Stories of Fiji/Nauru run
On alternate Sundays we operated Nandi-Funafuti-Tarawa-Nauru and on one accession managed to get Sundays Sydney's papers off the transit QF 707 and give it to the NZ Met guy and his wife stationed at Funafuti. Both burst into tears as it was the first paper they had ever seen on the day it was published in 10 months. The hotel there was listed as A/con which actually meant one pushed the weaved slats out to get the breeze.
On one of the trips a Catholic Monsignor was visiting and the local maidens were to welcome him with dancing in their grass skirts. Himself missed the flight but the welcome went ahead anyway with the maidens minus their tops which says so much about the islands.
One of reasons I travelled as supernumerary was to teach the locals how to do the load sheets. Say no more.
Our agent in Tarawa was the best available and he was actually certified! True.
He had the Bone pointed at him for fooling around with another mans wife, he became very ill and we flew him to RPA in Syd. They couldn't overcome the " curse " and he returned home to die. Amazing power pointing the bone has.
On one trip the inverters on the 748 went tits up in Tarawa and special dispensation had to be got to ferry the A/C back minus Pax and so we had 11 days there. Apricot pie and gravy is another story. Found out then that the outriggers on the lagoon were supposed to be the fastest sail boats in the world at that time, 69.
One of our first hostess was a Fijian Princess, problem was she was not supposed to be above head height of Fijian men when serving food or drinks. A word in fathers ear solved that.
On a couple of trips took Meb car dealers to Nauru one was the Rolls Royce agent who had to ensure that suitable servicing was available before completing the order for 5 Rolls. He was quite shocked and didn't believe that there was only 12 miles of rough tarmac.
The other guy was a second hand dealer who did a few trips and he actually charted a ship to take a heap of used an unused cars back to Meb
Hammer spent millions on green Astro Turf for the admin area which of course bleached to white.
Nauru didn't have any Immigration or Customs regulations of their own which where needed before we could operate. Took out Regs from an international guide to a similar country and gave it to their Chief of Police. Problem fixed.
The Search and Rescue charters were interesting, only a few, as it was NZs area. Amazing stories of Gilbert islanders coming ashore after 100 days + being lost at sea.
As we all know, lots of wonderful tales that can't be told here. The Vila/Honiara service is a whole another story.