Population 3
The supply boat has been barely kept afloat all year. One of the staff used to have to swim out to it every four hours to pump out the water that was leaking into its hull. The engine wasn’t great either. Anyway, it finally gave up the ghost and is probably not repairable. It’s strange to live on an island without a boat.
So for the last two months I haven’t left the island. All guests and supplies have been flown in using charter flights. Spring has sprung and with all the rain this year, the island is a blanket of wildflowers. Life just seems to flow by. You give up wanting things you simply can’t have and enjoy what’s here.
I had given up on the idea of replenishing my chocolate and wine supplies until I head off the island for the school holidays in a couple of weeks. Suddenly, yesterday, at the last minute I was asked if I wanted to go on the fuel run into town. I had ten minutes to decide and get ready. I guess I didn’t have time to think it through.
Now that we have no working boat, we use the car transport barge on occasion to get supplies. It is a rather rickety, flat bedded barge that will hold two vehicles. It’s like a small, floating platform with a couple of motors attached and a small sunshade over the wheel. It’s moored at the south end of the island where there is only a narrow stretch of water to the mainland. Four wheel drives have to brave 200kms on corrugated sand tracks to get to the barge pick-up point. To transport your car costs $1,200, not negotiable because we are the only barge allowed to ply it’s trade to the island. It takes a very hardy camper to get here, but once you arrive, you have the whole island to yourself (except for us at the homestead and we have hot showers . . . . . and gourmet food . . . . . and we won’t let you past the gate unless we know you or you have a limb hanging on by a thread ).
Yesterday the seas were rough, the wind had picked up, the barge trip into town took three hours, all the time being buffeted by high seas and covered in sea spray. By the time we got to town I was literally encrusted in salt. I had half an hour to run to the shop while they loaded supplies.
Then the three hour trip back. The “captain” was exhausted, gave me the wheel and pointed me towards a sand hill on the horizon. We had left the run a little late and by the time we were getting towards the island, night had already fallen and we were navigating by the light of the moon. Jumping into shark infested waters in the dark, we waded ashore.
Tired, covered in salt, wet up to the knees, we were finally on the track back to the house. The “roads” on the island wouldn’t look out of place at the Dakar Rally. The driver had a beer in one hand and was texting his wife with the other to let her know we had arrived safely. I was leaning over clutching the steering wheel with one hand and my precious chocolate purchases with the other as we hurtled along the dark sand track back to the homestead.
Oh the lengths I have to go to in order to get chocolate.
But that’s not the end of it. It seems that getting off the island is going to get even more difficult. We use a charter plane company to take guests and supplies on and off the island. Sometimes there are three or four flights a day and if the plane is going back empty, I can jump on it for free. The Fisheries Department have a rule that all fish fillets have to be flown off the island (not taken off by boat) so that they can check you didn’t exceed your quota in the Marine Park. It has always struck me as funny when flying in a tiny plane full of fish fillets, what fabulous shark bait you would be if you crashed into the water. I mentioned this, in jest, to the pilot last time I flew with the fish fillets. He assured me the sharks would be the least of our troubles. Getting out of the plane without drowning would be the real problem. He had seen the statistics.
Last week a guest was being flown off the island when there was a “mid air incident”. The door flew open in mid flight. The charter plane always reminds me of a 1980s model station wagon that has been sitting in the Australian sun. It feels like the rust is the only thing holding it together. The guest was not impressed and immediately reported it to the Civil Aviation Authority. If the charter flight company gets put out of business, they are the only option within 500 miles. The barge might soon be the only way off the island.
