Cruiser Returns From Long Voyage

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 125, 17 August 1927, Page 1

Cruiser Returns From Long Voyage

TWO MONTHS IN ISLANDS VISITS TO LONELY OUT-POSTS In the lonely outposts of the Pacific where a smudge of smoke or a ship climbing over the horizon is a sight more welcome than any other, the latest visit of H.M.S. Diomede will be long remembered. From two months’ cruising among the palm-clad isles the cruiser glided up the Waitemata yesterday afternoon. Leaving Auckland on June 13, the Diomede made for Rarotonga only to leave again immediately to avoid an epidemic of influenza that was raging there. Having called at Aitutaki, in the Cook Group, the voyage was continued to the Society Islands, where Bora Bora was first touched. WEEK OF FESTIVITIES At the next call, Papeete, a week of festivities had been arranged, so that both the men in the ship and their island friends were loathe to part. Calling then at an island in the Caroline Group, «the Diomede was greeted by six wondering natives, who stared from the shore at a craft of which they knew so little. For their only caller had been an occasional trading cutter. Vostok, another lonely islet, was visited to pick up any castaways that might have reached its shores, but there was no one to bo found there. Pearls at Penhryn Island were in plenty, and spare gear was eagerly bartered by the ship’s company for the natives had no use whatever for coins. And these pearls, sold at Suva later, brought some fancy prices. Humphrey Island and Revision or Rakaanga Island were touched at on the trip to Suwarrow, which was reached on July 11. There only one family of six natives lives, and on information received there that a copra planter's wife was ill at Nassau all haste was made to that island. Beside the two whites only a few natives lived at Nassau. Despite medical aid the planter’s wife died during the Diomede’s stay. SOLITARY WHITE MAN On Danger Island. north-east of Samoa, there was only one white man and as he had seen only natives for about a year he welcomed the cruiser warmly. Apia, Pago Pago, Suva an Nukualofa were ports of festivity, and then the ship set out for Auckland and home. The voyage was made in good weather but was marred latterly by the death of Signaller IT. T. Fluskey, an Imperial rating, aged 28, at Pago Pago, on July 20. from heart failure. Signaller Fluskey, who was a single man. had served in the Navy for many years. His funeral was carried out with full naval honours.