Castaways 5

The three-foot packhorse that Dafne brought us back from her swim barely fit in the cannibal pot on the stove. It came out as red as the Milky Way came on white, outside. All the other colors were waiting in our dreams.

As remote as it seemed on any map of the Pacific, the island we awoke to was downtown Southern Sea history and myth and wonder. Robyn and I found the first reason for this in the village cemetery, on a brass plaque with an Iron Cross centre, and a verdigris border.

    ‘In treuer Pflichterfüllung für das Deutsche Vaterland starben den  

     Heldentod: Ing. Asp. Lerche Ober- Matr. Hunger Heizer Reuter...

     S.M.S. Dresden 14 Marz 1945’

In faithful performance of duty for the German Fatherland, died a hero. In 1915, the only German ship to escape the Battle of the Falkland Islands scuttled herself in Cumberland Bay, both a white flag and her war ensign flying in the wind. A third of her crew decided to stay in Chile after the war, and their descendents, and those of an original Swiss San Juan Bautista settler, constitute the predominant human invasive species. Above our heads, in the face of the overhanging cliff, were numerous large British cruiser shell holes, as well as the back of a solitary unexploded eight-incher, still in place.

We continued up a grassy slope, through glades of cypress, conifers and eucalyptus, into a tall lowland forest of unique white-flowered peppery canelos and orange-fruited myrtles. Ferns lined the steep mountain path, small at first, but growing taller and into giant Dicksonia and Thyrsopteris tree ferns, as our trail became steeper, our footing more difficult on the slippery volcanic rock. Our pace was unhurried, slowed further by the peace inside the upper montane rainforest. Robyn and I floated in an exotic landscape of luma, muchay and narajillo, pushing up from the dark, moist forest floor, seeking sunlight. We felt cleansed, decontaminated. There came a sudden loud raspy staccato doppler drone, rising and falling in pitch, motoring by at the speed of sound, a bright red bumblebee on steroids.

“There are less than two hundred left in the world.” I said. “And they’re all here.” It came around for another supersonic pass, five inches long, cinammon-red with slate gray wings, and an iridescent crown of emeralds and rubies and gold.

“He’s beautiful.” Robyn said. And he was. Sephanoides fernandensis. The Juan Fernández Firecrown, the world’s largest hummingbird. The Spanish call them picaflores. Flower pokers.

“He’s also doomed.” I said. “They eat endangered cabbage tree nectar, and nest in myrtles that are disappearing because of habitat loss from human destruction, blackberry invasion, and rabbits and goats. Domestic and feral cats are taking the last of them.” And the red bomber went by one last time.

                            “From scarlet to powdered gold,

                      
      to blazing yellow,


                            to the rare


                             ashen emerald,


                            to the orange and black velvet


                            of your shimmering corselet,


                            out to the tip


                            that like


                            an amber thorn
begins you,


                            small, superlative being,


                            you are a miracle,


                            and you blaze.”
 

                                         Pablo Neruda, Ode to the Hummingbird 

Castaways 4

“Ese era su cueva, allí.” Said one of the lobstermen. That was his cave, there. And we rounded the last point from Puerto Inglés, into calmer water, and half-moon Cumberland Bay at the base of the three thousand foot flat-topped fine-misted volcanic peak that towered above it. Clinging precipitously to the tortuous jagged side of El Yangue Mountain, rising abruptly from the sea and almost lost in a sweep of eucalypts, guayabas, and chanta trees, appeared a cluster of wood and tin huts, crowding the narrow shore.
“San Juan Bautista.” Said the lobsterman. “Mi casa.” A few lobster boats nodded on their moorings. The rest of the town didn’t look any more awake.
We landed outside time and space. The refugees had likely forgotten how and why they had come to this frontier of the spirit. The few that roamed the street moved at the pace of the bread rising for them at the bakery. They looked at us indifferently, almost like we weren’t really there, as we reached the rocky beachhead. The dirt roads were as deeply rutted as the faces of the lobstermen, and the only conveyances, other than the mail jeep, were the wheelbarrows. The few hundred inhabitants were neither rich nor poor. Their bungalows were weathered but tidy, with chimney pots and small yards and sparse gardens, and big leafy palm or fruit trees. There was a Catholic and Mormon and Evangelical church, as many shops of similar denominations, a primary school, and a red telephone box, the nerve centre and meeting place for young aspiring escapados. A big round rusted plate hung suspended below the hand painted red and white sign at the top of the two tall metal poles, in front of the town hall. Emergencia. I wondered what they would ever need it for. We were four hundred miles from the nearest medical care, and only way to get there had taken off hours ago.
She was waiting for us at the end of the pier. Dafne owned a small guesthouse at the eastern end of the village, over the water. Her wet suit said she was going diving. She told us she was going diving.
“Quieres una langosta para más tarde?” She asked. Did we want a lobster for later. Robyn’s eyes lit up the answer. We both said goodbye to the Spaniards, and Dafne took us along the shore to our cabaña. It had a kitchen with a gas stove, and a very large pot. Our carton of Santa Rita 120 wine from Santiago took its place alongside a box of custard powder on the only shelf. We were good.

Castaways 3

Juan Fernández first discovered the archipelago on November 22, 1574, when he strayed on the way from Peru to Valparaíso. The boots of the pirates that first made landfall on Más a Tierra, were unable to find dirt, for the density of Juan Fernández seals underfoot. ‘We were forced to kill them to set our feet on shore.’ The maritime fur trade fixed that problem so perfectly that they, like the aromatic Santalum fernandezianum trees, and the rebellious convicts in the later penal colony that were hunted down after their escape back to mainland Chile, were thought to have become extinct. The colony of two hundred seals that were rediscovered in the mid-20th century, had multiplied back to a thunderous welcoming party, on the rocks near the long ramshackle wooden jetty, at the bottom of the steep switchback trail. The small black pups, with their short ears and stubby flippers and hairy manes and bulbous noses, had no memory of the previous tribal genocide, and approached us with playful curiosity and yelping fish breath, despite their mothers’ raucous warnings.
At uneven intervals, in the troughs between the churning foam swells on Bahía del Padre, we made out the shape of a determined small craft, heading towards us. One moment it was visible, the next submerged. The two crewmen carefully stayed away from crashing directly into the pier, and skillfully timing the rollers, for just the right moment for us to throw our packs, and then ourselves, into the hard bottom of their lobster boat. Once loaded, and deeper in the cauldron, they nudged us out between the two rock pincers of the cove entrance, on the hour-long trip around the massive jagged vertical cliffs of the northern coast, and the foamed chaos dancing at their feet.
Despite the absence of vital signs or vegetation, I could see why this fragile island would have been an ideal pirate hideout- There was fresh water in abundance from waterfalls and streams, seals for meat and lamp oil and clothing, an equitable climate, and no snakes or predators. It was far enough from the Spanish authorities, but close enough to the shipping lanes of their treasure-laden galleons, closer still to the wild goats they had released here.

Castaways 2

Two long hours after the maraschino cherries disappeared, the pilot pointed to a small white cotton bud gradually emerging from over the far horizon.
“Isla Más a Tierra.” He shouted. Closer to Land. We broke through the cloud cover to an island divided precisely in half, a green Amazon out the leeward windows, and a barren golden rusted rugged rocky Atacama moonscape off our port side. I asked the pilot where the airstrip was.
“Justo debajo de nosotros.” He said. Right below us. And he banked high and around for his only shot at the shallow bowl between the two extinct volcanoes. Sheer cliff faces soared a hundred feet straight up off the surf on either side of his attempt. He had a split second after the wheels touched the lunar surface to swing his wings in a tight semicircle, so we wouldn’t go off the grim precipice. He’d done it before. We taxied past the wreck of a Piper Navajo that hadn’t been quite as proficient, lying flat on its belly with its windows and doors blown out. The Spaniards crossed themselves in tandem with the pilot’s own invocation. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. The silence that returned was deafening.
Robyn and I emerged to a red and white striped windsock, waving at us, horizontal against heaven.
“Estamos aquí.” Said the pilot.
“He says we’re here.” Said one of the Spaniards. There was no debate. We had landed on the largest and only inhabited island of the Archipiélago Juan Fernández, but the airstrip was still almost two hours away from Cumberland Bay and the only village of San Juan Bautista, John the Baptist. He was supposed to have pointed the way to Jesus. We looked around for a finger to point us in the direction of Juan Bautista. The pilot indicated the route we were to take to join them.
“Sigue el sonido de las focas.” He said, waving goodbye. Follow the sound of the seals. We all hoisted our packs and began a long hot dusty walk down a track. We could hear it barking at the bottom.

Castaways 1...

                                                       

                                                            Castaways

                                                                      Juan Fernández


                              “We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown.”
                                                                                                        Arthur Eddington



“Jamon y queso?” Asked the pilot, handing a sandwich back from his cockpit. He had five sandwiches. They were all ham and cheese.
“Gracias.” I said, taking another for Robyn, impressed with the bloodstains of the maraschino cherries embedded in the white bread.
“De dónde vienes?” Asked one of the other three passengers sitting across from us, in the back of the old Cessna. Where are you from.
“Canadá.” I said. “Y Ustedes?” And you.
“Somos Españoles.” Said another. Spaniards.
“Están muy lejos de España y Canadá, muchachos.” The pilot said. And he was right. We were a long way from home.
The morning had started early, on the tarmac of Santiago’s Aeropuerto Los Cerillos. An old Cessna 206 sat under the company’s logo. ‘Cuando pasa el tiempo no hay lugar demasiado.’ When time flies there’s no place too far.
“It might be too far.” Said Robyn. “It’s only got one engine.” When the pilot arrived with the sandwiches, he made a quick circuit around the plane, and motioned for us to find seats.
“Vamos.” He said, taking his own. An erupting cloud of blue smoke from the cowling filed the flight plan. “Tres horas. Seiscientos kilómetros. Tal vez.” Three hours. Six hundred kilometers. Maybe.
The twice-weekly flight sometimes located the island, sometimes didn’t, if the weather even allowed it to get that far. We climbed out across the frigid Humboldt Current, six thousand feet over the jagged spine of the Andes. It occurred to me that we were only the second generation to have seen clouds from above, as well as from below. If the droning engine noise hadn’t made conversation futile, the white faces and knuckles of the Spaniards wouldn’t have produced much anyway. 

Let us begin...

                                               For David Green

These are the Stories of the Southern Sea.

                                                       Stories of the Southern Sea

                       Amnesia

                     
                       Latinesia

                                  Juan Fernández- Castaways
                                  Chiloé - Tide Table

                       Indonesia

                                  Sulawesi- Headhunting in Kansas

                       Melanesia

                                  Fiji- Fiji Bitter
                                  Vanuatu- The Most Beautiful Beach in the World
                                  Solomons- The Prow of the Canoe
                                  New Caledonia- Alice in Wonderland

                       Micronesia

                                  Palau- Storyboarded
                                  Yap- Big Money
                                  Pohnpei- Pepper, Palisades and Pearls
                                  Marshalls- Happy Lucky Welcome Fun
                                  Koshrae- Mysterious Paradise of Mud

                       Polynesia

                                  Tonga- Aground in the Abode of Love
                                  Rotuma- Fara Way
                                  Samoa- A Proud and Caring People
                                  Cook Islands- One Foot
                                  Tahiti- Luxury Link                  
                                  Easter Island- Birdman
                                  Niue- Ghosts of The Rock

                       Anglonesia

                                  Tasmania- The Blood in Wineglass Bay
                                  Norfolk Island- A Speck under the Forefinger of God
                                  New Zealand- White Villa Blues