TORRES STRAITS I^-I 



Stories of tide-watchers who are left for long periods to their owii 

 resources, sometimes on uninhabited islands, sometimes in com- 

 munities far from what the sailor would call civilisation. Before 

 the days of radio they often had to nurse one of their fellows 

 through malaria or other ailments or deal with snake bites and 

 accidents; today the ship can be called in such emergencies. 



A tide-watcher had been established in the Wyre Lighthouse 

 to read a tidepole during the period when Challenger was surveying 

 at Heysham at the beginning of the commission. This man was 

 taken ill with severe stomach pains and a party from the ship 

 arrived by boat at the lighthouse to collect him. It was necessary 

 to lower him into the boat from the balcony of the lighthouse by 

 placing him in a Neil-Robertson stretcher, which is supplied for 

 just such a purpose. When secured inside this stretcher the 

 patient is incapable of moving hand or foot. The tide-watcher, 

 thus helpless, was being lifted over the parapet of the lighthouse 

 by the rescue party when he slipped from their grasp and fell 

 like a stone. The officer who was in charge caught a quick turn 

 with the rope with which it had been planned to lower the man, 

 and it was just in time, for the rope brought the stretcher up 

 with a sickening jerk a few feet above the waiting boat. The 

 lighthouse keeper was later heard to say that he had never seen 

 such a fine feat of seamanship ! 



A complete new crew were now arriving at Thursday Island 

 in dribs and drabs to relieve the men who had served a full com- 

 mission in Challenger. Commander Sabine took command and with 

 him came a number of surveying officers who were new to the 

 old ship. Among these was a young lieutenant, John Thomson, 

 and one of his first duties was to land on Cook's Booby Island to 

 locate the benchmark established there in 1843 by the men of 

 H.M.S. Fly. It was said to be cut in ironstone rock at the mouth 

 of a cave known as the 'Post Office', which had been used as 

 such in former times, vessels going eastwards leaving their mails 

 in the cave for collection by vessels homeward bound. It was 

 many years, however, since this pleasing idea had been abandoned, 

 for even when the earlier Challenger visited the cave in 1875- there 

 was only one letter there, and that was a treatise addressed 'to 

 whom it may concern' describing the navigational difficulties of 



