for quite a few years now.

His eyesight has been poor since World War II when he had a serious accident while unloading American equipment at Kingston pier.

Isaac Goldie Christian