TWO MODERN CRUSOES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23505, 20 May 1938, Page 10

TWO MODERN CRUSOES

YEAR ON LONELY ISLAND VISITED BY JAPANESE LUGGER (From Our Own Correspondent! SYDNEY. May 12. Two modern Crusoes returned to Sydney this week, after a year’s sojourn on a tiny Pacific island uninhabited except lor themselves. They were Messrs A. W. Hooper and C. E. Davies, radio operators for Amalgamated Wireless Liustralasia), Ltd., on Willis Island, a tiny sandspit 250 miles off the Queensland coast. The job of these radio men is to make daily weather observations, and to send reports to shipping and the mainland, which thus receive a day’s warning of impending cyclones. For the first time for 17 years a foreign lugger visited the island while Messrs Hooper and Davies were in occupation. Their excitement was intense when they sighted the sails of the lugger, and any disappointment that the crew were Japanese was dissipated by the amiability of the visitors. The captain of the lugger, they related, was polite, and asked if he could “ borrow ” 200 gallons of water. Messrs Hooper and Davies “lent” him 400 gallons. This delighted the captain. He looked around for means of returning the compliment. Messrs Hooper and Davies were engaged’in hauling 4000 bricks from the water’s edge to the highest point of the island, where they were constructing an underground well, "I have 17 strong men here,” said the captain. “We will help you,” and in four hours the Japanese completed a tank which would have occupied their hosts a week or a fortnight. The evening was spent in fraternising, and, as a special honour to the radio operators, the Japanese captain induced his men to stage a war dance, which they performed with great effect. Messrs Hooper and Davies described Willis Island as a paradise for lovers of wild life. At times, they said, the island was almost covered by ferns. Mutton birds built their nests on almost every inch of ground. There were innumerable gannets, great lazy birds as large as pelicans, which perched or sat down anywhere, and had to be pushed rut of qne’s way. The gannets would go fishing out at sea, and return so heavily laden that they could hardly fly. On their way home the great frigate birds would attack them, and the gannets would lighten their loads by disgorging some of the fish. As the fish fell towards the water, the swift frigate birds would catch them. •' Thousands of tunles used to come ashore,” said Mr Hooper, “ dig holes in the sand, and lay up to 100 eggs each. The young turtles, on hatching, marched to the sea in droves, birds snapping them up on the way. At the water’s edge, those which survived ulunged in, only to be seized by sharks and other fish, I suppose not more than one per cent, ever obtains a fair start in life.”