Up Front

with the Editor

-1 SHARE Patricia Matheson’s excite ment at having finally, and un expectedly, satisfied her desire to enter Mariner’s Cave, which she re cords so evocatively on p 33 of this issue.

Living on the threshold of the South Pacific’s most celebrated under water cave, as Pat does, and with her sense of history and her inquiring mind, the fact that the cave was ap parently to be denied to her for ever, was I suspect, even a greater dis appointment than she admits. Thus success was all the sweeter.

I suppose it is 20 years since I first read the story of Mariner’s Cave, and having been fascinated by it, wanted badly, like Pat, to enter it. I often talked about it, and planned it but got no opportunity until last year.

The story of the cave was given to the outside world in 1817 by young William Mariner, the ship’s boy who was befriended by a Tongan chief after the English privateer Port au Prince was attacked by the Tongans in the Ha’apai group in 1806, and most of her crew killed. Mariner lived among the Tongans for several years before he got back to England and published his fascinating account of life there, with the help of Dr John Martin, in a book called An Account of the Natives of the Tongan Islands.

Mariner’s Tonga, as that book is best known, tells how young Mariner was taken by his friends one day to an island in Vavau Harbour, only a few miles from where Pat Matheson has now lived for a major part of her life.

His friends plunged into the sea and disappeared beneath the surface, leaving Mariner perplexed. Later one of them bobbed up again, and initiated Mariner into the secret of the cavern in the island, reached through a submarine passage in the cliff, the entrance to which is also always underwater.

After Mariner’s book was pub lished, Byron enshrined the cave in a famous poem; author/artist Robert Gibbings told the story many years later in 23 beautiful engravings in

his True Tale of Love in Tonga: and there have been numbers of references in other literature.

Basil Thomson, in his Savage Island (published in 1902, about Niue not Tonga, and the Niueans don’t like the title any more than the Tongans would have), tells how a midshipman in RN Calliope in 1852 was sent to investigate the cave by his captain, as being the strongest swimmer in the ship, and scratched his back so severely while coming out again that he was off duty for two months.

An engraving of the inside of the cave was later reported to have been made in Sydney from a sketch done by that midshipman in 1852, but I have never seen it. PIM published a photograph of the inside of the cave in June, 1968, taken by Ann and Marvin Glenn, of the trimaran Rebel. •Easily the most distinguished visitor to the underwater cave has been King Taufa’ahau of Tonga him self, who went in with Luis Marden of the National Geographic, using Scuba gear.

There has always been confusion as to the size of the cave and its entrance, and as far as I know no body has made any specific measure ments. From my own visit to it last year I would estimate that the sub marine passage is about 18 ft in length, with nasty rock overhangs in both cave and harbour sides; and that the main chamber is egg-shaped, about 70 ft in height from the sur face of the water to the domed roof of the cave, and with 50 ft of water in the cave. The entrance to the passage was about six or seven feet below the surface when I entered, which was about mid-tide. Apart from the fact that the entrance to Mariner’s is underwater. Mariner’s is identical in size and shape to nearby Swallow’s Cave, well-known to visitors because there is a gap in the cave wall and it can be entered by boat.

My entry to Mariner’s Cave was a red-letter day for me, which is why 1 especially appreciate Pat’s excite

ment. Pat, in fact, was in the boai at the entrance with me that day one of those occasions she speaks o] when she had to sit there while others met the challenge. But I was ai feverpitch of anticipation. I can nevei be bothered with masks, flippers anc snorkels—they seem to get in mj way—so I had been practising m> underwater swimming and breath holding for weeks, including one ex tended session in Aggie Grey’s swim ming pool at Apia on the way tc Vavau, where I was suspected ol being some sort of a nut.

The outside weather is important A westerly they say is no good be cause it throws you against the cliff, but I was in luck. I found swimming into the passage scarey because you are headed into blackness, and since I wasn’t sure just how far I had tc travel I was concerned that I might run out of breath before I made it. As it happened, I did start to come up too early, but the Tongan boatman from the Port of Refuge, Vavau’s surprisingly magnificent hotel, who had gone in ahead of me, tapped me on the head as a warning and I was able to surface without hitting the overhang.

Getting out is easier because you are looking towards the light, but there is still the nasty harbour over hang to deal with and distances can be deceptive in that light. I missed that one only by a hair’s breadth, too.

My advice to anybody wanting to experience the thrill of entering Mariner’s celebrated cave is to go with a Tongan as a guide. Vavau itself can be reached from Nukualofa by ship or by Tonga’s internal airline.

From the Port of Refuge the entrance to the cave is five miles down the harbour beneath Nuapapu Island; I got there in 30 minutes with a 40 hp outboard. Low tide towards sunset is perhaps the best time, and you need to allow three hours to undertake the whole adventure comfortably.

Pat Matheson and I hope you have as much satisfaction as we did!

Stuart Inder