This story features in Reflections in a Sailor’s Eyes

Back in 1979, the world had no satellites guiding our every movement day and night. Instead, all ships used the heavens to navigate, and our charts were inaccurate – some made by aerial surveillance during WWII with soundings dating back to the earliest explorers.

From the log of the Banyandah – South China Sea, March 31, 1979


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0600

Dawn is breaking on this our third day at sea since departing Brunei, North Borneo. On the far eastern horizon, an expanding band of changing pastels is rising. The sea and sky are becoming distinct.

As the sky brightens, pearl-grey clouds become highlighted with crowns of liquid gold and a charge of excitement builds thorough all on board. Silhouetted against this display of Nature’s beauty, my six passengers are scanning the horizon for the first hint of our mysterious destination. Their chatter sounds like a flock of birds greeting a new and lovely day.

Somewhere ahead lays Amboyna Cay of the Spratly Islands. According to the pilot book, we should find only a 50m circle of sand surrounded by a bit of fringing reef. But recent hostile military activity in this area may have changed all of that.

0700

According to my sights and calculations, we should be very close and I’m going to climb to the masthead for a look round.

0715

From the top, a tiny irregularity breaks the otherwise barren horizon, and elated, I yell down, “Land ho!” This raises a cheer from the deck and happy, excited faces turn to follow the direction of my outstretched arm.

We can see nothing from deck level, so a barrage of questions assault me as I climb down Banyandah’s 15m main mast. “How big is it?” “Is it sand?” “Any trees?” “Did you see any buildings?”

“Hold on, guys. It’s just a blip. In a half-hour, it’ll pop out the ocean as if by magic.”

0745

Through binoculars, a yellowish sand crescent is just visible, rising out of the sea as we ride up the swell, disappearing as we slid down. Everybody wants a look through the glasses, but Harry Mead, VK2BJL, team leader, and a new friend soon to become a dear and significant person in our lives gets the first chance.
“Jack, is that a rock I see on the right-hand side?” Harry asked in his slow half-laugh, half-lisp handing back the glasses. And as Banyandah rose on a larger swell, I saw what could be a rock, a wreck, almost anything. It’s just too small to make out.

0800

It’s not a rock or a wreck. It now looks like an enormous tent-like a circus tent, only all tan in colour. Other objects, possibly structures, are situated about it. I’m getting worried. The guys are getting edgy too; Stew, K4SMX, keeps talking about a letter he has, which explains that we are a scientific expedition studying radio propagation. He keeps saying the letter is written in both Russian and Vietnamese. That sounds like he knows something I do not.

Amboyna Cay Spratly Islands

0810

There are three distinct groups of people visible on that tiny mound of sand, a group at each end with a smaller number on the top. The “top” hardly more than two metres above the sea.

0815

The smaller centralised group has begun signalling us with semaphore flags and everyone turns to me. John, KV4KV, asks the obvious, “What are they saying?”
“Look, I don’t have a clue,” I said, perplexed. “But I think I’ll anchor just offshore and row in for a friendly chat. After all, we don’t even know who they are and they can only tell us to go away, right?”

My wife doesn’t look so sure, but the others nod or mumble comments like, “We’ve come this far, we ought to give it a go.”

After everyone agrees, Stew beams another of his southern hospitality smiles and says, “I’ll even go in with you.”

0915 Trouble

We’re running scared, powering away from Amboyna Cay just as fast as our 80hp engine will push us. And we’re searching the horizon in every direction for any intruder. Deathly frightened we might sight one.

What happened back there was insane. I mean, we’re just ordinary folk – peaceful family folk – out on an adventure. We meant them no harm, and there was definitely no reason for them to try to kill us.

I guess things really began to happen once we came within a mile of the island. From that distance, we could see that the sand cay was about half the size of a football field, with several buildings of clapboard and corrugated iron at the centre, two radio towers as well. We also could see that they had reinforced the perimeter with a wall of sandbags, and the wall facing us had a sign with large white letters, “BAOTHEP”

We began our final approach with one operator at the radio, scanning the bands, listening for a contact from the island. The other operators were on deck, clustered together by the centre cockpit where Judith was at the controls, and I was at the bow, searching for a clear patch in the coral to drop the anchor.

I remember it became deathly quiet – only distant sounds of a light wind upon the sea and the sound of my heart beating in my ears pumping adrenaline through my body. As I reached for the anchor release, an abrupt order rang out, and groups of green-clad men began to scatter.

Explosions cut the air – boom…boom…boom…boom. The physical impact of the concussions slammed into us, knocking me to the deck, where my mind began recording every detail of those hour-long seconds.

I saw four puffs of grey-white smoke hanging in mid-air above the cay and heard shrill whistles going overhead then felt heat on my cheeks. The five operators, heedless of injury, threw themselves headlong into our cockpit, then as I looked back along the deck, I saw the 200-litre drums of petrol nakedly lashed to the rails, and for an instant my mind’s eye imagined a huge orange-red death ball erupting from them, and screamed, “Move it! Move it! Full power!”

Shaken, I scrambled up. There was Judith at the helm, kicking bodies away from the floor-mounted controls. With her eyes sunk deep and her teeth exposed in a grin of animal fear, she slammed the boat into gear and pushed the throttle to full power….