A fascinating place, Christmas Island….  Sunday, 22/09/2024

What an interesting time I’ve had on Christmas Island! Everybody is friendly and easygoing, I’ve had numerous conversations with people of all ages. Some have only been here a short while, others for many years.

On Friday morning Katrina, the lady I’d met just after arrival, picked me up at 08:30 and gave me a tour of the island until 12:00. She and her husband came here for work 30 years ago, liked it so much that they stayed. She has worked in the past for Tourist Information and is very well informed about all aspects of the island, including the scientific work on plants and birds being conducted here. Some 62% of the island is National Park, and it’s mostly forested. Some of that forest is more like woodland – trees standing well apart, not your typical tropical jungle with heavy undergrowth. It is currently the dry season though, so there’s less plant growth than there would be in the wet season.

The population is around 1,400: small. There are substantial Malay and Chinese communities, while the “European” population has increased over the years. People like teachers and medics come typically on short term contracts of two years, and often extend to three years. For these public services, the island falls under the state of Western Australia, although it has Australian federal police rather than state police. Curiously, Christmas Islanders vote in Northern Territory elections, although that state provides nothing to them.

I had talked to a Chinese lady working in the supermarket. Yesterday when I went in, she asked if she could get my number, because her husband was very interested in my boat. He called me this morning, and I said Come down, I’ll pick you up at the jetty. So Royce, who’s originally a Kiwi, came on board and was very interested in Manuka – he’s just bought a 20-foot sailboat, which for convenience can be transported by trailer. He then took me home. His wife Pat was born here on Christmas Island, of Singapore Chinese parents – her father had come to work and liked it, so brought his young family over. Royce and Pat have quite recently decided to move here from Perth, and have bought a rundown 80 year-old house which they’re now fixing. A great house – huge rooms, with a large verandah looking over the garden and directly through palm trees onto the ocean 30 foot below. They never lock the doors, which stay open to the breeze day and night and even when they go out. There’s no crime here (and bad people can’t get here easily: the four hour return flight from Perth is usually about A$1,000 (£500 or US$650).

Pat told me something very interesting. She was born in the late 50’s and says that life here for her has changed completely. Until the mid-1970’s there was heavy racial segregation on the island, between White people and Asians (whether Chinese or Malay). There were separate schools for Whites and Asians, and where their house is located was reserved for Whites only – the Malays and Chinese had their own separate areas. Men doing the same job were paid differently, based on race. Given that I was born and grew up in South Africa, how interesting it is to discover that a rigid system of racial segregation operated in an Australian territory right up to the 1970’s. Pat laughed and said: Now I’m equal, very different to when I was growing up in the 1960s!

So, it’s fair to say that I’ve had a fascinating time on Christmas Island. What a beautiful place it is. After hauling jerrycans of water yesterday afternoon I jumped overboard with my goggles and snorkel. Swimming over towards the jetty I was passed by a 5-foot (1.5 metre) blacktip reef shark. They’re harmless, in fact are timid. It kept well away from me, swimming down to the seabed four metres below. Then I passed another on the way back, but it must have been a young one, only 3-foot, a metre, long. They like shallow waters with reefs – so Flying Fish Cove is perfect. 

Sitting outside on the boat at sunset is beautiful. And, because the people living closest to the port are Malays, right on sunset comes the muezzin’s fourth call to prayer, wafting across the water, halfway between melodious singing and a wail. And then, just over an hour after, his fifth and final call of the day, marking nightfall. Certainly atmospheric. 

People do pay for living here: due to the cost of transportation, the price of food in the supermarket is roughly 100% more expensive than it was in Darwin; diesel cost me A$1.86 in Darwin, compared to A$2.96 here, 60% more. But of course on a small island you aren’t going to drive very far, housing is cheaper, there are no heating costs, life is simpler, etc.

After this wonderful interlude, I shall be going back to sea tomorrow. Next stop Mauritius, which is about 2,850 nautical miles away. That will be a long, and reputedly difficult, trip. I’m expecting strong wind out in the Indian Ocean, but it will still be 21 or 22 days I suppose. Having had a very sociable time here, I have a lot of my own company to look forward to!