We were only a day away from the island now after leaving our small homeport some two days previous. The weather had been perfect; a steady ten to fifteen knot sou' easterly had enabled us to sail on a comfortable reach for most of the way. Our lovely 33-foot yacht 'Interlude' made steady progress averaging around six and a half to seven knots through the slight seas. Because there was only my husband and I on this trip, quite short handed if we encountered any problems, we anchored up at night along the coast in a couple of the nice quiet coves and little bays that Ross knew of from past trips this way.
The warm Dry Season temperatures had given me the opportunity to work on my already honey coloured tan by lying out on the cabin roof dressed in nothing more than my new black "Wicked Weasel" bikini. It is a nice little suit made out of a unique sort of material called Eyelet Mesh, which basically means that it is full of little holes all fairly close together. This makes it almost completely see-through...if you are close enough to notice. My husband just loves it when I wear them, so he certainly didn't mind me not helping with the trimming of our sails as much as I normally would while I lazed about sunning myself. Oh, what a Bohemian life we had, sometimes!
We had ten days off work to go cruising over to an island that Ross sometimes visited for work reasons. I had never been there before and from what my husband had told me about it I was certainly looking forward to spending a few days relaxing there. He told me that it only had around one hundred inhabitants that were mostly descendents of the indigenous peoples that had been there for centuries. It was only a relatively small island; about ten miles long and shaped like a dumb-bell. Across the middle was only some four-mile or less. He said that it had two of the nicest little bays he had ever seen, one had the small community built near its sandy beaches. And on the other side, where we were going to anchor, was at this time of the year the leeward side of the island. Apparently it also had a nice white sandy beach too, and was very private most of the time with only the occasional local camping there to go fishing.
The island was off limits to the ordinary tourist and was rarely visited by outsiders at all, which was how the locals liked it, more fish for them! They just loved their fishing apparently. I was really looking forward to it because it sounded pretty special. Also, because Ross had told me a bit about one of the locals that lived there, a fellow he sometimes worked with (actually this man was the one who first suggested we sail over to visit). Waingu according to my husband was the descendent of a long line of headhunters! This really had me intrigued I must tell you. Waingu was all civilised of course so Ross informed me, as much as a black man can be while living on a tropical island, miles from anywhere. Still, I was very curious indeed. My husband gets to meet lots of interesting people in his job that takes him all over the countryside and now I was going to meet one of them.
Waingu was a South-Sea pearl diver for many years before he settled down with his wife on her island paradise some years ago. Ross assured me I would enjoy the contact with someone like Waingu, who still had a passion for life and loved to talk about his many experiences living in some pretty wild areas of the Pacific. It all sounded romantic to me, as silly as that may sound. You see I like things to be a bit wild every now and then. Mmm...a headhunter, I mean a pearl diver, hey? Not in my wildest dreams.
I tan-up very easily so by the time we were only half a day away from Waingu's island I was already as brown as a berry and my long blond hair contrasted nicely against my tanned shoulders. I had even removed my small top most days and tanned up my normally covered breasts, just to thrill my adoring husband of course. Still not satisfied, he even tried to cajole me into removing my little black bikini bottoms, but I wasn't budging. We had only seen four other boats out during our sail across, but that was enough for me to retain some decorum of modesty. After all, at thirty nine I was no spring chicken any more and no matter how much my husband told me that my five foot seven and a bit frame was as trim and beautiful as the day he first saw me some fifteen years ago, I was not going to go nude! Besides, the nature of the bikini material let enough sun through to my skin and when I did remove my g-string I had these gorgeous little brown spots dotted over my almost hairless quim!
* * *
On our final tack toward the island I could see my husband's description was very accurate indeed. It looked to be a very pretty island with its nice wide sandy palm-fringed beach and tall rainforest growing inland over low hills.
We dropped the pick in a wide bay on the leeward side of the island, as planned, some two hundred yards offshore in a safe 15 feet of perfectly clear water and Ross called his friend Waingu with our satellite phone to let him know we had arrived.
It wasn't long afterwards that we saw two men walk onto the beach and call out to us. Ross recognised his friend Waingu and after lowering our small inflatable tender we both jumped in and took off for shore.
Ross introduced me to Waingu first and then to the other man who was named Mulla. I liked Waingu instantly. He was tall and well built, with a completely shaved head and a small greying goatee. His features were handsome with a high forehead and a wide nose (something I imagined would not look out of place with a bone through it!). His smile was infectious and his dark eyes sparkled with intelligence and life. He appeared to be only in his early forties (I was later to learn from Ross that he was almost fifty!)
The other man Mulla was much younger and a lot darker skinned too, almost jet black. He had a thick head of dreadlocks that hung down past his broad shoulders. It turned out that he was Waingu's wife's younger brother. To me he appeared to be in his early twenties or possibly even younger. Mulla seemed shy and would not look me in the eye for very long. He said very little too as both Ross and Waingu re-acquainted themselves enthusiastically.
We walked up the beach and over a grassy sand-dune down to an old Toyota Landcruiser utility parked under a big old banyan tree. Waingu had offered to show me around his little community before it got too late in the day.
I sat in the middle as Waingu drove and Ross was next to me, Mulla sat in the back on the spare tyre. There were almost no bitumen roads on the island and the track across to the other side was fairly rough in places. Occasionally when Waingu changed gears his hand would brush against my thigh momentarily. I also had trouble stopping my short denim skirt from riding up my buttocks because of the bumps and corrugations along the way. In the end I gave up and just let it creep up well past my thighs, my bare butt cheeks stuck to the old vinyl seat with perspiration. Even my small breasts jiggled and bounced in my bikini top whenever we hit another patch of corrugations, making my sensitive nipples become somewhat erect!
Luckily it wasn't all that far to the other side of the island and upon entering the small town I thought it looked pleasant enough. I saw some of the local women gathering in the shade of a couple of large flame trees, they looked exotic dressed in their brightly coloured floral skirts. The children looked clean and happy and groups of them played out the front of their modest houses. Here and there were a few men working on old cars, or playing cards in the shade of their well kept gardens. I noticed a few short roads there that had bitumen sealing; no doubt it helped keep the dust down for most of the householders during the Dry and kept the mud to a minimum in the Wet.
Ross showed me where he stayed when he worked on the island and we visited the small shop on the way out to buy some cool cans of soft drink before we headed back to 'our' side of the island again.
Just as we headed back out, Mulla called out to Waingu in their native tongue and we stopped by an old home on the edge of town. Mulla went inside and some minutes later returned with a small canvas bag.
"Do you smoke gunja Angela?" Waingu asked me. I shook my head. It's just not my sort of thing.
"Ah...that is a pity. Ross, maybe we can entice you again?"
I looked at Ross. I didn't think he had smoked dope for years.
"Maybe just a toke or two Waingu," he said.
"We will get a fire going on the beach when we get back and enjoy ourselves a bit. What do you think Angela?" Waingu asked me politely.
