Life On 30-Acre Strip Of Sand

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7412, 20 December 1930, Page 23

Life On 30-Acre Strip Of Sand

WIRELESS MEN’S LONELY VIGIL ON WILLIS ISLAND

I M. ASHBY, wireless operator, returned recently to Sydney from Willis Island, a 30-acre strip of sand on the edge of the Coral Sea where Amalgamated Wireless maintains a radio station, the sole object of which is to send warnings of cyclones to towns and shipping on the North Queensland coast. The only human inhabitants of Willis Island from May to November are two wireless men. They do not even see a ship, as the island is well off the beaten track. They are usually relieved after six months, but Mr Ashby’s companion is staying on for a further period of six months. ‘‘The loneliness would drive a city man mad," said Mr Ashby, "but being accustomed to the backblocks before I took up radio, the life suited me very well.” Of course, the redeeming virtue of a period on Willis Island is the fact that a man has no means of spending money, and his salary accumulates for the whole period of his stay. Prom November to May is the cyclone season, and the relief party includes a meteorologist, who thus increases the population of the island to three. He makes the observations which enable the wireless men to give

shipping a few hours’ warning before a gale arrives.

Mr Ashby was greatly Impressed with the bird life on Willis Island. “For the past seven years,” he said, “flocks of mutton birds have commenced landing on the island on either August 2a, 26, or 27. They settled in thousands and laid their eggs on the ground, which was soon honeycombed with holes a foot or more in depth.. It was impossible to walk without falling into a hole. All night long they kept up an awful wailing like an unhappy ghost.” On May 3, when Mr Ashby landed on Willis Island, the place was swarming with terns —a sea bird. A cyclone swept the island five days later, and these birds all flew away, leaving their chickens to die in a 74-mile-an-hour gale, and rain which fell at the rate of 10 inches in three hours.

The turtle season was just coming on when Mr Ashby left Thousands of shellbacks were playing about the reef and soon all the female of the species would come ashore and lay from 100 to 200 eggs each in the sand. Mr Ashby considers the coral gardens on the reef at Willis Island among the finest In the world.