Joe looked at the items soberly, then said, “Wait a minute.” He went over to his house and returned with two massive necklaces and two bracelets made of large and beautifully matched cowries, one to adorn each costume.
“Now okay,” he said, with a grin. He had no intention of letting me get the best of him by adding something more than the exchange he’d suggested.
So many memories come crowding back that even in writing it is almost as hard to leave Bora Bora as it was in August, 1955, when we reluctantly said good-bye to the Societies. How is it possible to pass on without mentioning the dockside parties that foregathered nightly beside the Phoenix, parties which sometimes started by a song or two in Japanese by one of the Three M’s, or a cowboy or hillbilly record on our portable victrola, but which always ended with the soft plucking of a guitar, the strumming of homemade coconut ukuleles, and a completely spontaneous exhibition of Tahitian dancing to the compelling rhythm of slit drum, kerosene tin, or just the slapping of hands on a bare thigh. Everybody sang—everybody joined in the dances—and the natural, unself-conscious grace of even the little ones made it obvious why, year after year, the dance teams of Bora Bora continue to walk off with all the prizes at the Papeete fete.
And how can we fail to recall the simple services that were held three times every Sunday at the small village church, services we will never forget, not because we were inspired by the sermons, which were in Tahitian and may or may not have varied from one service to another, but because of the singing—the most beautiful and inspiring we have ever heard. Everyone sang, some singing the words while others chanted or hummed the melody or a kind of antiphonal accompaniment which filled the room with such tremendous rolling resonance that we could hardly believe there was not an organ somewhere, concealed behind the woven screen of the altar or, perhaps, beneath the floor!
But nothing can be recaptured completely and there were other landfalls ahead, other memories to gather.
“Please let us hear from you!” Lysa Sanford begged, adding a bit wistfully, “Sometimes we don’t know if the yachtsmen we’ve entertained even got to their next port!”
And, “Don’t forget—you promise to send us picture!” Big Joe reminded us, referring to the many snapshots we had taken of him and his family. “Plenty people take picture—but we never see!”
We remembered the Sanford’s yacht register, containing many blank spaces for pictures that had been promised and never sent. We reminded ourselves of the tiny Kodacolor print, now faded almost to invisibility, which occupied an honored spot in the middle of Big Joe’s living room wall—the only picture of himself that had ever been sent to him of all that had been taken by passing yachts.
Then and there we resolved that the friends we made during our various stops would not be forgotten; that the promises we made would be kept. The hospitality, the favors, the gifts of fruit and vegetables and souvenirs that were pressed on us everywhere were gifts we could never repay in kind, but at least we would send, at the first opportunity, the snapshots we had taken and a postcard to say we had not forgotten. The chance to share vicariously in our experience, to travel with us by means of whatever reports we could send, would perhaps be thanks enough for the wonderful hospitality we had received.
And so we sailed from Bora Bora on August 16, knowing that no matter what enchantments might lie ahead we would never see its like again.