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The
Guam to Hong Kong leg of
Klaraborg’s
first circumnavigation
By Jack Bateman
Most of the crew that had joined in Australia
got off when Klaraborg arrived on Guam. Word spread fast
among the sailing community that there were berths
available, and that she was bound for Hong Kong and
eventually Kenya. I had taken a semester off from the
University of Guam, and I wasn’t going to pass up what
sounded like the adventure of a lifetime.
We
set sail in January of 1972, bound for the islands of Yap,
Nglulu, Palau and then to Hong Kong. Those from Guam
joining with me were Debbie Phelps, Herb Ward, Dave
McCarty, Sue Harding, John Frye, Denise Buettner, Cathy
Barrow and Donna Petlak. The rest of the crew included
Lorrie Lever from
Australia
and Ann McKern from England and, of course, Ove and Ingmar.
On our
first night at sea we were treated to not only a full
moon, but a full eclipse of the moon as well. The trip to
the island of Yap was under ideal sailing conditions; we
were on a broad reach with steady winds, a gently rolling
sea, clear skies and temperatures in the upper 70’s.
Sailing just doesn’t get much better.
Dave
McCarty was on my watch, and at night between bow lookout
and the wheel, he led us on his guitar singing sea
shanties we found in a book in the ships library. The old
songs of the sea were most appropriate on the deck of
Klaraborg.
Although
I never experienced any apparitions, some of those onboard
Klaraborg swore that she was haunted, and with the number
of men who have lived, worked and some must have died on
her, why not? Besides, sailors have always been a
superstitious lot who also love a good sea story. . . .
After
three days of perfect sailing, we arrived at Yap. We had
been told before leaving Guam that the people of Yap would
be aloof and wary of outsiders, as theirs is one of the
most traditional cultures in Micronesia. We were
pleasantly surprised to find this to be untrue. Maybe it
was the fact that we were arriving in a traditional
sailing vessel that the people welcomed us with such
hospitality, but I don’t think so. The Yapese truly are
a friendly people whose culture has, by some miracle,
survived invasions by the Spanish, Germans, Japanese and
Americans. If a person comes to experience their culture
without the ulterior motive of trying to change it, they
will be warmly received.
Traditional
clothing is still worn on Yap. The men wear a loin cloth
called a thue, and the women wear long grass skirts and
are topless. In their culture, showing women’s thighs is
considered risqué, but bare breasts are perfectly
natural.
While I
was there, I heard about two female Peace Corp workers on
the outer island of Satawal who had been trying to get the
women to wear tops. The local women smiled and nodded and
waited for the right opportunity. When the Peace Corp
workers were bathing in the lagoon, some of the women
gathered up all of their blouses, t-shirts and bras and
burned them. Since a supply ship only stops there once
every six months, they had no choice but to “go
native”, much to their chagrin and the delight and
amusement of the locals.
Everyone
chews betel nut and carries a special bag with pepper
leaves and lime. They wrap the betel nut in a pepper leaf
with some lime and chew it, producing a mild stimulant.
Prolonged use also turns teeth black, which in their
culture is also perfectly natural.
Yap is
the island of stone money, large discs with a hole in the
center. The larger ones, up to 12 feet in diameter, are
never moved, even when the ownership changes, since
everyone knows who they belong to. The tradition of stone
money goes back centuries, with the stones quarried on the
island of Palau and rafted back to Yap. The value of each
stone is complicated, being based on the difficulty of the
voyage, how many lives were lost bringing them home and
the size and quality of the workmanship. (Much of the
stone money was smashed by the Japanese for use as
material for their runways during WWII.)
The
book and movie “His Majesty O’Keefe” is based on the
true story of an Irish American adventurer who wound up on
Yap in the 19th century and decided to make his
fortune by mining stone money on an unprecedented scale
and using ships instead of rafts for transport. His stone
money didn’t have as much value, but allowed poorer
people the status of ownership. O’Keefe was well loved
by the Yapese, who gave him a monopoly on trade for more
than thirty years.
After a
most enjoyable and enlightening week on Yap, we set sail
for the small atoll of Nglulu. By mid-morning of the day
after we got underway, we were dropping anchor in the
lagoon of a delightful, nearly forgotten island. When we
arrived, there were only nine older adults and two
children living on an island that had once supported over
fifty people, and could have fed and sheltered more. Most
of the people had gone to Yap or Guam for jobs and
schooling, leaving a few old folks to tend the island. And
tend it they did: even though the village was nearly a
ghost town you’d never guess it, as the thatch roofs of
all the houses were maintained, the gravel between the
homes was swept of leaves and weeded regularly, and
everything was neat and orderly.
The
adults only spoke Yapese and Japanese, but a boy named
Johnny had been to school on Yap and spoke English, so he
was our interpreter. Through Johnny they told us the only
way they had to fish was with a hand held line from a
small out-rigger canoe, so we decided to go spear fishing
and get enough to put on a good feed for all of us.
It was
a very pleasant surprise the first time we went scuba
diving in the lagoon, as the reefs were pristine,
stunningly colorful and teeming with fish, which literally
had to be pushed away to spear them. By the reaction of
the fish, if we weren’t the first to dive there, there
couldn’t have been very many before us.
There
was also an abundance of gray reef sharks and black tip
sharks, which only became aggressive on one occasion, and
that happened when we were diving on the ocean side of the
reef. When we started that dive, there were only a few
gray reef sharks around, but as we began spear fishing,
more and more were gathering. When it became impossible
for me to keep track of them all, I worked my way back to
the launch. One by one we all retreated, except Herb Ward
and Ove. Just before I got out of the water, I saw Herb
pointing his spear gun into a crevice in the reef and a
large gray shark was headed for the stringer of fish on
his belt. The shark bit one of the fish and shook
furiously, and Herb calmly turned around and slammed the
butt of his spear gun into the shark’s nose, which then
took off. Herb then nonchalantly speared the fish in the
crevice he had been aiming at before he was so rudely
interrupted. When they finally decided it was getting out
of hand, the only way they could make it to the launch was
back to back with their spear guns pointing out and swim
in slow circles. When Herb was in the boat, his only
comment was “Hmmm, it was getting a little crowded down
there.” (Herb was killed in a diving accident on Guam a
few years later. He was an expert diver, fine seaman and
one colorful character.)
There
was a large boat house on the island that held a beautiful
forty five foot oceangoing sailing outrigger canoe, but
there weren’t enough men left on the island to sail it.
The area in front of the boathouse was where the few
remaining men gathered to roll cigarettes (when they had
tobacco) and socialize while seated on mats woven out of
coconut fronds.
I felt
genuine regret when we left the natural beauty, peace and
tranquility of Nglulu atoll.
When we
were one days sail from Palau on a trip that should have
only taken four days, the wind died, so
we fired up the ancient engine. It only ran a couple of
hours before the main bearing overheated and the engine
had to be shut down. We were soon taking substantial
Pacific rollers on our beam, and we were doing some
serious rolling. For the next twenty four hours, while Ove
tried to repair the bearing, we drifted and rolled on a
strong northerly current which took us over one hundred
miles out of our way. When the wind finally came up again,
it took us another three days to reach Koror in the
Palauan islands.
I was
on bow watch the first night the wind returned. It was a
very dark night with low cloud cover blotting out even the
stars, except for those created by the sea. We were
sailing through phosphorous
plankton that lit up when disturbed. The bow wake
contained millions of stars, as if whole galaxies were
being swirled and rolled up before us and then sliding
past us in what you might call “sea-lestial” light. (You
might, but I’d never stoop to such a pun.) While I was
enthralled by the beauty of it all, a school of porpoises
started riding the pressure wave in front of our bow,
creating comets of light streaking through the darkness
ahead of the rioting stars. Every few seconds a porpoise
would jump, leaving a break in the light as if they were
creating crazy lines on the wet road ahead for us to
follow. Then one raced far ahead of us, turned and came
straight for us in a streak of light a torpedo must create
under those conditions, but instead of a “boom!” there
was only a “wow!” from me as the porpoise dove under
us. That was the most enjoyable watch I have ever stood in
all the years I spent at sea.
Ove,
with bailing wire and chewing gum (only a slight
exaggeration,) was able to get the one-lung museum piece
running, and we wheezed our way to the docks at Koror
where he was able to make proper repairs. I think everyone
who sailed on Klaraborg would agree that Ove was a damned
fine engineer and an outstanding seaman.
Two
days after we arrived at Koror, a small costal tanker
tried to dock near us and created quite a bit of
excitement and a topic of conversation for days. It was
not much more than one hundred feet long and had enough
crew members to create quite the circus. She was
approaching the dock on about a thirty degree angle and at
a good five knots. As she neared the dock without
perceptible slowing or course alteration, people began
running to get clear of the impact zone while yelling what
I could only assume were choice expletives at the idiot
captain. The over abundant crew members were all running
around waving their hands in the air and yelling what I
could only assume were also choice expletives at the idiot
captain. The dock was a solid concrete structure from
WWII, and when they crashed into it, chunks of concrete
flew and the hawser of the ship she was trying to dock in
front of was snapped. The second attempt was a close
replay of the first, sending more concrete into the air.
Three was the charm, and although they slammed the dock
again they were able to get a line ashore and after much
running around and waving of the hands managed to complete
docking.
As if
that demonstration of seamanship wasn’t impressive
enough, the captain of the little tanker was out to prove
he was capable of even greater feats of daring-do. When
they sailed the next day and turned off of the main
channel and down what looked like a short cut through the
reef, but was a dead end clearly marked on the charts, the
Palauans at first pointed in disbelief, then started
laughing. When the ship hit the reef, their bow rose up
and black smoke poured from their stack and the ship shook
as the idiot captain frantically tried to back off, but he
was good and truly stuck. The only thing he could do was
wait for the next extreme high tide and hope the wave
action and the engine could free him. When we left a few
days later, they were still adorning the reef. We heard
later that they were able to extricate the little tanker
and go in search of bigger and better objects to smash
into. Amazingly, the hull was battered and scared, but
intact and no cargo spilled.
While
in Australia, Ove and Ingmar met a retired scrap metal
dealer who had made his living off the detritus of WWII
and told them of locations he had never gotten around to.
In order to help Klaraborg fund her circumnavigation, he
marked very precise locations on their charts and warned
them that harvesting the brass and copper to be found
there wasn’t exactly legal.
On the
way north to Guam, they made a stop at one of the
locations that had been an American base in WWII. When the
Americans pulled out, they had left everything behind.
There were fully stocked offices with desks, typewriters,
filing cabinets and furniture as well as jeeps and trucks,
all melting back into the jungle. Everything brass or
copper they could lay their hands on was stripped and
stashed onboard. When an airplane flew over the island
they knew they had been spotted and would be in deep
trouble if caught, and so beat a hasty retreat, but they
already had more than four tons of scrap squirreled away.
(The above two paragraphs, second hand information many
years old, are
what I remember being told.)
As we
got ready to leave Palau we found out we were really there
for yet another “liberation” of scrap metal, and we
weren’t exactly leaving. Ove finished the government
paper work necessary to leave port and put down our next
destination as Hong Kong, and we sailed beyond the reef
and headed north. When we were past the northern end of
Babelthaup, the largest island in the group, we cut back
through a channel in the reef and headed for the small
island of Kyangel. Our real destination was the Velasco
Reef some eight miles to the north, but first we had some
scouting to do. A group of us went ashore to visit with
the people, but we were really there to find out how many
men were on the island, if there were any guns and if they
had radio communications. As fate would have it, most of
the men and all their boats were at a gathering on the
main island, there were no guns on the island at that time
and their radio was broken. We were relived because where
we intended to plunder a ship wreak was in plain view of
Kyangel, and the people there had recently taken a
Japanese fishing boat at gunpoint and turned them in for
illegal fishing. We knew damned good and well they
wouldn’t look kindly on what we intended to do either.
The
next morning we raised anchor and headed for where we knew
the wreck to be. The old guy in Australia was good because
we dropped anchor only a one hundred yards or so from the
wreck. I have never seen such a wreck before or since.
It had been a Japanese cruiser with a thick armor
plated hull that had been caught at anchor by an American
plane that managed to hit the magazine, which must have
been fully loaded. Nobody could have survived the
resulting explosion which deposited part of the
superstructure and a cannon barrel from one of the main
batteries on the reef sixty or seventy yards from where
the ship had been. The bottom was littered with the
remains of the ship that look like melted plastic, no
piece larger than thirty feet or so, scattered over a wide
area. It was a scene of utter devastation. The only thing
intact was a boiler that must not have been on line,
sitting perfectly upright and apparently undamaged amidst
the carnage of what had once been a proud ship.
We were
expecting to find one of the propellers, about four tons
of brass, and other salvageable items. Ove and Ingmar had
dynamite onboard to blast the propeller into pieces we
could haul on deck, but someone had beaten us to it and
there was nothing to plunder.
We did
come across three exceptional giant “killer clams” and
Ove decided he to sell the shells in Hong Kong, so we
“liberated” them instead. As the giant clams slowly
grow, so does the reef around them, so the largest ones
sit in a well of coral. We passed a rope under each shell
as they are not attached to the reef but by their weight,
and tied the rope to a fifty five gallon drum which we
then filled with air from a scuba tank, and floated them
to Klaraborg. No refrigeration meant we ate clam for
breakfast lunch and dinner. When we had cleaned the meat
out of the clams, an average adult would be able to get
inside in a fetal position and close the shell.
I
decided to check the veracity of Hollywood’s depiction
of the hapless diver who puts his foot in a giant
“killer clam” and it slams shut dooming said diver. I
poked a stick in one to see how fast it closed, and it
slammed shut with the blinding speed of a draw bridge
closing: a diver would have to be as incompetent as the
idiot captain of the little tanker to get killed by a
giant clam.
After two unauthorized days of illegal
activity, we slipped through the channel in the reef and
headed for the northern end of the Philippines. Ove had
decided we were less likely to encounter pirates far more
dangerous than us going through the Ballingtang Channel
than we would taking the shorter route through the
southern Philippines.
The first three days there was not a breath
of wind, so we were running the now thoroughly repaired
ancient one-lunger. On the second day the seas began to
build, but still no wind. By the afternoon of the third
day, the wind had come up rather suddenly, and was blowing
a steady twenty five to thirty knots. On the fourth day
the seas were running a good thirty feet and the wind was
a steady forty five knots with gusts to sixty. Had we been
running with the wind, the old girl’s stout but vintage
hull wouldn’t have been stressed that much, but we were
close hauled and pounding into the seas, and she began
leaking ominously. The small bilge pump that ran off the
engine was quickly overwhelmed, and we began working the
manual bilge pumps on deck. It was hard, cold, wet work,
and from then until we docked in Hong Kong, the pumps had
to be manned twenty four hours a day. (I heard later that
when Klaraborg was dry docked in Hong Kong, five cracked
ribs were found.)
When I
got off my first stint on the pumps and went below, I was
appalled to see water squirting through the planks of the
inner hull every time we impacted a wave and the lee side
of the main salon awash.
I was now very aware that there was the possibility
of us going down. My next time on the bilge pump, I went
at it as if my life depended on it, because it did. Ove,
the consummate marine engineer that he is, took parts off
the compressor and other spare parts and built a second
bilge pump which he ran off the engine. This was the edge
we needed, and we began to gain on the water.
One
night when I was working the forward bilge pump I was
thinking that if I was sitting in a theater with a warm
bag of popcorn watching us rise to the crest of a wave and
down the other side with the next wave towering above us,
it would be a lot more fun than the wet, cold, miserable
reality of it. (But I’d still rather have the real
deal.)
After
we transited the Ballingtang Channel and were in the South
China Sea, the wind did another disappearing act, but this
time we didn’t mind, as it made pumping the bilges that
much easier. The sea became calmer and calmer until we
were moving across a mirror. Not a ripple or movement of
any kind. I have never seen a body of water as large as
the South China Sea in that state of repose. It was
beautiful, fascinating and more than a little eerie.
Our
first night in the South China Sea, we couldn’t help but
noticed that the engine, which had been running since we
left Palau, was no longer blowing smoke rings, but rather
rings of burning soot that kept glowing even after they
were on the water. “This,” Ove observed, “is not
good”, so he decided to shut down the engine and clean
the soot out of the exhaust system. When the engine
stopped, air rushed into the exhaust and it ignited,
shooting out a tongue of flame like a cannon firing that
lit up the ship and the mirror sea around us. It only
lasted a few seconds, and was spectacular in a
hair-raising sort of way. It truly was one of those “oh
shit” moments. The bulwark around the exhaust was
smoldering, as well as the aft house.
Everyone sprang into action and we quickly had
everything doused and the exhaust manifold cooled down,
and disaster was averted. Fire on a wooden vessel at sea is
just not a very good thing, as later events would sadly
proved.
The
next night held more drama for us as well. We were under
heavy cloud cover and it was a very dark night. It was
about 10:00 p.m. when we heard an engine, but saw no
running lights, which immediately raised red flags. As the
engine sounds grew louder, it was obvious they were headed
toward us and Ove began considering his options. Piracy in
those waters is a very common occurrence and Ove and
Ingmar had contingency plans in case the worst should
happen, and it now looked like it was. Most of the pirate
boats in that part of the world are small but very fast,
powered by Volkswagen engines with marine adaptors, and
have a machinegun mounted in the bow. The plan was to
allow the boat to come along side and drop sticks of
dynamite on them before they could board us, and since our
freeboard was so high, it sounded like a damned good idea
to me.
Ove
decided to first make sure we were clearly identified
since they already knew where we were, so he ran up the
Swedish flag and rigged spotlights on it and the sails.
The engine sounds were getting louder, and still no
running lights. Then the approaching boat turned on all
its lights. It was a damned Japanese fishing boat. They
matched our speed and course for a few minutes taking
pictures, and then they turned out all their lights (still
no running lights) and disappeared into the darkness, the
sound of their engine fading away. Son-of-a-bitch, another
idiot captain!
The
next night we were approaching Hong Kong and there were
ships in great number coming and going, so the Ove decided
we should head back to sea and avoid the congested
shipping lanes until daylight. In the morning we motored
to the quarantine area and anchored, ran up the quarantine
flag and waited for customs. After several hours, a
customs boat came alongside, but since it was pouring
rain, the customs officer sent a crew member over to get
all our passports to stamp. There wasn’t even a cursory
inspection made because the customs officer didn’t want
to get wet. Good grief! We could have had anything
onboard, like tons of pilfered brass and copper and
plundered giant clam shells, rifles, dynamite, who knows
what all!
Dave
McCarty and I had to get back to Guam, so we got off
Klaraborg shortly after clearing customs. We spent a few
days seeing Hong Kong, then with plane tickets in hand, we
headed to the airport. When we got to customs, the agent
said, “Wait, you came to Hong Kong by ship?” We
acknowledged this and he told us that in Hong Kong, you
must leave by the same mode of transportation as you
arrived, or get a special stamp in your passport.
“OK,” Dave said, “where do we get the special
stamp?” He gave us a blank look and said “I haven’t
the slightest idea, but you can’t leave without it.”
And so began our journey through the labyrinth of Chinese
bureaucracy.
We had
high hopes the first day because we thought it couldn’t
be that hard to find the government office where the Magic
Stamp lived. We conducted the search in a logical pattern,
going from government office to government office, up one
street and down another with the same question “Is this
where we get the special stamp in our passports to leave
by a different mode of transportation than we arrived?”
Office after office we got “no”, a negative shake of
the head or blank stares.
We were
discouraged after the first day, but still hopeful.
We were
discouraged and frustrated the second day.
We were
discouraged, frustrated and angry the third day.
On the
fourth day we decided it was time to seek help from the
American Embassy. We were whistling God Bless America as
we entered the Embassy, and mad enough to spit bullets
when we left. First off, there appeared to be no Americans
in the American Embassy, which seemed a little odd to us.
We got negative answers or more blank stares from everyone
we talked to. After several hours of being passed off from
one bored paper-pusher to another, I was finally pissed
off enough to don the mantle of Ugly American, slammed my
fist on the counter and loudly demanded “God damn it!
This is supposed to be the American Embassy, I want to
talk to an American, NOW!” Then they produced a mousey
little clerk (but he was American) from some back
office who knew even less than the people who knew
nothing. After he made a series of phone calls to his
British counterparts, he announced that it seemed nobody
knew where the Magic Stamp lived. (We were beginning to
think it wasn’t just Magical, but downright Mythical.)
The
fifth day of our captivity-by-bureaucratic-insanity, we
were nearly out of money and continued the search feeling
rather bleak. Then in the third office we went into and
asked “The Question”, the guy casually says “yes,”
(which at that point took us completely by surprise)
opened a deceptively normal looking drawer where the Magic
Stamp actually lived, and less than a minute later,
with the sacred mark of the Magic Stamp in our passports,
we were suddenly free! We were in shock as we headed for
our hotel to get our bags, and by sunset we were happily
winging our way back to Guam.
And so
ended what truly had been the adventure of a lifetime.
The
proper way to ask a question of a Chinese bureaucrat (or
any bureaucrat in any third-world country for that matter)
is to cross their palm with a little green and answers are
far more likely to be forthcoming, which I didn’t know
at the time.
Leaving the dock, Apra Harbour, Guam
Herb Ward (with cigar) and I raising the mainsail
Underway for Yap
Johnny, our interpreter on Nglulu in
Caroline Islands, opening a coconut with the ease my kids
open a can of soda
Outrigger used by the few people left
on Nglulu for fishing
Me hard at work
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