It was a mysterious island, lonely and beautiful. All the children stood and gazed at it, loving it and longing to go to it. It looked so secret - almost magic.
“Well,” said Jack at last. “What do you think? Shall we run away, and live on the secret island?”
“Yes!” whispered all the children. “Let’s!”
Enid Blyton, The Secret Island
I have consumed a lot of Enid Blyton in my life and in recent times, reading her stories to Squid and Dolphin, I have marvelled at the earnest seriousness with which her young seekers of justice follow clues in their search for truth. It wasn’t something I was aware of as a child, absorbed in these tales of adventure, in fact I was swept along with them, imagining myself inside the story, sure of how I would act in these situations. So, when we found ourselves entwined in a sleuthing adventure with a mystery to solve, it was strange to find us more akin to Julian, Dick, George, Anne and Timmy the Dog rather than Jason Bourne, as I would have hoped. It goes something like this…
The QuickStar crew along with the brave adventurer Cap’n Scrumpy (a pirate of 273 years, so he tries to convince the children), were anchored in the exotic idyll of an uninhabited lagoon in the northern Loyalty Islands. I had explored the crystal blue waters of Ouvea earlier that fateful morning and found them teeming with fish, including sharks of a size and colour that did not resemble the small reef dwelling variety with which we were familiar. I’d like to say that I fearlessly continued to paddle the lagoon, but I was a little spooked by the shark that had decided to pursue me on my SUP so I headed back to the boat. At this point I slipped into Famous Five mode, telling the shark with a stern voice of righteousness to ‘Go away and leave me alone!’ I possibly spoke these words with a British accent, but I can’t be sure.
Laughing in the face of danger, later that day we headed back to the lagoon for some snorkelling. Crew QuickStar jumped into the water leaving Cap’n Scrumpy on lookout duties, with the agreement he would start his outboard if danger was spotted. Not the greatest plan considering he has only one eye and his outboard is somewhat unreliable, but at least it was a plan. Having survived the snorkelling expedition, we continued to the beach for some land time. On our way, we passed over the top of a 3.5m shark and felt thankful we hadn’t seen it while below the surface. Dinghies beached, we looked around for a while, returning to our tenders only to find an iPad stolen from one and an iPhone gone from the other. And so, the adventure began.
The lagoon was deserted except for two spear fishermen who had gone ashore a few hundred meters away; the list of suspects was short. Add this to the footprints leading away from our dinghies in their direction, we had our first clue – smashing! Quickly our plan materialised: Scrumpy would take the Squid and Dolphin back to the boats to secure them while Aubrey and I went in search of the thieves. Running high on emotion (we were failing early one to channel the spirit of Jason Bourne) we sped as fast as our 5hp engine would take us and found our way to a lean-to camp. Our rather noisy arrival had alerted the thieves who fled, leaving the fish still cooking on the fire. Disappointed at not being subtler in our approach, we searched for clues.
Joined by Scrumpy and the kids, we looked for identification, took photos and scoured the surrounding area. Scrumpy, who admits that he is given to reacting without thinking things through, seized the thieves stash of whacky tobaccy and emptied it onto the smouldering fire. As a thick, sweet smelling haze filled the clearing, we decided it was time to clear out the children and head back to our boats. We needed to work out our next move.
A reward! Brilliant! Reaching into the depths of his memory to recall a few words schoolboy French learned during the ‘80’s, Aubrey sent text messages with offers of Pacific francs for the safe return of the iPhone. Or possibly he insulted them frightfully, likening their mother to a rabid squirrel, we can’t be sure. Our options were to head for a village to report the incident or have another crack at getting the devices back. Clearly, I had read more sleuthing stories than Aubrey or Scrumpy, and managed to convince them to come ashore again.
Leaving the kids on board to manage any distress calls we may issue via VHF, we approached with stealth, beaching the dinghy away from the camp and creeping through the bush. Thankfully, we had all watched enough Hollywood special forces movies to ensure the hand signals for stop, crouch and advance were understood as we crunched through the undergrowth in terry towelling hats. Just short of the camp, we regrouped and asked each other what the plan was – clearly, we had forgotten to come up with one.
It was decided to understate the extent of our force so we just sent in Aubrey. ‘You’ve got to be prepared to defend yourself! Do you have a weapon?’ was the helpful input from Scrumpy. I tried balancing this with ‘Make sure you smile. Practice your smile before you go in. Show me!’ Armed with these words and a few 10,000CPF notes, off went Aubrey to negotiate with the happily stoned Kanaks (we had failed to find their reserve stash – probably a good thing). Aubrey, having almost no French beyond croissant, and the thieves, having no English, meant not a great deal of progress was made and soon Aubrey emerged with one machete carrying teenager. I managed to introduce myself and get his name, then while he was staring into the middle distance in a cannabis induced state of calm I snapped a photo of him. We left the lagoon with no phone but more evidence.
It was time to enlist the assistance of the authorities so we sailed off the next morning. First stop was the village of the local chief. Unfortunately, he had died last year and his wife was in Noumea shopping, however the thieves were easily identified from the photo and turned out to be known trouble makers. We then sailed to the next village to file a report with the gendarmes, waiting until after they finished their lunch break. Inside their compound, Squid and Dolphin played with the police goat and Scrumpy dozed in the afternoon sun while Aubrey and I completed an official report with the help of Google translate.
While we acted more like Enid Blyton characters than highly trained intelligence operatives, the story did not have a Famous Five ending; the iPhone and the iPad are gone forever. We consoled ourselves with the knowledge that we had a marvellous adventure and there was nothing further left to do but settle in for some refreshing lemonade and scrumptious chocolate cake.