STAARBUCK ISLAND.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 417, 6 November 1889, Page 3

STAARBUCK ISLAND.

A coiiKKsroNDENT of an Australian paper gives the following interesting particulars of Staarbuck Island, South Pacific, which has recently achieved for itself a temporary notoriety through the wreck of the ship* Gnrston : — As an old Pacific ranger, and having been a resident on Srtaarbuek Island for neatly two years (186971), I read with much interest the account you published of the sufferings of Captain Pyo and hi& boat's crew whilst on their forced voyage to Wallis Idand. ' It may interest some of your readers also to know that the course and dhtance from Staarbuck Island to Wallis Island is, west-south-west, close on 1,300 mile?, and that the latter is situated about 210 miles due west from Savaii, tho westernmost of the Samoan Group, which the boat must have passed withouo seeing, although the island id fairly elevated and could be seen a considerable distance oft in clear weather, but being the rainy season it was probably enveloped in clouds. The e:\perience of the captain of the Garston, however, is not at all uncommon in tho Pacific. I have known many such, for on taking pos-esssion of the Wand of Stairbnck for a London Guano Company in 1869 I found thiee wrecks- Micro already, and (hiring my residence three others occurred. The crews of thbfo latter, of course, were well card for by the writer ajid his people, but what became of the others? Staarbiick lies , almost in the direct track (for -sailing ships) from /Tahiti to Honolulu. It is only fifteen feet OhQ« v S._?P- a ;l eve^i aiu^ cpn only be seen' oIK It "lies in the full 'ar'keVif'WtH-ixiks.... winds, and consequently at times the current sets to the westwaid quite two knots per hour. I have made several tjips to Tah'ti to the" southward, and to Honolulu northward, and confidently st-ite that between the parallel of 4'S. and the Equator I have frequently found the curient setting to the westward from two to three knots per hour. Staarbuck Island has been abandoned now for some years, and I presume the substantial and lotty flagstaH I left there has long since been taken down. Probably the Gaiston was close on the reef, which encircles all the Pocific islands, before the island was deen.