It’s almost fifty years since the balsa rafts of the Las Balsas Expedition arrived in Ballina, after crossing the Pacific from Ecuador on their extraordinary record-breaking voyage.
Mahlon Carthew now lives in Casino, but says he and his wife had a marine business in Ballina in the 1970s, selling boats. The Echo asked him about November 1973.
‘The day they turned up, I happened to be out fishing with a mate,’ he remembers. ‘And we saw this strange apparition on the horizon that turned out to be a trawler, towing one of the rafts. This one contained the skipper or the boss of the outfit, Vital Alsar, and about half a dozen other fellows.’
Lifesavers
When Mr Carthew sailed sailed alongside, he remembers the expeditioners were very happy to see him. ‘Yeah absolutely! They were asking for all sorts of things, a can of beer or whatever. We didn’t have any beer. But I did happen to have a packet of Lifesavers that were half-eaten.
‘I said, “would you like some lollies?” When they realised what that was, they said, “Oh, you’ve got candy!”
‘So I kept driving the boat and I had my mate up on the bow, so he could lean forward. We nosed up behind them and gave them the Lifesavers, which they devoured with great gusto.’
Mr Carthew remembers the crew were very hairy after their long voyage, with not much of the raft above water. Fortunately the Ballina bar at the river mouth was very calm that day.
‘We followed them down into Ballina and they anchored down near the Apex boat ramp there, adjacent to the Sailing Club.’
He says most Ballina people didn’t know they were coming, so there wasn’t exactly a welcoming committee – ‘there was no great uproar’ – but a few small boats and people watching from the shore.
Making friends
‘After that, I became quite friendly with them,’ Mahlon Carthew remembers.
‘Some of them came back to my home, which was behind the shop, and had a meal there. I took a lot of them up to the Wardell Pub, in a different boat, and we took them all down to the Ballina Hotel on the corner of Cherry Street there.
‘I’ve got a couple of coasters stashed away somewhere with all their signatures on them.
‘I remember a French-speaking fella named Fernand Robichaud, when he left, he said “My friend, I want you to have this,” and he gave me his diving knife.’
Mr Carthew remembers there was quite a lot of attention when the media descended on Ballina for the history-making story, with the expeditioners ‘trying to get away from the press to a degree.’
And did they seem to be in good spirits when they arrived? ‘They seemed in good health,’ he remembers. ‘Certainly in good spirits. Very happy to have feet on solid ground again.’
Mr Carthew doesn’t recall seeing the expedition cat or monkey, saying he thinks the cat might have been washed overboard before reaching Australia.
After the expeditioners left Ballina, Mr Carthew wasn’t able to keep in touch with them, although he heard some returned to Australia later. ‘They were all pretty footloose and fancy free, apart from the captain, he was a bit older.’
A ‘giant of human adventure’
Captain Alzar died in 2020, and there was a ceremony in Ballina at that time with Ballina locals and expedition veterans united in person and via livestream.
Tony Gilding (who has also since died) read a statement from former 60 Minutes journalist Ian Leslie, who described Captain Alsar as a great adventurer and explorer.
‘He takes his place beside the giants of human adventure, Magellan and Columbus, Armstrong and Amundsen,’ said Mr Leslie. Fellow enthusiast Cr Jeff Johnson described the the Las Balsas raft story as ‘Ballina’s unique offering to the world.’
Mahlon Carthew remembers that in the 1970s there weren’t as many people doing long sea voyages. ‘It was something outlandish back then – they were trying to prove a point, that the Polynesians could have reached where they got to from South America.’
West Ballina locals Jennie and Geoff Danks were friends of Mahlon’s, and also remember the transcontinental rafters.’ Yes, because of where we lived, Henry Philp Street,’ said Jennie Danks. ‘Geoff and his mates took a couple of them waterskiing.’
New teeth
She remembers when the Las Balsas men arrived in Ballina they were wearing ‘raggedy old clothes’ after being at sea for months.
‘One of the local shops here, I think it was Wallace’s, they provided clothes for them. Also, one of the fellows had lost his false teeth, and the local dentist helped him out there.’
Mrs Danks said the Ballina locals were very happy to welcome the expeditioners, who were originally planning to land in Queensland, but strong currents drove them south. ‘It was a thrill yes, exciting! The school children were walked down, and they were all lined up along the river.’
She remembers a big dinner for the visitors at the Ballina RSL Club, which featured prawns, and also making Anzac biscuits for them, which were much appreciated.
On the 47th anniversary of the expedition, Kelly Morton read some words written by Denise Alsar, the Captain’s widow, about her late husband. ‘He never had any material possessions, he gave them all away, never keeping anything for himself,’ she said.
‘He never understood why not everyone could get good medical care, a decent place to live, or a first class education. A good man who always acted according to his heart. Of all his expeditions, Las Balsas held a special place in his heart.’
Green Ballina
In 2020, surviving expeditioner Fernand Robichaud, who now lives in the Blue Mountains, remembered being struck by how green everything was when he first saw the coastline near Ballina.
‘When you’re on the water it’s always just blue and white. And of course all the lovely people that greeted us, we had the best welcome ever.
Looking back on the record-breaking voyage, he told The Echo, ‘In a way it’s probably a bit of a dream, you think oh, did I actually do this?’
The 50th anniversary of the Las Balsas Expedition’s arrival in Ballina is 21 November 2023. If you’ve got a story from those days you’d like to share, please make a comment below or get in touch with the Echo via: [email protected].
You can find out more about the Las Balsas Expedition and see the balsa raft in its purpose-built display at the Ballina Naval & Maritime Museum, behind the library and beside the river at 8 Regatta Avenue, Ballina.
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