Finally! Christmas Island is taking shape on the horizon, a speck of green sitting emerging from an otherwise unrelieved mass of grey. We’ve survived endless hours of bouncy high seas, racing along at 10 knots. Time for lunch, and a glass of wine. Suddenly a blaring, screaming voice. There, right on our stern, is a menacing warship, barking orders at us as its bow wave threatens to swamp us. We drop our forks and run, scantily clad, in bikinis to gaily wave ‘hello’ while Capt. Ken stands to attention and addresses the navy by VHF radio.
Satisfied with our assurances, they sail up beside us, and with a friendly toot toot and whoop whoop on their horn, escort us into the bay and our Christmas island mooring – 11 hours ahead of the next boat in the fleet.
Clearing customs is Aussie-style – a small gathering of officials at a beach bbq setting on the shore. Hugely relieved we repair to the isle pub, looking forward to food that wouldn’t move. As our sea legs recovered we hiked the rain forest trail, that hugged the sheer cliffs around the bay, in search of the famous Christmas island red crabs. they literally littered the trail.
Not many grab the chance to visit the Christmas island detention centre. It was a circuitous and vexing path of forms, phone calls, and reminders with a quiet baffling number of signatures required to acknowledge privacy, security regulations and dress code dos and don’ts, let alone the need to provide boarder protection with precise names of those detainees we wished to visit. the idea, of course, is that we don’t come, but come we did, the four Ressie crew doing their bit to show some asylum seekers that regular Aussies do care. It was a 2 hour high impact visit to five detainees whom we had connections to, due to Janice being a Villawood volunteer.
Shame on Australia. The detainees stories make no sense. Their incarceration is cruel, undefined in length and so sadly lacking in basic human kindness. The expense to Australian tax payers is beyond belief. Their crimes so not fitting this punishment. notable was the comparison with coming to Christmas island on a boat, not much bigger than ours, but they had 250 companions. Their stories of survival at sea and now survival in a soul destroying compound left us speechless, as some are into their third year awaiting confirmation of their visa. Sadly we left but knowing by their vibrant handshakes and gracious thank you that we had made their day a little brighter.
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