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Day 2,126 - En Route to Apataki (15° 50.91S 147° 19.10W)
19:54hrs - March 26th 2013
Ten Knots to the Tuamotus |
For five hours Catherine and I sat on the cargo dock and watched the Cobia 3 sink lower into Papeete harbour as the crew, with casual efficiency, loaded endless drums of fuel, skids of Hinano beer, crates of noodles, stacks of lumber, bags of concrete, a car, outrigger canoes, empty copra sacks, washing machines, and finally, and respectfully by hand rather than forklift truck, two heavy coffins - loved ones on a final passage returning to family in the Tuamotus.
We're back in French Polynesia, the South Pacific, and are en route to Dream Time, which for the last five months during cyclone season has been strapped down to a tiny island in Apataki. But rather than fly from Papeete to Apataki - a rather predictable and unexciting hour and a half flight with Air Tahiti, we decided to take a more fitting and memorable passage. So we booked ourselves onto a working cargo ship.
At first glance the Cobia 3 doesn't particularly stir any romantic notions of travel, most surfaces are dented, stained and held together by thick layers of paint or black grease. But she's a working vessel after-all, and one that while not particularly graceful to look at, is literally a lifeline between Tahiti and the small villages on a remote chain of islands that, without her weekly or bi-weekly visits, would find life unpleasant if not unbearable.
We loaded our precious boat supplies and provisions into an old crate marked for Apataki and climbed onboard to find our quarters. There are only three passenger cabins on the Cobia, small dormitory style rooms each with two bunk beds, we're sharing our cabin with an exhausted French couple, Dominique and Sophie, who have flown directly from Paris to be here. Other passengers, Polynesian locals, have also boarded, many more than the three small cabins can accommodate, but in a style that suggests they're frequent Cobia travelers, they've spread a blue tarp on the steel deck, loosely rigged another for shade, and have quietly settled in for the ride.
Our tickets for the Cobia cost just $70 each. For that, if you're lucky, you get a thick industrial plastic covered mattress, a shared passenger toilet (sans wash basin), and access to a picnic bench bolted down to the stern deck. Passengers on the Cobia are an afterthought and it seems that we are expected to fend for ourselves - toilet paper, towels, pillows, sheets, food, water and entertainment are definitely not provided. And there has been a troubling absence of any safely direction. We have had no briefing, there has been no mention of the nearest exit, the location of our personal floatation devise or abandon procedures. There is, however, a laminated notice outside our cabin that clearly states, in French, that a long blast of the ship's horn followed by three short blasts is an 'Alarme Abandon'.
We eventually cast off from the cargo dock six hours behind schedule, and at 21:30, under an almost full moon, slipped out of a quiet harbour, past Point Venus and are now steaming east at ten knots.
Despite the bright white hallway lights, the smell of oil, dirt and diesel that permeates everything onboard, and the cacophony of vibrations, rattling, metallic echoes, and the constant deep throbbing of the engines, we are resting easy, because we are on our way home.
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