Frontier - 51. FR Chapter 51

On hearing this, I decided that we needed to get away from the skylight. So, very carefully and quietly we slipped away, and made our way to the aft of the yacht, where we chatted with the 1^st mate for some time, while he was at the helm. While there we saw Edward and Christine coming back from the crew area and going downstairs to their cabins. Edward was hiding his face from us, but we knew why.

When we finally decided to retire for the night, we said goodnight to the 1^st mate and the steward who was doing some tidying up, before heading down to our twin cabin, which was the first cabin past the saloon and store room. Moments later there was a light knock on our door.

“May I speak to you please,” we heard Christine say softly. Simon and I looked at each other knowing what this was going to be about, before I spoke up.

“Come in, Miss Christine,” I responded. The door opened, and Christine stepped in and closed the door.

“Before you say anything, we need to let you know something,” Simon started to say before Christine spoke. He looked over to me to continue.

“Your brother was standing below, when Simon and I were having a private conversation above. We could not help hearing you and your brother talking below us. It is true that we are aware of your brother’s feelings towards me. I am straight, and so I do not have the same feelings towards him, while my best friend is bi. I think it is the same for him too. We were hoping to find a way to gently let Edward know this, but until tonight, we were not aware that he had heard our conversation. We had noticed his absence from meals, and not being around when we were out of our cabin, but were not aware that it was because of the conversation he heard.

“We are sorry that he has developed feelings for me, but unfortunately I cannot return the same feelings for him. He is only a year younger than us both, and we would like to become good friends with him, but that is all we can offer,” I said to Christine.

“Thank you for your honesty. I will pass on to my brother what you have said tonight. I will let you rest now. Goodnight,” Christine said to us as she exited the cabin.

The next morning, soon after we sat down for breakfast, with Charmaine and Eric already seated and eating, Christine and Edward appeared and sat opposite us. I could tell that Edward had been crying again, and he looked tired, as he tried to smile at us and say good morning.

“Well, it is nice to have the whole family eating together at the same table,” Eric commented, and he continued to eat, while Charmaine studied her son carefully, trying to work out what was happening with her son.

“We should be arriving in Fiji at around 1600 hours today. Do you have accommodation arranged, or would you like to stay another night on the yacht?” Eric asked us.

“We have arranged to stay at the Viwa Island Resort, but thank you for transporting us to Fiji and your wonderful hospitality. We would also like to take you and your family out for dinner in Suva before you leave Fiji,” I replied.

“We will happily accept your invitation. We will be here for a few days, so we will let you know when our last night in Fiji will be,” Christine replied with a smile.

For the remainder of the day, Simon and I remained on the forward deck reading and soaking up the sun, both of us now sporting fantastic suntans. When we arrived at Suva, we presented our passports to the customs officers, before being allowed to disembark, and we made our way to the seaplane terminal, to catch our ride to Viwa Island, just fifteen minutes north of Suva and 2 km’s off the east coast of the main island.

Our two-bedroom bungalow had unrestricted views of the ocean, and was a good distance away from the nearest building, which is what I wanted. Once we had settled in, I gave the boatyard at Vanuatu a call.

“Hello, Mr Hamilton. I was going to give you a call this evening, to update you on the progress of the repairs,” one of the boatyard owners said to me.

“We are not as far away as the newspapers have been reporting last week, and it is just me and Simon. The rest of the crew have returned home,” I informed them.

“That is good to know. So far in the past week, we have refurbished the main mast, repaired the satellite navigation dish and communications antennae, reattached the wind turbine to the mast, and replace two damaged solar power panels.

“With the yacht, we have completed repairs on the noses of the two pontoons, adding some extra strength to them to prevent future damage, and we are waiting for a replacement nose section for the main bow, which has had to come from the Blue Coast headquarters in Cannes, France. It is not an exact size replacement.

“It is actually an extra two metres longer, and includes storage space, so we will have to remove the room you have there at the moment, and rebuild it in the new nose section, which means you will have an extra two metres of space in that room,” I was informed.

“Well, that is an unexpected bonus. That is what we call the crew lounge. So, once it has arrived, let me know so we can discuss design layouts for that room,” I replied.

“Very well. I will speak to you in a week or two, when that main part has arrived,” they said and ended the call.

I went out to the balcony where Simon was sitting looking out to the ocean. “This is so awesome here, and so quiet too,” Simon said when he heard me approach.

“It looks like we will be here for at least two weeks, as the main bow nose of the yacht has to come from France,” I announced as I sat down beside Simon to watch the daylight begin to turn into dusk.

A little later after a quick phone call home to chat to Gramps and my brothers, I had a shower and changed, before we wandered over to the restaurant for dinner. I was a little surprised when I spotted two familiar faces.

“What on earth are you doing in Fiji and at this resort,” I said to Jasper and Anita, who were also having their dinner. Jasper smiled as he stood up and shook my hand.

“While you went missing, Anita and I were married in Jurien Bay, but we had to delay our honeymoon to fit in with Anita’s work. When your Grandfather offered to pay for our honeymoon, he suggested this place, and offered to look after Nathan while we are away. It wasn’t until we were at the airport and ready to fly out of Perth, that he announced that you two would be arriving four days after us at the same resort,” Jasper announced, and we all laughed.

“Trust Gramps to be that sneaky. No wonder he was being so insistent in telling him where we would be staying in Fiji when we arrive,” I commented after a good laugh.

“Congratulations, you guys. I hope you have a happy life together,” Simon added as he gave Anita a kiss on the cheek.

“Jasper, are you up to date on what is happening with us?” I asked him.

“Only as up to date as the New Zealand newspapers allow us to be” Jasper replied with a smile.

Simon and I sat down at the table and spent the next twenty minutes explaining what damage we had sustained on the yacht, and the delays of getting a major part from France. I asked if he and Anita could spend a day travelling from Fiji to Vanuatu and back to collect some items from the yacht, mainly more of our clothes, plus the main yacht’s laptop computer, and some more cash from the safe.

It was Anita who said yes, they would gladly do it for us, and so using my phone we searched for flights from Suva to Port Vila and return on the same day. I booked two seats for the 7.30am flight for the next day, arriving in Vanuatu at 9.05am, and catching a return flight at 4.30pm, arriving back at 7.45pm the same day. Once this was confirmed, I called the boatyard back to let them know that Jasper and Anita would be flying in to collect some extra personal supplies from the yacht for Simon and me.

Once this was all organised, Simon and I went to take a seat at our assigned table, and to order our meals, so as to allow the newly-weds some time on their own. When they had finished their dinner, they said good night to us, and said they would see us the next night. Once we had eaten our delicious meal we retired to our bungalow and relaxed for a while before we retired for the night.

The next day we went for a long walk along the boardwalks through the island, having heard the seaplane leaving at 7am to take Jasper and Anita to the main airport. We had just returned to the bungalow when out bungalow phone rang, and I saw that it was 9.45am.

“Hello, Anton. Where have you been? We have been trying to call you for nearly half an hour,” Jasper said when I answered the call.

“Sorry, Mate. We were exploring the island, and lost track of time,” I replied.

“The man you spoke to about us coming to collect stuff is not here and can’t be contacted, and the other staff here won’t let us near the yacht,” Jasper said sounding frustrated. He handed the phone over to someone.

“Hello. Is that Mike or who?” I said in the phone.

“This is Don here. Is that Mr Hamilton?” he replied.

“Yes, this is Anton Hamilton. I made arrangements with Mike yesterday, to allow my senior skipper, who is over on holiday, to get some of my belongings from the yacht, as we can’t do it because of our photos in the media,” I said feeling just as annoyed as Jasper is.

“Very well, Sir. We are sorry about the mix up. We were not told, and Mike had to go away quite suddenly,” Don replied, and he handed the phone back to Jasper.

“Ok, Mate, all is well now. You should be allowed onto the yacht now. Have a good look around while you are there, oh and can you move the television, sound system, games systems, books, DVD’s and games out of the crew lounge? That is the room in front of the master crew cabin, which is now a study. Store them in the single crew cabin, and put all the soft furnishings in the crew mess area,” I said to Jasper.

“Wow, what other changes have you guys made while you were away?” Jasper said surprised, and I chuckled.

“Just those ones. See you later today. Bye,” I said and ended the call. About ten minutes later the phone rang again.

“Boss, it’s Jasper here again. You guys did a real job of damaging the bow of the yacht. It is a mess. The staff here said that you guys stuffed the bulkhead with plastic containers and drums to keep it afloat. That’s real smart thinking. I don’t know if I would have thought of that. What you have done in the forward crew area is incredible. Whoever you had do the work, did a great job of it,” Jasper said to me.

“Thanks, Mate. Yes, we had some marine carpenters in Dunedin do the study, and other marine carpenters in Wellington did the crew lounge, as I call it,” I replied with a smile.

“Well, Anita and I are both very impressed. Now how much cash do you want out of the safe? There seems to be a heck of a lot in there,” Jasper said.

“I think you can only carry $10 thousand, so just bring $8 thousand, and don’t forget to declare it when you leave Vanuatu, and when you enter Fiji, so it doesn’t get confiscated. By the way, in the bottom of the corner cupboard in the study, right at the very back, there is a box marked Wallis Transport. Can you put the folders and files into my suitcase, put my brothers’ school books into the box and put it back in the cupboard. I will see you when you get back. Bye for now,” I said and ended the call.

Simon and I spent some time lounging around the pool, and just relaxing trying to fill in the day, before we caught the seaplane to the main island, so we could meet Jasper and Anita at the airport when they returned. After having an early dinner in Suva, we headed to the airport to meet up with Jasper and Anita, who were happy to see us. We took the seaplane back together to the resort, and saying goodnight we went to our separate bungalows.

Jasper had packed most of our clothes into our two suitcases, along with the main yacht laptop computer, and the cash, some of which was Australian and some US currency. Simon was pleased to have a lot more clothes to select from, while I was glad to have the laptop, so I could make some adjustments to the company website. One of the changes I made was to have a notice on the front page.

“To all our past loyal guests, and future guests, all the crew and I are alive and well. We sustained no injuries during our three weeks drama, and we are currently having repairs made to our yacht in Vanuatu, and hope to be operational again soon.

We will be accepting charters from the South Pacific to Australia, followed by a northern half circumnavigation of Australia, for our journey back home. Regards Anton, Jasper, Simon and Crew.”

I decided to add a page to detail what happened during our three-week drama, and I asked Simon for the photos from his phone, so I could post them onto the website.

Creating a new page, I titled it “News and Events”, and I spent some time sorting through the photos to work out which were the best ones to add to the website. I was not aware of it, but Simon had taken some photos of me on the fly deck, from the aft deck, with a flash of lightning in the background, which was quite a stunning photo. Next there were some photos of Sandy Island, some of the back of the yacht from the beach twenty metres away, and of the damage to the front of the yacht.

Simon had taken photos of the other islands, when we were on the dinghy exploring all of the islands, with one great photo looking down the full length of the airfield runway, with some buildings to the side. There was an overhead view of the hydroponic garden between the main hull and the pontoons, plus some photos of us working to raise the yacht and moving it towards the water, photos of the bulkhead stuffed with drums and containers to keep it afloat, and finally the last photo of the wood and steel posts which we had used that we had left in a pile, plus some photos of the islands as we were leaving.

I made a comment below each photo that I added, to give a story and time line of events during our time at the Johnston Atoll. When I had finished putting it together, I showed it to Simon before we activated the new page.

“You know, we should open up a Facebook page for the company too, as an extra promotional tool,” Simon suggested to me. I thought about it for a while.

“Ok, but you will have to manage it. I won’t have time to worry about things like that. Just show me what you are doing before posting anything significant,” I responded eventually.

I checked our emails, and there were quite a few emails waiting to be opened. Some of them were from Jasper and Gramps during the time that we were missing, plus a couple from George and Mimi, plus Vic and Rita, also hoping that we were safe and well, and one from Kirk and Leon saying they hoped that we were safe and well, and to email them when we got a chance.

I decided to send one message to all of them.

“To our concerned family and friends,

By now you have heard via the media that we are safe and well, although our beloved yacht has sustained some serious damage. The Last Frontier is currently under the care of some boat builders in Vanuatu, who have accepted the challenge to do the required repairs. When we are operational again, we will sail back to Australia, and along the top end back to home base.

Most of our crew are back home, in Western Australia, with just Simon and I staying nearby, but in hiding from the media, to monitor the repairs. We will let you know when the yacht is back operational, and in the meantime, checkout the new page on our website for a photo story of our three-week marooned adventure.

Regards Anton.”

Once I had re-read the email to check for errors, I clicked send, with five recipients to receive it.

The next day Simon and I went for another walk along the boardwalks. We saw the newly-weds briefly from a distance, and gave them a wave as we passed them. When we returned to our bungalow, there was a note on the door for us.

“Received your email, and looked at the new page on the website. That must have been one hard job to move the yacht that far. We are amazed at what you guys did to survive on the island, and to get off it.

We leave tomorrow morning, for our return journey home. Let us know if you need any help with anything. See you when you arrive home. Regards J & A Adamson.”

I smiled after I had read it and passed it to Simon so he could read it too. The next morning, Simon and I were up early, so as to say goodbye to Anita and Jasper. I gave them some cash as a belated wedding gift, so they could decide what to use it on, and we watched at the seaplane flew them back to the main island, so they could catch their flight to Sydney.