Prologue

 

Robin Hood's Bay, England, January 2009: -

 

The north easterly wind blew bitterly across the dark headland, whipping the crests of the blackened waves to foam as they marched in ranks into the Bay to expand their energy on the protective walls and slipway of the tiny old smuggler's village and to splash the steps of the Bay Hotel in salt water spray. The high spring tide had brought the cold North Sea to the very feet of the cluster of brick cottages that clung precipitously to the cleft in the slate clay cliffs. Many houses of the old village had long since disappeared; swallowed by the relentless erosion of the cliffs. Those that remained, huddled behind the new sea defences that afforded them some longer lease of life but it was a precarious armed truce on this exposed stretch of the North Yorkshire coast. It seemed a fragile truce indeed on this wild dark night, for the village felt tiny and vulnerable, its narrow cobbled streets lit insufficiently by occasional street lamps that shook in the high wind and served only to illuminate small patches of wet flagstones and the sheets of sleet driving in from the sea.

In a small cottage, a little way up the steep cobbled street that wound its way down from the cliff top to the waves crashing on the boat ramp, a light yet burned in a small window. In the tiny living room of the cottage, Dr Delilah Delmonte sat at a desk with the letter spread out before her. Ngam was reclining on the couch before the coal fire pretending to read a book yet eyeing Delilah worriedly. Rufus, the big red setter was curled up on the hearth rug before the fire asleep, his legs twitching occasionally as he relived the day's adventures along the beach of the bay in his dreams. It was snug and cosy in the little living room. The cadence of the waves on the foreshore were but a distant rumble and the tiny cottage a haven of warm security stirred only by the muted roar of the gale in the rafters and the streaks of sleet on the windows.

Delilah and Ngam loved these interludes together when they could escape from the house in Cambridge to spend a few days alone, far from the obligations of work and family. The little rented cottage in Robin Hood's Bay on the North Yorkshire coast was a favourite of theirs, especially in the winter months when the little village was mercifully free of tourists. They'd spend their days walking Rufus along the beach to Boggle Hole and exploring the rock pools with the wind in their hair and the hiss of the surf on the rocks. In the evenings they'd nurse a glass of ale in front of the big fire in the snug bar of the Bay Hotel or simply enjoy each other's company in the cottage and count themselves blessed. They were interludes of togetherness and times to glory in nothing else other than the love that had bonded these two remarkable women together for so many years.

It was inevitable of course that they would spend such interludes by the sea for the sea held a very special place in both their hearts and especially that of Delilah's. Delilah's life work had its origins in the mysteries of the sea, a dedication that bordered on an obsession that had haunted her for over thirty five years. The sea called to her with a special call; a siren's call.

Ngam laid her book aside with a sigh. "Well I guess we're not going to get to bed any time soon." she observed ruefully. "Not until you get whatever it is off your chest anyway."

Delilah nodded regretfully. "I'm sorry honey. It's just this damned letter." The letter had arrived at the cottage this morning, forwarded from the institution that sponsored Delilah's research. In the normal course of events, routine mail could wait until they returned home to Cambridge but this letter came direct from the institution and was possessed of authority and priority. It was a letter that could not be ignored.

"What's in that letter anyway?" asked Ngam with a frown. "You've been moping over the blasted thing all day."

"It's from some guy in California I've never heard of."

"So? Nothing earth shaking there. What's he want?"

Delilah turned to look at Ngam. "It's a contact sweetheart! One of the best reports we've had in years!"

Ngam's big brown eyes opened wide at the news. "Oh my! Can you share it?"

Delilah nodded and passed the letter over. Communications concerning this subject were usually deep secrets to be seen only by people with the proper clearance from the institution but Delilah shared everything with Ngam. Carefully Ngam began to read.

 

***

 

"Dear Doctor Delmonte,

Please forgive me for writing to you without the formality of having been previously introduced. In fact I have your name from Doctor William Bloomingdale, lecturer in marine biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I have recounted the events which I will shortly describe to you to Doctor Bloomingdale and he urged me to forward the story to yourself. He tells me that he has collaborated with you a number of times over the past few years and that you have a particular interest in certain aspects of marine ecology and he feels that the story I have to recount falls within your specific sphere of expertise.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Stuart Bell and I am a marketing consultant with a leading Los Angeles firm. I am no expert on marine biology and ecology other than through amateur interest. My interest in the subject is a result of my passion for salt water fly fishing; a pastime I have pursued for many years. It is this pastime that led me directly to the encounter which has so haunted me this past couple of years.

Before I recount my tale I will ask you, at least, to hear my story without any prejudgement and in the knowledge that I am attempting to relate the details of the incident as faithfully and as accurately as I can. I am not a fanciful person Dr Delmonte. I pride myself on my sobriety and rationality. I don't believe in UFOs, crop circles, alien conspiracy theories or any other of the nonsense for which the State of California seems famous. I have always considered myself to be the sort of person that can look at anything and subject it to a rational analysis and formulate conclusions based upon level headed judgement. That is until the events of five years ago.

Five years ago, I joined the Clipperton Exploratory Expedition sailing on the "Royal Star" out of Cabo san Lucas in Baja California, Mexico. The Royal Star is a hundred foot chartered fishing vessel, specially configured to the requirements of long distance expeditions of this nature. I joined around twenty other fly anglers on what was hoped to be a serious expedition to the remote Pacific atoll of Clipperton Island lying nearly 600 miles south east of the Revillagigedo archipelago and perhaps some eight to nine hundred miles west of Mexico. The waters around this isolated and uninhabited island are pristine and virtually untouched by either commercial or sport fishermen. Everything we knew about it suggested that the fishing would be terrific and probably yield some world records for the anglers on the expedition.

The voyage to Clipperton took over three days although we did pause for a while to sample the tuna fishing around Islas Revillagigedo before pressing on southward for Clipperton. The fishing off the Revillagigedo archipelago was a little disappointing although we didn't stay long enough to explore it fully to be fair. Most of our hopes were centred on the seas around Clipperton.

Clipperton Island is just about the most isolated and barren piece of real estate you could wish to come across. It's a coral ring atoll and the whole land surface of it amounts to no more than about three and a half square miles. The ring itself is nowhere more than around 400 yards wide, completely encircling a stagnant freshwater lagoon. Most of it is just pretty barren coral sand a few feet above sea level but there is one outcropping of volcanic rock down in the south east of it called "Clipperton Rock" which rises to around 95 feet.

The central lagoon is quite deep in places falling away to over 140 feet but it is stagnant and virtually lifeless. Although the water is fresh water it has usually been regarded as non-potable. This view of it was challenged however following the shipwreck of the tuna clipper MV Monarch in 1962 whose crew survived on the water in the lagoon for some 23 days before being rescued. Although ordinarily we might consider the water as unfit to drink it does seem that it can be drunk if necessary. Dr Bloomingdale seems to regard this latter point as significant.

The vegetation on the island is generally sparse and scrubby; just a sparse cover of spiny grass and low scrubby plants. There are a few stands of coconut palms that survive from the plantations that were planted by guano miners at the end of the 19^th century but I think there are supposed to be less than 700 palms on the whole island and most of the place is a pretty arid, desert sort of landscape.

This is not to say that it is devoid of life. Far from it. One thing that you notice straight away are the crabs. There are thousands upon thousands of these bright orange crabs crawling over the landscape. They're reputed to be poisonous but the same guano miners that introduced the palms also introduced pigs to the island and these seemed to eat the crabs with no problems at all. In fact they tell me that the pigs predation of the crabs altered the entire ecology of the island in the early years of the 20^th century. The crabs, you see, eat pretty much anything and it's their rapaciousness that reduces the vegetation on the island. With the introduction of pigs the numbers of crabs fell dramatically and for a short time at least the islands became much more lush with vegetation. It was only when these pigs were finally eradicated from the island in 1958 that the numbers of crabs were able to proliferate to their former abundance and reduce the island once more to its semi barren state.

The other notable life on the island are the birds. There are huge colonies of nesting sea birds on Clipperton including White Terns, Sooty Terns, Brown Boobies, Black Noddies, Greater Frigatebirds and Brown Noddies. Perhaps the most numerous are the colonies of Masked Boobies. Some 110,000 of them rear their young on the island all year round. The birds have absolutely no fear of man and you can walk straight through the middle of their vast colonies, deafened by their raucous calls. It is this vast conglomeration of sea birds of course that leaves so much guano on the island as to have historically made the mining of it an attractive commercial enterprise.

The history of the island is quite interesting. It was originally discovered in 1711 by two French explorers, Martin de Chassiron and Michel du Bocage. These two explorers were the commanders of the ships La Princesse and La Decouverte which explored the area in the early 18^th century. They named the island Ile de la Passion (Passion Island) and claimed it for France. It was uninhabited then and remained so until a brief period of habitation by a scientific expedition under Bocage in 1725. The island's English name comes from the English pirate and privateer John Clipperton who reputedly used the island as a base for his attacks on Spanish shipping in the Eastern Pacific in the early 18^th century although the documentary evidence for this is slim.

Otherwise there is nothing to suggest that any people disturbed the colonies of nesting birds until the island's ownership came under dispute in the 19^th century. In that century the harvesting of guano as fertiliser became big business and the otherwise uninteresting island suddenly became valuable real estate by virtue of the copious bird droppings on the island. Our fellow countrymen were at the forefront of this new commercial interest with the American Guano Mining Company claiming the rights to the island under the Guano Islands Act passed by Congress in 1856. This was a handy little piece of imperialistic legislation by our government that gave US citizens the right to take possession of any uninhabited island containing guano deposits. This law states;

 

"Whenever any citizen of the United States discovers a deposit of guano on any island, rock, or key, not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other Government, and not occupied by the citizens of any other Government, and takes peaceable possession thereof, and occupies the same, such island, rock, or key may, at the discretion of the President, be considered as appertaining to the United States."

 

It was of course pretty much a bare faced land grab and, had any other nation done the same, our government would have probably howled blue murder. In fact, at around this time, Mexico joined the fray and claimed the island for no other reason than it happened to be the closest nation to it. France re-iterated its own claim under Napoleon III and, from being pretty much a worthless lump of coral in the middle of nowhere, the island suddenly became desirable property. This squabble continued for the rest of the 19^th century with first American and then Mexican miners occupying the island with some French intervention as well and in fact the full question of sovereignty was not finally settled until 1931 in favour of the French claim. It remains a sovereign French territory.

By this time the island had already undergone colonisation. In 1906 the British Island Pacific Island Company had obtained the guano mining rights from Mexico and built, in conjunction with the Mexicans, a settlement for the miners and their families. By 1914 over 100 people were settled on the island. This colonisation ended in disaster and tragedy. By 1917 virtually all the men on the island were dead of scurvy or attempts to escape from a tropical "paradise" that had in fact turned out to be a barren trap. The last man alive, the lighthouse keeper Victoriano Alvarez, seems to have been quite mad for he declared himself "king" and lorded it over the remaining 15 women and children using them for his sexual pleasure in an orgy of rape and depravity until one woman, Tirza Rendon, having an aversion to his sexual attentions, killed him. The surviving four women and seven children were finally evacuated by the American gunship USS Yorktown in July 1917.

Thereafter, apart from brief occupations in the 1930s and American military occupation in 1944-5 during World War Two the island has remained uninhabited once more. I have gone into the history of the island at some length because I think it is important to emphasise that this island has always been unoccupied. There is no evidence ever of any traditional indigenous Pacific Island population and the occupations of the island by foreigners to the region has been brief and short lived. The islands therefore have always been considered uninhabited. My story however might raise questions about the exact definition of "uninhabited" in this instance.

If the vegetation on the island is sparse and its animal life restricted to crabs, birds and a few lizards and rats there is one place there where life is abundant indeed. The seas around Clipperton and its coral reefs are teeming with life. Indeed it is the prolific abundance of the fish in the sea about the island that provides the nourishment for those hundreds of thousands of nesting birds. It was this virtually untapped abundance that our expedition aboard the Royal Star was attracted by.

Upon arriving at the island, we anchored in the lee of the island to the east. There is of course no natural harbour on Clipperton. It was in excited anticipation that we began to cast our flies into the sea around the vessel. To begin with we fished directly from the open decks of the Royal Star. We were not limited to this however for we had two large inflatable powered dinghies aboard, which could be launched to fish away from the mother ship. These were useful too whenever a large fish was hooked from aboard the mother vessel for it was impracticable for the Royal Star to chase any long running fish and it was necessary for the angler to debark into one of the dinghies to pursue the quarry.

I have to say right at the start that the fishing was everything we had expected of the place. It had been a hope that we might claim new world records for fly tackle around Clipperton. It was beyond even our wildest hopes though that we would claim our first world record within a couple of hours of commencing fishing. To begin with in the early hours of the morning we hooked into numerous Yellow Finned Tuna; bruising battlers on our fly tackle averaging over thirty pounds apiece. As the sun rose higher however the tuna moved more offshore and were replaced by shoals of another pelagic species.

Rainbow Runner are beautiful hard fighting game fish. When I've caught them before they've averaged about six pounds. The ones off Clipperton were simply unreal. At that time the world record Rainbow Runner on a fly rod had weighed 10lbs 12ozs. The first one aboard at Clipperton weighed over 16 pounds! It was an awesome fish destroying the old record. The new record lasted less than thirty minutes before an even bigger one came inboard. It was the fly angling stuff of dreams.

We fished the water around the island for several days and it was pure magic. The tuna were extraordinary with big Yellowfins and smaller Black Finned Tuna. The big Yellow Finned in particular gave us some memorable battles. I chased one in the dinghy for an hour and half before finally losing it. I even hooked a big Wahoo that led me another song and dance. Each night we would collapse into our bunks aboard the Royal Star exhausted from the madcap action; our arms aching from playing fish.

If it had only been the fishing then the trip would have been memorable in itself. It was an incident on our last day at Clipperton however that truly etched the whole expedition into my memory. It is an incident I must, in fairness, tell you that nobody else aboard, bar perhaps one, believed and, had someone else reported it, I doubt whether I would have believed it myself.

One of the things we did during our visit to the island was to land people on the island and thus allow them to fish from the beach within the confines of the outlying reef. This gave the opportunity to fish for other species of fish more associated with the reef and less of the open water pelagics we targeted offshore. It was also a chance to put your feet on dry land and explore this strange but oddly beautiful island.

On our last full day before our departure I had one of the crew of the Royal Star ferry me in one of the inflatables ashore, across the reef and onto the beach, just south of Clipperton Rock. I was the only person wanting to fish from the shore that day and, after the dinghy had departed I was quite alone on the island although I could still see the Royal Star anchored some way offshore.

I relished the solitude. After so many days fishing in the company of others it was the first time I had had the chance to be on my own. I've always enjoyed fishing as a solitary sport; one person alone in nature. It is always a time for me to be at one with myself and in harmony with the world about me.

It also gave me the chance to take a look around the island a bit. Now I didn't walk all the way around the place because that's a slog of around six or seven miles and it was a damn hot day. I did however wander about a bit in the South Eastern corner and strolled through the sea bird colonies which was just wonderful. The boobies had young in every stage of development from nearly adult to fluffy little things that looked like animated balls of cotton wool. I wore sandals to protect my feet from the sharp coral sand and doused my bare parts with sun lotion to ward off the fierce rays from the tropical sun. I walked to the edge of the lagoon and looked out across to the far side of the island but I couldn't make out much detail for the place shimmered in the heat.

But mostly, I confess, my attention was captured by the beach and water beyond. I took my fly rod and waded out into the surf to cast, with the prominence of Clipperton Rock behind me. The water was clear as crystal tinged in azure blue. Close to the beach, the water was swarming with Black Trigger Fish, so thick in parts that they bumped against your legs as you waded into the water. These fish would occasionally take a dab at my fly but they mostly graze on the coral and their mouths are too small really to be able to take the big lure type flies I was using. I had other quarry off that beach.

Using a shooting head to my line, I cast as far out as I could over the heads of the hordes of Trigger Fish, stripping my big streamer back towards me. Almost immediately I could see larger fish darting for my lure and turning away with a great flash of silver flanks. In excitement I continued casting, all my attention riveted on the entrancing submarine world between the beach and the outlying reef. Then suddenly a streamlined shape materialised from the left and engulfed my fly with such ferocity that it nearly wrenched my rod from my hands. I lifted the rod to set the hook, as if it was even necessary, the rod arced into an agonised curve and the ratchet on my reel screamed in torment as the fish stripped line away in a heart stopping run towards the reef.

The power in that fish was just boggling and I had no way of stopping that first madcap dash. My heart was in my mouth as the fish ran over the edge of the reef. I could see my line shortly about to be shredded on the sharp edges of coral and my fish away with my lure. Frantically I danced along the beach applying side strain to try and turn the fish's head around. For several nerve racking seconds we were at an impasse but then the fish gave and kited around to the right enabling me to regain some line and play the fish in the relatively open water free of structure on this side of the reef. But it was by no means the end of the battle. That fish fought hard and doggedly, never seeming to tire or weaken. Before long my arm was aching and still the fish battled on. At least I could see it now though; a big beautiful silvered creature twisting and turning on the end of my line.

I don't know how long it took me to subdue that fish but finally I had it at the edge of the surf. I used an old trick of surf angling to beach it by letting a wave carry it onto the beach where it flopped around in shallow water before I could reach down and grasp it by the wrist of the tail, yipping in delight as I secured my prize.

I staggered back up onto the beach grasping my fish and squatted down in the sand to admire it. It was worth admiring for it was beautiful. It must have weighed around twelve or thirteen pounds of compact firm muscle beneath its shimmering silver flanks. It was a Bluefin Trevally; in my opinion one of the loveliest members of the Jack family with its sky-blue fins, mottled blue and green back and silver sides. It was picture perfect; stunning in appearance and shining iridescently in the sunlight. It was also the first one I had ever caught on a fly rod.

It was my intention to release the fish back to the ocean alive. Bluefin Trevally are good to eat although you can sometimes get ciguatera poisoning from them. Still it would have made a fine table fish except for the fact that the dinghy wasn't due to come and pick me up for some hours yet and the fish would have surely spoiled quickly in that hot sunshine. In any case there was a part of me that felt it criminal to kill that beautiful creature and wanted to see it back in the sea to fight another day. After a last look I heaved the fish into my arms and prepared to carry it back into the water to release it. Then somebody spoke behind me!

I swear to God I nearly had a heart attack and damn near dropped that fish in shock. I knew for a fact that I was completely alone on the island. I could still see the ship and both inflatables way out beyond the reef and I'd been able to observe them most of the morning. I was sure nobody else but myself had landed since the dinghy had dropped me off on the beach. Yet that voice behind me was another person on the island.

In shock, I span around and my astonishment increased. There, standing behind me for all the world as if they had sprung up out of the sand, stood a young child. That in itself beggared belief. Naturally there were no children on the Clipperton Exploratory Expedition and no indication whatsoever that there were any other vessels anywhere near us. We hadn't seen another ship for days and, to the best of anyone's knowledge, there had been no settlers on this island for over half a century. So the presence of a young child would have been extraordinary in any circumstances. But there was more to the mystery. This was no ordinary child.