Business
There's Always Tomorrow
The Top 5 Rules of Surviving Pacific Island Travel.
It was an early morning flight from one island nation to the next, and only a handful of passengers were aboard the jetliner. Most of the passengers were sleeping, dealing with the effects of a 4 a.m. check-in for a 6 a.m. flight. But the flight included meal service, and the cabin crew began to serve breakfast shortly after take-off.
It was a simple meal: dry cereal, a plastic bowl and spoon, a small carton of milk, and a smaller glass of juice. Hardly the cuisine to get excited about, particularly after the flight attendant woke up passengers by kicking them in the leg. Both of her hands were full carrying the trays.
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Such are the occasional joys of traveling in the Pacific Islands. Actually, that day my fellow passengers and I were lucky. We were aboard a plane. It was in the air. And we were headed toward our destination on time.
Any experienced Pacific Islands traveler has his or her share of stories, both hilarious and horrifying. I came close to losing both of my parents in the 1950s when the seaplane they were aboard lost one of its two engines during a flight from Guam to Chuuk. The passengers and crew had to jettison everything aboard the plane that wasn’t screwed down, and a few things that were, before the aircraft made an emergency landing at sea. Once, on a flight from the Solomon Islands to Papua New Guinea, the heater on our aircraft died. The interior of the pressurized aircraft quickly turned frigid, and the flight attendants passed out blankets and hot tea. Lots of tea. By the time we landed at Port Moresby, we were nearly frozen.
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How does one prepare for the adventure of island travel? That’s the question we asked ourselves, and a veteran Pacific Islands business traveler. The result: Our Top 5 Rules for traveling in the Pacific:
Rule One: This from Publisher Robert Keith-Reid: “On arrival at your destination, confirm your onward flight, again a couple of days before departure, and on the day of departure. Be at the airport hours before anyone else so as to be the first to learn that your flight has been cancelled, delayed, is overbooked beyond belief or has already departed.”
Rule Two: This from Managing Editor Giff Johnson: “Always carry a complete change of clothes in your carry-on bag. Once, while on the tarmac at Kosrae, I watched helplessly from my window seat as ground crew off-loaded my bags. I was on my way to Palau, some 1,500 miles and five stops away. The bags eventually caught up with me in Palau, four days later. To its credit, Continental Micronesia picked up the tab for spare clothes and toiletries. But having a set of spare clothes in my carry-on saved the visit.”
Rule Three: David Sablan, the president of Saipan-based Century Insurance who has been traveling throughout Micronesia since the early 1960s, shares this: “Be sure you are expected by the parties you are visiting. Public officials and business executives in these islands travel extensively, and to avoid disappointment, contact them in advance. The only exception to this suggestion is when you are coming into the area to visit your debtors. A ‘surprise attack’ might be in order.”
Rule Four: From Robert Keith-Reid: “Go armed with an umbrella and one of those Swiss Army-type multi-purpose pocket knives, the more multi- the better. Every gadget on it will inevitably be put to use, often for uses that they were not quite intended.”
Rule Five: And from Giff Johnson: “A must have item are at least two hefty novels. One can cringe at the thought of having no reading material when a plane is grounded in such locations as Nauru, Norfolk or Kosrae for (fill in the blank) a) weather, b) mechanical problems, 3) a flight engineer who comes down with food poisoning and a new one has to be flown in, but the flight only operates twice a week.”
How adventurous is island travel? Robert Keith-Reid shares this recollection of a particularly memo- rable trip:
”In the days when Air Nauru operated five jets, the trouble with being confronted by three at an airport like Bonriki, Kiribati, was discovering which aircraft was bound for where. A hundred regional officials bound for Fiji boarded one and were relieved to find it was flying southwards. After half an hour, it turned northwards. ‘You have been invited to lunch by the president of the Marshall Islands,’ was the explanation.
“At Majuro, there were umbrellas for only a few VIPs. Soaked guests munched on shrimp in the terminal for an hour and a half, freezing in the air-conditioned interior. At least there was only one jet to board after lunch. “South-bound again, with some relief, the passengers then noticed a change of course westwards. ‘You have been invited to supper by the president of Nauru,’ came the announcement. The encounter with a staggering buffet banquet at the Menen Hotel was memorable, if tiring. Night had fallen. “At the airport, three more jets awaited take-off, engines roaring. Take your pick and hope for the best. ‘Don’t worry, your bag is aboard. Here is the ticket for it,’ the passengers were told.
“Four hours later, the jet, alighted at Nausori, Fiji. Minus, of course, the baggage.”
Remember, there’s always tomorrow.
