MISSING

Four weeks ago I offered Chris, a sailor who arrived with a boat from Galapagos under sail with a seized engine, S/V “Stargap” under command of Captain Bryan from South Africa and two more crew members, Daniel and Coby, a berth on my vessel and possible a trip to the main island, called North America by other than sailors. During our conversations I found out, he was a missionary for some Christian church he did not care to mention. We had some interesting talks, to say the least, as we were on absolute opposing sides. To my question if he was aware of the deadly and destructive impact missionaries had on native populations, he replied; they were saved by the mercy of Jesus and his ultimate sacrifice for the love of mankind. After that I requested not to talk about religions and we had a cease-fire peace and things were more civil. As crew he was a reliable person and on occasions we had some good laughs about some things but I had to watch what kind of humor to use and it limited my usual carefree ways as I can imagine also his love to talk about his bible. Before Chris joined us, I had Eric Stalwagen on “Symbiosis” for a pending delivery job to San Diego and he is not into religion either, so Chris must have felt outnumbered and left the boat on his own or cocooned himself on deck whenever he could, with his books.
Then I decided to see Moorea and Chris wanted to assist another Captain, Kirk of S/V “Discovery” who offered him a position on his vessel as crew to New Zealand, to install an anchor winch and stay on his boat.

When Eric and I returned from Moorea, Eric went ashore to do some shopping, and when he came back, surprised me with an announcement about the missing of Chris for several days. Chris wanted to hike up to the ridge of the mountain and stay over night and return to “Discovery” the next day. For days we have talked with the authorities, among the cruisers as what we could do, perhaps organize a search party, but none of us knows the area and the Gendarmerie is doing all they can on this case.
This Sunday it will be two weeks of his disappearance and none here believe him to be found alive. I hope he’s found his heaven. One of the things we said as a joke was; see Tahiti and die, but I never thought he would take it serious. We all feel the loss of a fellow sailor; may he return a butterfly.