19th September 2016 - Panapompom #2 (PNG)

Monday 19^th September 2016

Tomorrow we will leave Panapompom Island.  I don’t think we will ever go anywhere with such a cute name…

We have had a moderate number of visitors, and we have been quite stern with them – only five allowed on the boat at any one time.

Four young chaps from the Council of Wardens (there isn’t a chief on Panapompom, just this council, based in another village on the southern end of the island) came, in a motor boat which need fuel.  We explained that we are much more wary after our experience in the Trobriand Islands and they were very sad about it all.  They said that people in the Louisiades are MUCH more honest.  (Of course…)

We have sent out requests for lobster and maybe we will be having a thrilling dinner.  (Or maybe not…)

I didn’t go for a swim, although one of our early morning visitors (Stephen, with his small girls Emma and Margaret, at 6.30am,) assured me that while there are lots of crocodiles, they are very frightened of humans and do not venture out in daylight.  I did, however, get into the water and swim up and down all four sides of the boat with a green scouring pad, trying to clean off the green fronds of slime which have built up to luxuriant depths and lengths.  Again, already (sigh).

One of our visitors this morning, Ken, used to be a magistrate.  He is now retired and lives in the village.  He is desperate for some glasses and covets Pete’s spare pair.  I think Pete will trade his spares for a bucket of lobster but how is blind Ken to get a bucket of lobster??  With Ken was a hitchhiker in his canoe, a pleasant, quiet boy called Issay.  He was wearing filthy shorts which were totally ripped at every possible seam.  I am not sure how the legs stayed on, and his bottom must have been hanging out very uncomfortably.  I had a brainwave – unearth the sewing machine!  Within minutes I had stitched up all of the seams and given them some extra zigzag for permanence.  Before I gave them back to him I gave them a lively interlude in a bucket of soapy water and – voila, new shorts for Issay!

I am leaving the machine on the table because so many of our visitor’s clothes are ripped and shredded.  If I can’t replace them all, I can surely mend and wash them.  Pete thinks I am NUTS!

(The internet connection seems to be letting me put up my blog, sans photos, of course.  But I am having much more trouble receiving and sending emails.  A mystery of the sea…)

PS - FIVE big lobster were delivered to us, just before dark!!  Gourmet dinner coming up!

18th September 2016 - Panapompom Day

Sunday 18^th September 2016

So, a Panapompom Day…We haven’t gone ashore, mainly because Pete has been working ALL DAY on trying to rig up some sort of autopilot control thingy.  And also because…we are still just a bit tired.

But Panapompom has come to us.  Of course!  Many canoes arrived, bearing luscious pawpaw to make Pete happy, beautiful bananas, tomatoes, greens, pumpkin.  They all seemed happy with the items I traded back to them.  We did allow people on board, but no more than four at a time.  They all were deeply suspicious and resentful of The Others.  For example, our first visitors were teenage boys, with Tom as spokesman.  A bit later some young women came out, with furrowed brows.  “Do not give anything to Tom!  He is tricky!  He will not give you anything!”  Too late baby…I had already given him a tennis ball and some diving glasses in return for some gorgeous fruit; it all seemed fair to me.

I am being much more ruthless.  This afternoon I had two mothers with an assortment of children.  They each got a biscuit and a bracelet and a chat, then I read them two stories – I think the mothers enjoyed them far more than the children did.  Then we sang Heads and Shoulders, Knees and Toes and I sent them on their way.

In the morning went for a lovely long swim in the cool clear water.  Our firstcomers had assured me there were no crocodiles.  But my afternoon ladies laughed merrily and said that there are MANY crocs.  They only eat the pigs and the dogs, they said.  But…I don’t think I will go in again, at Panapompom!

17th September 2016 - in the Louisiades at last (and a bit buggered...)

Saturday 17^th September 2016

10 degrees 45.536S

152 degrees 24.516E

Panapompom Island

Louisiades PNG

6.5m

We are now in the Louisiades.  It seems to have taken many MANY days, pushing against the sea, against the wind.

But here we are!

And there is a tower on a distant island – maybe the internet will work??  There were certainly no towers in 2011…progress!