Blackwattle - Memories of Palmerston Atoll
by Nancy Knudsen on 7 Sep 2007
Wide open spaces of the lagoon BW Media
Was I dreaming? Now, our sailing visit to Palmerston has a surreal quality, images that won't go away, like a bad nightmare, but the opposite – in retrospect, Palmerston seems like a Nirvana.... or maybe like visiting Robinson Crusoe who has somehow married and now has an extended family.
Apart from a freighter which calls irregularly every couple or three months, the only contact with the outside world are a few dozen yachties like us who pass through each year on our way from Tahiti to either New Zealand or Australia.
For us, there is no way into the atoll as the passes are too shallow and dangerous even for our dinghies. Outside the atoll, there is a small ledge you can put your anchor onto, and then the ocean bottom falls off rapidly to an incredible 4000 metres depth. Of course, you are so close to the atoll that if the wind changes unexpectedly, any yacht doing this would be on the reef immediately.
So the Palmerston Islanders, descendants of an Englishman who arrived with three Polynesian wives in 1861, starve for company as you would expect of a Crusoe family. So they have secured mooring balls through the coral on the lee side of the reef. Then they compete between the small families to see who can 'catch' the next passing yacht. They keep a continual lookout, and drive out in their small aluminium boats to entice the yacht into shore and show them to the safer moorings.
They then play hosts – marvelous hosts - to the crew of the boat they have 'entrapped', and in return most yachties find ways of repaying them – there's no money on the island.
The ways vary – gasoline is always in short supply, fresh fruit and vegetables are like gold, as they have not been able to produce any variety of vegetables in the sandy salty soil. They live on fish, coconuts, and tropical fruit – papaya, bananas and mangoes.
We learn about the islanders and their history as we go. All islanders have the surname Marsters. However, the island where they live is even today divided into three, the descendants of the three wives of William Marsters – Matavia, Tepou and Tata.
A double line of coconut trees shows the boundaries, and there is still a slight feeling of alienation between the three – they are fiercely protective of their part of the island, even having their own cemeteries.
The church and the carefully preserved home of William Marsters, who had his own separate house, are shared in a main street which runs across the island. The school and its playground, with 28 children, also spans the the three territories.
The houses for the 58 men women and children are simple huts spread among the coconut palms and made homely and clean. Paint is obviously scarce, and it's a proud house which is painted. Water is from rain water tanks, and is carried to huge barrels which sit outside the houses.
The electricity is connected, and it is the only item on the island for which the islanders need money. There is no shop. Roosters and their hens run happily among the playing children, and are fed mostly from coconuts cracked in half and left on the sand. Some families have pigs, giving them a variety to their fish and chicken diet. To get modern items such as detergent, flour, rice or ketchup, they send a shopping list to their families in Rarotonga, who buy what they need and it comes on the next freighter.
'Sometimes we ask for too much, and there is not enough money in our account to pay,' tells one woman, smiling wryly, 'so then we have to cut some things from our list.'
To earn money, the islanders fish, freeze the fish, and send it to Tonga on the same freighter - ' in the old days before electricity we could only dry the fish – now we all have a freezer!' The families in Rarotonga collect the money for the fish, and put it into their accounts.
The islanders were recently connected to a telephone – a proud, public telephone which takes pride of place in the middle of a sandy clearing, along with a small shed which houses – you'll never guess – a computer connected to the Internet. Above the shed is a spread of solar panels which power the unit. Most of the islanders don't know how to use the Telecom provided equipment, but the students are being taught, and there's a future.
These are the facts of life, but the memories are of the family who hosted us, and the simple pastimes we shared day by day.
When work is done – fishing, cleaning, sweeping the sand, feeding the chickens and pigs, all of which we join – they sing together, make baskets and other containers from palm leaves, make jewelery and hair decorations from shell, feathers, fish bones and coral.
Christianity is part of their lifestyle, and grace is said solemnly before meals. These, with our host family, are taken on a long unpainted table under a rough shelter on the white sands near the kitchen.
It's a million dollar view from the dining area through the leaning coconut palms across the lagoon.
As we dine luxuriously on deep sea tuna and delicious fried coconut patties, I ask about the chooks running free around the sands.
'Do they lay many eggs?' I ask.
'An egg,' replies seventeen year old Taia seriously, and there's an old worldly wisdom in her voice that belies her age - 'Will feed one person. If you let the egg hatch, one day the same egg will feed four people.'
'Sometimes we eat an egg,' adds her mother, ' but not often.'
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