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Yes DynaFlow, Christmas Island is one of my most favorite places on earth.
Like you, many have a deep bond with the island and the people.
I think we started going about the second year it was open through Frontiers, naturally.
My wife Marilyn went 3 times and she made friends with the locals as well.
Today, we both like to talk about how lucky we were to be able to go to some wonderful places.
In the 1980s my brother Dick and I had made friends with a native gal who worked at the outside bar at the Captain Cook Hotel and I
started bringing her "stuff" every time I returned. My wife thought I had a "girl friend" on the island but when she finally met her she
realized that we were just friends. He name is/was Retyra Mann and was just a special person. We took her an old Singer 300?,
all metal, portable sewing machine. We also took the natives old CB units that they used to communicate all around the island.
Back then we heard a story about a 22# Bonefish that was accidently netted.
One reason we stopped going was the fact that many of our guides were dying and we knew it would not be the same for us.
Their life expectancy is much shorter than ours and we did not want to hear that our "Retyra" had passed on.
My wife's favorite guide was Simon who was one of Big Eddie's brothers. He was tall, hansom, part native and part German.
When we went out with Simon, the two of them just fished and talked and I got to go by myself which was really amazing.
Too bad we have to get old to really appreciate life.
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Hi Bill,it's wonderful to read of your reminiscences of Christmas Island and I can relate to your comment about losing the friends you made there over many years (particularly the Guides) as this has happened during my time as well.You mention a Guide named Simon,who along with English and Tyrone remain the few senior Guides on the island.He's a very tall guy and still guiding as far as I'm aware,and like English prefers the blue water to the relative monotony of guiding on the lagoon flats which is understandable :)
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Frontier Travel, who had the exclusive bookings for the Captain Cook Hotel years ago, brought Tyrone to California for one of the big
sports shows. He visited our fly shop in Sacramento for a few days and stayed with us in our home in Davis, CA.
At the shop one of our customers, who was a dentist and a good man, offered Tyrone free dental work and he accepted.
On Saturday the dentist and his assistant took X-rays and cleaned Tyrone's teeth.
On Sunday they pulled all four of his wisdom teeth and filled some cavities. Wonderful people.......
Tyrone guided many famous people and corporate types over the years.
The Henry Weinhard beer company in Oregon was a big fan of Tyrone and sent a "big check" so he could buy things in America.
Then the FFing manufacturers heard about Tyrone's presence in California and sent his some nice salt water fly fishing outfits.
Tyrone bought a small TV with a VHS tape player built in, standard for the day, plus lots of tapes to play back on Christmas Island.
Tyrone had this set up at home on Christmas in a big dark room and charged people 10 cents to watch those old videos.
Some of their favorite videos where the Japanese 'Ninja' movies. Then us fisherfolks brought him new videos every year.
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Thanks again Bill for your wonderful memories.We always take USB Memory Sticks with plenty of movies on them for the Guides.....most of whom have computers these days.The only proviso is that they have to share the movies with others,and content is always the same...classic Cartoons plus Disney flicks for the kids,and for the adults, they love the "sword & sandal" movies like Brad Pitt's "Troy" and classics like the 1963 "Jason & the Argonauts".
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That is so wonderful.....thank DF
Yes, my information is really dated so it is nice to hear about Christmas Island today.
I have a good friend who has taken groups there for the past maybe 20 years and he said they still do well, on average.
Over the years they have logistical problems and I guess they were hit hard but COVID as well.
The "fishing lodges" change over time so try to get a recommendation for the best place to book into for that year.
I still have Christmas Island on my "Top 10 Bucket list" destinations for everyone.