Pirates of the Pacific

The In-Country Manager for the volunteer program has proposed that I go to North Tarawa for a day as a part of my ICOP (In-Country Orientation Program).

Sounds great, an adventure.

Be ready for a pickup and departure at 4h30 the following morning he tells me.

Why so early?

We are going in a boat from South Tarawa (running east-west) across the lagoon to the middle of North Tarawa (running north-south). Arrivals and departures at low tides mean long walks from and to the shore.

Fair enough. So next morning, I’m awake at 4h00, pack a wide-bream hat, sunscreen and some water and toilet paper in a bag. Another volunteer let me know that it is wise to always travel with toilet paper in Kiribati. There may not be any in a toilet when you need it.

By 4h30, I’m standing in the darkness of the dirt-parking lot of my hotel awaiting the arrival of the In Country Manager.

I wait.

After 5h00, the In Country Manager arrives.

Did I get the time wrong? No, no, 4h30 Kiribati time means anytime after 4h30, and most likely one to two to three hours later, so his arrival at 5h00 is downright punctual.

He has arrived in a truck, sitting in the tray-back are the Manager’s wife, his son, his daughter, and another man whom I’ve not met before who it later emerges was the handler that arranged the travel. In the cab is another volunteer who has been invited to join us.

Was this all part of the plan? What plan? When humans make plans, God – and the I-Kiribati – laugh.

The Manager delivers his truckload of human cargo to the harbour in Betio (western-most end of South Tarawa).

People and bags with food and drink are bailed out of the truck and we stand by the wharf awaiting the next stage of transport.

What is the next form of transport? Who knows. It seems a mystery, things will unfold.

Time passes.

More time passes.

Eventually, an inflated dinghy motors into the dark harbour and attempts to motor under the lines of a big tug anchored in a corner of the port.

The operator of the dinghy lifts one line above him so as to pass underneath, and promptly runs into another line that is submerged. He lifts the engine of his dinghy to clear the submerged line, and turns the boat about in an untidy circle. He is now facing the wrong way and has little room to manoeuvre in order to come alongside some steps.

The machinations are somewhat comical – and my faith in this mariner whom I’ve not met yet is sinking fast.

With the dinghy now in a position in which it can receive passengers, we are urged by the Manager to descend the slick steps and climb aboard.

My sagging enthusiasm for the professionalism of this operation is reinforced by the sag in the underinflated hull as I step aboard.

And I am not exactly bouyed up when the mariner introduces himself in a thick Russian accent as Vlad.

Once all are aboard, we then reverse the messy manoeuvres required to get over the submerged line and below the line to the tug in order to motor out of the port in darkness (yep, no running lights).

We exit the channel and then aim towards… darkness.

All is silent except for the motor. Vlad’s English is very limited. My Russian and my I-Kiribati are even more limited.

Silence.

I have no idea where we are headed. And I’m not sure the man driving the outboard motor does either seeing as it is mostly dark.

However, as the early morning light breaks, I see off to our starboard side a lovely ketch. That would be good, but we are headed past it towards some hulking, rusting Taiwanese fishing vessels tied up to one another.

At some apparently random point, Vlad turns the boat hard to the right and now steers towards the ketch at some distance away.

As I’m wondering about Vlad’s vision, I see in the early morning light that the irises of Vlad’s blue eyes look seriously bleached, even opaque: cataracts? It is a striking look, and while he is wearing no eye-patch, it seems that this Russian pirate has some significant visual impairment.

We arrive and the entourage of seven people and Vlad all clamber aboard and meet the Russian skipper, Costa.

We are invited to distribute ourselves around the cabin and spacious deck.

Casting an eye over the ketch, it appears to be in reasonably good shape. This seems to be confirmed when it emerges that Costa bought the vessel in Mexico from a San Diego owner (saving on paying US tax) and sailed it across the Pacific to Kiribati half a year ago or more.

So if we are being shipped off as slaves, it will be in some comfort it appears.

Costa and Vlad set about raising the anchor.

First, they pull out a sad-looking guerney to clean the anchor chain as it is raised. Incredibly, the guerney’s performance is worse than its appearance: it barely works.

Besides, I look at the chain being pulled up and there is coral growth on it. In fairness, the guerney was to remove the mud, but it seems clear that they have been anchored here a while.

Meanwhile, the failure of the guerney is superceded by the failure of the capstan (the winch that raises the anchor chain).

The anchor chain was being raised, but it stops. The problem is identified as the rubber-covered electric button driving the capstan.

Vlad and Costa dismantle the button and the anchor raising continues as Costa returns to the helm, and Vlad touches two bare wires together to operate the capstan. It sort of works – in fits and sparks.

Then the capstan groans under an increase in the load and then stops.

Looks like our anchor has caught on something on the way up. Maybe an anchor line from one of the Taiwanese fishing vessels. Again, been here for a while?

Chain is lowered, raised – and each time, stops on the way up with a groan.

Costa drives the boat up close to the Taiwanese vessels and away. Vlad meanwhile lowers and raises the anchor – bzzz, spark, spark, bzzz.

After about an hour, the anchor is freed, raised and secured.

We’re away!

At idling speed.

Surely they are going to speed up soon? Maybe once we’ve cleared the big ships moored around the entrance to the harbour? Now that we’re out in the lagoon?

Nope. We remain at idle-speed for the entire journey across the lagoon.

Now admittedly there are shallow areas in the lagoon. But most of it is quite deep.

Costa claims that the draft of his 72’ ketch is 3.5m. That seems a bit surprising to me, but even so, my phone tells me that the depth of the lagoon is 4-6m plus in most areas.

They do have an electronic plotter onboard, but the writing is in Russian. Costa tells me the numbers are in feet (he converts to metres in his head he says), and he has another navigation app open on his phone.

So we weave our way at idling speed across the lagoon to North Tarawa.

To be clear, the weaving is not because of obstacles. It is because neither Costa nor Vlad appear capable of steering in a straight line. Vlad with the bleached blue eyes spends much time gazing away at a horizon that perhaps he cannot see. Costa spends more time looking at his electronic plotter and his phone than ahead.

The only straight line that they appear interested and capable of drawing is from one cigarette to the next.

At one point, the boat is slowed to a halt and a debate on the correct route around a coral lump begins. The conversation in Russian, I-Kiribati and English is incomprehensible and reflects a bunch of people with little to no apparent knowledge of the lagoon. I note that none of the participants are wearing sunglasses let alone polarised lenses that might allow them to see the shallows. The problem is solved by going back some way and doing a great circle around the coral lump.

So with a top-speed of idle, a zig-zag course, a cockpit perfumed by cheap cigarettes, a three-hour journey is offered in place of the one hour journey it should have been.

When we throw in the anchor, we are still about 500m from the shore, and on a falling tide. (We started early to avoid this problem, and ran late and slow to create this problem).

The semi-inflated dinghy is put into service and Vlad not able to see the channels to the shore bumps his way to a point where we are off-boarded, and set to walk 300m to the shore.

How was North Tarawa? Great. The In-Country Manager had rented a car, we drove to the north along dirt-roads to meet an elder (unimane) who gave us some stories of how the spirits created the island, introduced us to the spirits (for the price of some tobacco) and offered us assurances that these spirits would watch over us and not haunt or harm us as has happened to others who have not visited the unimane for an official welcome.

We stopped at a “resort” consisting of open, thatched huts over the water for accommodation. We sat overlooking the lagoon drinking a warm beer.

We headed to a maneaba (large open shelter) to see a local dance set up for us

We then had a boutaki (feast) in a seaside village.

The Country Manager then announces that we will stay for the night. That was a little inconvenient as I had not packed anything for an overnight trip. No matter. I was given a hotel room of sorts. No internal toilet, but there was a toilet on the second floor where I was located – but it did not work.

However, there was a toilet downstairs. An inconvenient convenience that I had to visit multiple times during the night: probably something I ate at the village boutaki.

The next day, we are returned to South Tarawa by the Russian pirates. It seemed to be equally chaotic. My suspicions about their poor helming was confirmed when I observed on the boat’s chart plotter that today’s course was weaving back and forth across the weaving line that showed our in-bound course from yesterday!

I languished on the hot deck moving from shady patch to shady patch just waiting for the journey to be over. The bugs in my stomach were enjoying their journey but it was upsetting me.

It was a relief to get ‘home’ to the air-conditioned hotel with an internal toilet.

People say one should focus on the journey and not the destination. I think we might make a strong case for an exception applying for unwitting I-Matang (foreigners in Kiribati) being transported across the Tarawa lagoon by Russian pirates.