The South Pacific Gypsy

I have always been a “gypsy.” My father was a career man in the Air Force and his job in communications required us to be transferred to a different base on the average of every two years. By the time I was in sixth grade I had gone to four different schools. Japan, Texas, California and the Philippines and afterwards New Mexico and California again, at which I completed high school in San Diego. Being a “GI Brat” domestic civilian life was a culture shock. Though I was exposed to it somewhat in Albuquerque, New Mexico where I spent my challenging junior high years, I went to school with other “GI Brats” and my friend’s fathers were all Air Force career men.

Perhaps that is where the gypsy blood and the need to sail and not be static got into me. I like going places even if it is to places that I have been to several times. Then places I know I will never see again, such as the Galapagos Islands, Marquesas in French Polynesia, Kwajalein in the Marshalls and Manzanillo, Mexico. Whenever I think about those places, I really miss the existence of the Ka’imimoana and where she took me. One place I will always return to even long after my sailing days is over. That place is the South Pacific, especially the islands of Samoa. Legions of non-Polynesian sailors have trekked to the South Pacific. Though the first groups did not come with good intentions. Instead they came to claim lands for their kings and popes. Yet an infamous mutiny took place on the HMS Bounty when sailors resisted a call to return home.

I recall seeing an old black and white movie about “Mutiny on the Bounty” along with scores of other movies about white men who settled in the South Pacific including Donovan’s Reef. I recall my father hysterically laughing about two drunks who detested each other from their Navy days feuding and fighting. War movies too, took place in the South Pacific and I watched those with zeal. Of course it felt odd hearing gibberish that was supposed to be Japanese and Japanese soldiers mercilessly slaughtered and showed as non-humans. I seriously cannot watch those movies today as I have grown older and seen the real South Pacific. Unlike the romanticist vision portrayed in movies and Polynesians in those movies were not Polynesian actors but using the modern term “whitewashed.” One war related movie was the late Henry Fonda’s classic “Mr. Roberts,” which was filmed in Kaneohe, future site of my hometown. I could see the Ko’olau’s in the background but none of the actors were Polynesian, especially women. Or worse yet use Asian actors to depict Polynesians. It was then that I heard the term “it’s only a movie.”

There is vast difference between the romanticist portrayals in movies versus reality. However, not being an orthodox “Palangi” (Samoan for foreigners or anyone with light colored skin), I lived amongst local peoples in the village during my time there and before when my wife was my girlfriend. I usually avoided glitzy hotels and resorts. I didn’t look down on local peoples and their lifestyle. Yes compared to America and Americans they were poor but were proud of being planters and fisherman. One afternoon during one of my long port calls in Apia, I took my stepson and his friend downtown while my nephew volunteered himself to ride with us. After we dropped the boys off, I asked him that we go to RSA Club have a few beers and get drunk! The weather in Apia was always hot whether it was night or day! So the bottles of Vailima we consumed went down well and after a buzz started to open up. I asked him what he was doing and he replied, “I’m only a farmer.” I told him my father’s father and grandfather did the same but knew he didn’t understand. Regardless, I felt that I made a friend and I wasn’t the stereotypical Palangi guy who hung around resorts or proselytized religions.

If not for those white ships of the NOAA fleet, I would have never met my wife nor would have first hand experience in what life was like in the villages. There were those elated hellos. Even though I was still working, as I had to be on the ship during the day, the stress would drift away happiness of being “back home” though in latter years I would return to Samoa alone as the wife was either in Seattle or Hawaii. The villagers knew about NOAA and saw that Americans didn’t consist of just missionaries proselytizing religion or out to instill fear to recruit members to their church. When it came time to say farewell, the mood was melancholy and the small group of people who are related one way or another would come to give me hugs and kisses and say to me “I love you!” or that they offer prayers for a safe journey home.

I yearn to go back to the South Pacific with it’s warm (hot actually) weather, dazzling moonlight that illuminated not only the sky but polish the waters with as we sat in the picnic table for a social with other crewmembers. Others would play musical instruments and entertain. I find myself staring at the full moon as you would see that kind of full moon only in the South Pacific. No different from the cloud covered orange moon you would see over Asia. As you get closer to Samoa, the Southern Cross is alluring and any wonder that it is implanted on Southern Pacific nation’s flags.