`Our last kiss ...your only luggage for eternity'

By Peter de Graaf
Thirty years after one of Northland's worst shipping tragedies, the ghosts of its victims were finally laid to rest in a ceremony at Whananaki on Saturday.
An engine room fire and atrocious weather claimed the lives of 16 people on the freighter Capitaine Bougainville on September 3, 1975.
The ship's captain, Frenchman Jean Thomas - who lost his New Zealand-born wife, infant daughter and two step-children - said the chance to farewell his family at the site of the tragedy would help him age peacefully.
``For me it was an emotional day, but it was a kind of emotion that will help a man of my age to become an old man nicely, in serenity,'' he said.
The 65-year-old made the long journey from France with just 10 days' notice, and a day-long detour via Christchurch due to fog at Auckland airport.
An estimated 120 people turned out for the ceremony on a headland overlooking the Whananaki coast, where a monument bears the names of the 12 crew and four passengers who died.
After hymns and karakia, Northland police chief Viv Rickard read an account of the tragedy, and Mr Thomas gave thanks to the organisers and the Maori community for what they did 30 years ago.
He singled out his "Maori mother", Ani Mihi Maki-Cross, who comforted him after the tragedy and gave "the kind of love only mothers can give".
The Maori cloak draped over his shoulders was a gift from the late Mrs Maki-Cross.
"It has been very important to me that people around here, in Whananaki, have kept the memory of this tragedy alive," he said.
Mr Thomas also read a poem he penned a few months after losing his family, in which he remembered his wife, Phillipa Wilson, and "our last kiss given on the gunwale, your only luggage for eternity".
She is believed to have died of exposure in one of the lifeboats, in Mr Thomas' arms.
Then a ship's bell, hung in a pohutukawa clinging to the cliffside, was rung 16 times - once for each victim - while search and rescue boats anchored offshore fired flares into a cloudless sky.
In a final mark of respect, a rescue helicopter circled low over the bay, dropped a wreath into the sea, and dipped its nose in salute to those on the headland.
Those attending the event included kaumatua, Whangarei Mayor Pamela Peters, unofficial French ambassador Paul Farge, police involved in the search and rescue operation, and retired policeman Bob "Ace" O'Hara, who wrote a book on the tragedy. Among the Whananaki residents was nine-year-old Ocean McKinnon, proud that Mr Thomas was wearing her great-grandmother's cloak.
Sandy Bay resident Don Pullman recalled searching the coast for survivors and giving two policemen a pre-dawn tractor ride to the beach.
He also remembered swimming naked into the storm to help someone he saw bobbing in the waves, only to find he was already dead.
Former police constable Lloyd Harris, the driving force behind Saturday's ceremony, was one of the first rescuers on the scene 30 years ago. "I just felt helpless on land. There were no rescue vehicles available to us then," he said.
Despite the frustration, he had been too busy at the time to be emotionally affected. "The police job is a job where death comes to you, and you have to deal with it. You feel for those people but you just have to get on with it."
Mr Harris had often brought school groups to the monument, but Saturday's event was the first formal commemoration.
He said tracking down Mr Thomas, the ship's captain, had not been easy. When inquiries through his shipping company drew a blank, he contacted Interpol, who located him just 10 days out from the anniversary.
While in Northland, Mr Thomas also hoped to visit the grave of his "Maori mother", and was to spend Saturday evening with his brothers-in-law before flying back to France yesterday.
It was the first time since the tragedy that he had met his late wife's younger brothers, Mark Stanaway, of Melbourne, and Christopher Stanaway, of Auckland. The men rushed to Northland with just two days' notice after hearing about the event through a relative.
After the ceremony, as people filed back for tea and cakes at Whananaki North, eight-year-old Jerry Mackie tugged the French captain on his cloak. "Did you drive that boat?" the Whananaki boy asked.
"Yes, I did," he answered. "But we finished here."
* Stark contrast to day of tragedy
You couldn't have picked a day more different to September 3 of 30 years ago.
The day of the Capitaine Bougainville tragedy, one of Northland's worst maritime disasters, dawned to an easterly storm and a 12-metre swell. Witnesses say the giant waves at Whananaki were breaking 300m off shore.
The Noumea-registered freighter was taking meat and dairy products to Sydney with 29 crew and eight passengers on board when a fire broke out in the engine room, directly below the lifeboats.
With the fire raging out of control, Captain Jean Thomas made the call to abandon ship at 3.40am.
The combination of wind, mountainous waves and a powerful current made launching the lifeboats perilous.
Many drowned when their lifeboats capsized, others succumbed to cold. The victims were from Fiji, France, Britain, the Philippines and New Zealand - including Mr Thomas' Kiwi wife, infant daughter and two step-children.
But September 3, 2005, dawned with barely a cloud and only the lightest of breezes.
It was hard to believe that the spring sunshine was sparkling on the same waters that claimed 16 lives on the same day three decades earlier.