25th - 27th July 2016 - Manus Island to Nauna Island to New Ireland (Keviang)

Monday 25^th July 2016

02 degrees 00.455S

147 degrees 16.592E

Lorengau

Manus Island

5.2m

Manus Island is big.  It took us ages to sail along the northern coast to get to Lorengau – the nearest shop, by the way, for the people of the Ninigo Islands.  A very very long way on 2XS and even longer on a little wooden sailing canoe…

We didn’t have much time in Lorengau, just enough to go to get a SIMcard and some load for my modem and Pete’s phone.  And to have a beer at the hotel on the waterfront, where we spoke to the very dignified manager, Albert Posungol.  We asked him about the detention centre.  There are about 1,000 detainees, all wearily awaiting “processing.”   But the good thing is that they seem to be very welcome on the island.  They stroll around and go shopping and swimming on the beaches, and many of them have jobs. In fact, two of them are working at the hotel, one as a chef, one as a kitchen hand.   But I am sure they will be very happy indeed when they finally have a place they can call home.

02 degrees 12.340S

148 degrees 11.742E

Nauna Island

10.5m

Nauna Island Boys

The next day we had one more stop, and an unlikely anchorage off Nauna Island.  It was late afternoon when we finally, cautiously, dropped anchor.  There were whoops and yells from the clifftops – a whole tribe of boys, running through the jungle, climbing trees to wave at us!  We had innocently thought this was a deserted island…but no!  Within a few minutes we had two canoeloads of boys and men on board, happy to tell us about their cheery little island with a population of 500.

Three without trousers

The little boys, so David told us, cheerily, had “forgotten to wear their trousers.”  Never mind…I took them up to the front of the boat and taught them Heads and shoulders knees and toes, which they loved, and then read them The Waterhole.  STORRREE! they said, their eyes glittering.

One who remembered trousers

As it grew almost too dark to see they hopped off they boat and paddled away, reluctantly.  We had a very long day and night ahead of us so we went to bed very early.

STORREE!!!

At 2am Pete got up to look at the stars on deck and he tripped over two silent young men, in the cockpit… (I am SO glad it wasn’t me up there, checking out the stars, possibly stark naked…)  “Hmmm, what’s going on, fellers?” he asked?  “Hello Peter, it is Jack.  And Steven.  We are looking after the boat for you.  We got here at 10 o’clock.”  They had been sitting there silently and happily all that time.  Pete didn’t think they were doing much harm so he left them to it and reported back a bit later that they were both fast asleep, curled up on the outdoor carpet.

In the morning, early, I made them a cup of tea and we sent them on their way in their little canoe.  We looked around and realised they could have taken: headtorches, ropes, binoculars, snorkels masks flippers, our boatshoes, an umbrella – all big ticket items on the islands.  Such lovely gentle harmless boys (16 years old.)  But I hope they don’t; do this too often; I imagine that some people would be so nervous and terrified they would be shot, or at least tasered!

Wednesday 27^th July

02 degrees 34.815S

150 degrees 47.372E

Kavieng Harbour

New Ireland

6.2m

Another overnighter with no autopilot and with the Raymarine screen turning itself on and off.  This is so very much NOT fun at 4am, when humans are at their lowest ebb!   But the sea was calm, the wind slight, so it was just tedious rather than dangerous.

And we got to Kavieng, a nice little town with several supermarkets bursting with tinned spam in many manifestations. 

We thought we would go to Immigration and Customs, and the supermarkets.  The latter were open, thank goodness, but everything else was shut because guess what – it was a public holiday!  Yes again we have arrived exactly on time to find everything shut up like a clam.  And nobody can ever again tell me Australia has too many public holidays!  NOT compared to the rest of the world, we don’t!

I managed to get some load for my modem and it works like a treat for about three minutes and then shuts down for many hours.  Very annoying…This makes it particular hard to book airline tickets, which usually requires several hours of concentrated attention in cyberspace!

In one of the supermarkets I saw a small toddlerboy with a low-slung trolley basket.  He was slamming packets of biscuits into it, most industriously.  Nobody stopped him!  When it was fully loaded he pushed the trolley importantly down the aisle and around the shop, with a few dreamy women looking at him fondly.

We stopped briefly in the one and only pub before walking back to the beach where we had left the dinghy.  I was very tickled with the sign above the door. 

In the bar there were about ten men, any one of whom might have been Joe Schulze – they weren’t enforcing the dress code!  (No shoes, many hats, many raggedy clothes…)