The Island of Desire by Robert Dean Frisbie

We set out in Panikiniki (Skipping-stone) this morning for the six-mile sail across the lagoon to Tou Islet. For equipment we took a bush knife, a fish spear, matches, and tobacco: nothing else, for we enjoy using our wits to live when we go to the far islets. We consider a civilized picnic more nuisance than pleasure, and a camping trip, with almost everything from portable bathtub to medicine kit, the next thing to a nightmare. I say this advisedly, for often I have nightmares in which I am trying frantically and hopelessly to pack all the "essentials" for such an expedition. God save me from portable property! God save me from traveling with dozens of trunks, suitcases, hatboxes, bundles, and packages! God permit that I go through life like a child, with a spare shirt and a slingshot tied up in a handkerchief!

There was a mild breeze, but even so the crossing was unsafe, for Suvarrow's lagoon, being almost free from coral heads and reefs, builds up an ugly chop. By the time we were beyond the lee of the land, skipping along under the full force of the wind, I wished we had taken a reef in the sail, not only because there was danger of Panikiniki capsizing but also because, when she sails faster than eight knots, she takes a good deal of water over her bows. Well, I got Elaine and Nga aft with me, so as to keep the bows well out of water, put Johnny and Jakey on the forward outrigger crossboom, and we flew along in grand style. But later, when the wind freshened a little, I had to send Johnny on the outrigger itself. She sat on its forward end, her back to the crossboom; and it must have been an exciting ride for her, sometimes skipping from wave to wave, sometimes swung a foot or two above the water, and sometimes ducked to her neck when the outrigger plowed through a wave. Jakey perched halfway out on the crossboom, steadying himself with one hand on the windward stay. Elaine and Nga were busy bailing.