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Update 1 | Update 2
Update 3 | Update 4
Update 6 | Update 7
Update 8 | Update 9
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Update 9 - Monday November 6, 2000
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Bula,
Having a great time in Fiji! I assume last night's
events made the news in the US?
We have been in Suva, Fiji for over a week. We came
here directly from Tonga for repairs and as usual with
repairs, they were more involved and took longer than
anticipated. Coup living was mellow and enjoyable up
until last night. We shopped, ate out and went to the
movies. The only evidence of the recent coups were
checkpoints on the highways, manned by men who all
look curiously like Sadaam Hussein with their
mustaches and berets, and a midnight curfew.
Yesterday things took a turn. We heard over the radio
that rebels had attacked the Queen Elizabeth Barracks
in Nambura. We didn=A1=A6t really know what this meant
and went on with our day. I asked a few shopkeepers
if we should be worried and they said no. I indicated
that I thought that Nambura was way over there on the
other side of the island, to which people waved and
replied =A1=A5yeah, way over there.=A1=A6 I had it confused
with another town. Nambura is actually a neighborhood
in Suva just two miles away.
As we were eating lunch everyone, especially ethnic
Indians, started looking very worried. We were dining
in a Hare Krishna restaurant. The proprietors, who
had welcomed us with =A1=A7Hare Krishna, welcome
friends!=A1=A8 were kind of indicating that we should get
the hell out fast so they could close. All businesses
were closing. As we started heading back and looking
for a cab there was low-grade hysteria in the streets.
Every bus filled. Forklifts were placing full-size
containers in the streets to protect shop windows and
the military sandbagged gun placements in the streets.
We returned to the yacht club to drink beer and listen
to the radio. The reports went something like this:
"One dead, seven wounded, the commodore escaped into
the bush and was picked up by his men. There is a new
curfew tonight at 6:00. Go home, protect your loved
ones and keep them off the street. Everything is
under control. There is nothing to fear. And by the
way, every military and reserve soldier in the region
report for duty immediately."
I went out to the boat to continue working. I was
glassing up the windvane when I heard an unmistakable
sound and turned the music down. Here is an excerpt
of a radio email I sent last night during the action:
So now I'm sitting on the boat just a few miles from
the action. I'll give you a play-by-play: Pause.
Short machine gun burst. Short machine gun burst.
Rifle fire. Grenade. Long machine gun burst.
Grenade. Grenade. Rifle fire. Big rocket. Big
explosion. Grenade. Short burst. Short burst. Blah
blah blah. Now that it's dark I can see the flashes
when the big stuff goes off. It's two miles away but
I'm still involuntarily ducking from time to time.
The firing went on for hours. Occasionally they would
send up a big flare that would hover over the city.
We sat on the boat drinking cocktails and singing
All We Are Saying Is Give Peace A Chance. There
was really nothing more we could do. The transmission
had been in the shop for several days, so there was no
way we could move the boat. All the other cruising
boats disappeared stealthily one by one. All the big
container ships were forced to leave the wharf to
prevent hijacking by the rebels, so they were all at
anchor in the outer harbor. Terms like =A1=A5sitting
duck=A1=A6 or =A1=A5lame duck=A1=A6 came up as we sat alone and
engineless with the rebels just over the hill. We
invented a new cocktail, the Suva Libre, as we
listened to David Bowie=A1=A6s Rebel Rebel and tried to
capture what we could on video.
An obnoxiously large and well-lit temple of that Salt
Lake City cult dominated the skyline between us and
the shelling. We kept hoping a stray shell would take
it out in a blaze of glory.
Later we noticed a darkened navy ship had anchored
near us; it=A1=A6s sailors crouched on the bow. It was
probably getting away from the dock where it might be
threatened by a land attack. We hoped it wouldn't
draw any fire.
The first time in my life that I heard shots fired in
anger was on a street in downtown Quito, Ecuador. A
policeman was chasing a thief down the main street and
cracked off a couple rounds a few feet away from me.
The sound was terrifying and like the thief he was
chasing, I was paralyzed with fear and would have
stopped immediately and given up had the shots been
fired at me. I was shaken up for hours and decided
that I definitely never wanted to get shot (duh). The
sounds of war are even more terrifying. Machine guns,
semi-automatic rifles and grenades sing a frightening
chorus. I definitely felt for the men who were in the
middle of it.
It is amazing that there were only 20 wounded and
eight dead this morning with the tens of thousands of
rounds, grenades and rockets fired.
The official story is that about 40 rebels attacked
the barracks and tried to kill or take the commanding
officers hostage. The main target escaped by running
through the bush. The barracks were later secured by
the interim government military.
We thought it would all be over the next morning. We
were to meet the transmission repair guy ashore at
8:30. When we arrived ashore things were a little
different. The entire country, businesses, roads,
everything, were closed under martial law and a
stay-inside curfew. Anyone roaming the streets might
be shot and armed soldiers combed the streets. A man
who was walking his dog, now stuck at the yacht club
for the day, had been threatened at gunpoint: "Get
off the streets or I'll shoot you."
We certainly wouldn=A1=A6t be able to check out of Suva
that day. The yacht club employees were still hanging
around from the night before, unable to go home during
the fighting. We wouldn=A1=A6t be able to connect with
the transmission guy. I called him and he suggested
that we stealthily cross the harbor in the dinghy
where he would meet us on a beach near his house. The
folks around the yacht club thought this was a very
dangerous idea.
Apparently the harbor was closed as well and the navy
was patrolling. The big pictured slowly catalyzed.
There were 20 rebels loose within two miles of us, all
looking for a means of escape. A boat and a hostage
or two would present a possible means. We were in
some danger, much more than when the fighting was
going on. They advised us to stay on the boat all
day.
This made for a boring day, the same kind of day
experienced by the whole island as everyone was stuck
inside.
I have been through many winds on my travels: The
northeast tradewinds, the southeast trades, maramus,
papagayos and corumels, but in Suva the most insidious
of winds was blowing during our curfew day, the
horrible Hot Dump Wind. Sadly, we are anchored just a
half a mile from the city dump of the largest city in
the south pacific islands. If we had a transmission,
we=A1=A6d move, but we don=A1=A6t. The Royal Suva Yacht Club
is about equidistant to the dump, so they get the
stench too when the wind blows the wrong way. On a
hot day like that, the smell is amazing and the
charming flies provide constant amusement.
Later we went in for showers and watched the recap on
the TV news with all the others who were marooned at
and around the yacht club.
It was all quite exciting and I can't say I was sorry
I was there to see it. Amazingly, we were the closest
to the fighting you could possibly be by sea.
At this point my stepmother Pat is not the least bit
impressed that her little Jimmy is with me for this
particular part of the ride. He's 20. He's ready
for his first insurrection.
Things should be back to normal. All that will really
be accomplished is that two days of commerce were lost
and Fiji=A1=A6s already dismal tourist occupancy rate
after the last coup will be further reduced.
Enough about it.
When I last wrote we were leaving Tonga. We checked
out but planned to make an illegal stop at the island
of Tofua in the far western reaches of the Tonga
islands. Tofua is an active volcano with a giant
freshwater lake in the middle. You can hike into the
crater and swim in the lake.
When we approached Tofua, dazzling and huge after an
overnight sail, we saw a promising surf break. We
anchored and caught a few waves over shallow coral
heads; probably never surfed before.
We rounded the west end of the island to see the
volcano spewing smoke with the island of Kao, the
highest island in Tonga, in the background. Anchoring
was sketchy since Tofua was perfectly round and drops
off into deep water on all sides. Notwithstanding, we
found a good spot for the night.
After a brief evening reconnaissance trip, Jim and I
would be the first landing party in the morning while
Jamie and Chris watched the boat. It was one of those
magical days filled with unbelievable views at every
turn.
We started our ascent through what is considered by
Dr. Art Whistler (yes, that THE Dr. Art Whistler) of
the University of Hawaii as the best virgin tropical
rainforest in the Pacific. At about sunrise we
emerged from the rainforest into volcanic scrub with
some tree ferns and made our way to the rim. It was
definitely one of the most spectacular views of my
life. Outside the rim was the vast Pacific with the
perfect cone of Kao just five miles distant. Inside
the rim the virgin rainforests covered the slopes
right up to where the ash and recent lava floes had
covered them. On one side of the crater was the
active cone, spewing a cloud of steam, smoke and ash
several thousand feet into the air. Below it was the
giant freshwater crater lake, about two miles in
diameter, glowing clear and green, about 900 feet
deep.
We made our way to the start of the volcanic soil and
descended to the active volcano. The rumblings and
quaking ground stopped us wideyed in our tracks a few
times as we neared. We occasionally gasped on the
sulfuric fumes, but made it up to the rim and stared
into the gaping maw, the heart of the earth. It was a
mix of fascination and fear. Peering into the volcano
we could see at least a thousand feet down when the
smoke cleared. We threw rocks but never heard them
hit bottom. The eruptions were irregular: For a few
minutes there would just be pressure-cooker gasps and
clouds of steam. Then there would be a rumble and
explosion. The ground would shake and a huge cloud
would soar above us. It was not a comfortable
feeling. We gave the volcano our best retort and
blasted our air horn into the depths. The echoes
eerily bounced around the chasm for five seconds or
so. If you were a primitive Tongan native you would
have had absolutely no doubt that this was God and you
would cast virgins into the abyss when the taro crop
went sour.
It was time for a swim. We picked what we thought was
our best line to lake. It was not. If at any time in
the rest of my mountaineering career something
requires the crossing of a lava field I will find
another way. It took us hours to cover less than a
mile. I would say that we have seen every possible
form that hot rock can take as it is thrust from the
bowels of the earth. Every step we took in the
razor-sharp lava was a dance of uncertainty. Every
rock crumbled under our feet causing us to lose
balance and stumble. You could never trust a step.
Our walking became a nonstop stagger. When you had to
reach down for balance you were greeted with a handful
of needlelike volcanic spikes. Later we both admitted
we were near our breaking points while walking through
the scalding heat of the lava field.
We never found our easy path to the lake. We finally
just had to charge our way through lava, scrub, tight
trees and a million spider webs to the water. Once we
were in it was surreal paradise. We were the only
people for many miles around, swimming in a huge,
cool, bottomless lake in a volcanic crater, surrounded
by rainforest on an island in the middle of the
Pacific while an active volcano belched a huge white
cloud just a half mile away.
Since the weather turned sour we had to wait two days
before we could safely land the second ascent team,
Jamie and Chris, for their day in the crater.
We had a three day passage to Fiji - blew out all the
headsails again. I guess I=A1=A6ve got to invest in new
sails in Australia.
We should be leaving Suva today and heading off to do
what we intended to do in Fiji; surf and island hop.
-Clark
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