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formed near us had pinned us in the lagoon. Although the low moved slowly southwest, the prevailing winds blew from the west, swinging to north in squalls. Our holding, in 40-feet of water, was good, although the other boat that shared the anchorage with us repeatedly dragged and had to re-anchor three times that first night.
A week later the lagoon was still too rough to go anywhere. Christmas was fast approaching. We had hoped to be near a telephone to call our children on the day. Now it looked as though we might be celebrating at sea!
17 December 2002
The day dawned bright and fair. We emerged like butterflies from our damp crysalis ---- and dedicated the day to having fun in the sun. Loading up the dinghy for a picnic and tossing in several fishing lines we took off to explore.
The broad entrance to Kanton's lagoon is plugged by Spam Island, a moniker it no doubt picked up in wartime. Behind it are two more islands made entirely of dredged spoilings heaped to about 15 feet high, now covered in nesting noddies. We found a channel between the two, about 15 feet deep.
There are also dredged areas of the lagoon where the shallow corals were removed to make a safe landing area for seaplanes way back in the late 1930's. We circled around the many coral beds until we caught several trevally, then pulled our boat up on the southern side of the main entrance where the British once had their camp. On the seaward point is an old light house and a bronze plaque commemorating the disappearance of a seaplane out on a survey mission for other more suitable air routes across the Pacific. Like everywhere else on Kanton we found rusting wreckage, here including a Landrover, and an enormous heap of shattered beer and coke bottles.
The next morning, the 18th of December, with Christmas now only days away, and our hopes of reaching Tarawa by then shattered, a fair breeze sprang up from the south.
"Michael. I think we should go."
He agreed.
With feverish activity we set to work lashing down gear, stowing everything below decks. The island's customs officer, despite his promise, had never formalized our papers. We would leave without having ever officially checked in! But we could not go without saying good-bye to Steve and his three year old son Joseph on Phoenix, or to "Happy" and the Cathequist ashore. We took the fruit cakes I had made as gifts wrapped up in Christmas ribbon. Steve was pleased, and Happy presented us with ornate shell necklaces she had just completed, the result of many hours of painstaking labor, drapping them around our necks.
It was mid afternoon before we cleared the pass. The fair wind soon veered around to the west and became squally. The low pressure area stewing in the ocean north of Samoa was destined over the next week to turn into Tropical Cyclone Zoe. It would foment until winds of about 45 knots developed near its center and then begin to move, first to the west slowly, then southwest. Eventually, ten days later it would pass directly over Tikopia, a Polynesia outlyer in the southernmost Solomon Island province of Temotu. Howling 150 knot winds ripped away every home on that island and stripped the vegetation bare.
Even before the low became dangerous we were well
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