31st October 2016 - Bagaman Island hospitality

Monday 31st October 2016

Tired but happy at Hobart airport

Yesterday was warm and balmy in Hobart; today it will be cool and clear.  So nice to have variations in temperature again!  We are very busily and happily  catching up with friends and relations.  Of the food!  Oh the love!

Bagaman hospitality

Sailau at dusk

We have given a lot of goods to our Bagaman friends.  The boat was, after all, loaded with donations for the Louisiades in 2013…But the islanders have been scrupulous in their generosity to us in return.

Moses caught a big Spanish mackerel on his first epic stay on 2XS

Dinner at the Gulo house was all very pleasant.  I find it a bit difficult having to sit on the floor…nobody has tables or chairs, or indeed any furniture at all.  We asked, for example, where Gulo and Mrs Gulo (Sanity) sleep and Gulo pointed at the hard wooden floor…my bones ached at the thought of it!  Moses, Lyla and the three little boys sleep on a wooden platform in an annexe.  I asked if anyone has mattresses and Moses said, wistfully, “No.  And remember when I slept on your boat, when you took me to Misima?  I thought I had gone to heaven!”

Local island lobster, so pretty, so delicious!

We sat around, under a solar light, and had a drink (Pete had brought beer and wine, which we drank in mugs.)  There were about five men, about ten small boys, and…me.  Sanity and Lyla were in the kitchen annexe, banished from our sight.  Lyla made a brief appearance and put the food on the mat in front of us.  Lobster for Pete and me, vegetables, rice.  We had to eat while they all watched.  The men watched politely; the little boys watched hungrily.  When we had eaten, the men ate, then the boys got the leftovers.  Lyla and Sanity had apparently eaten on their own in the kitchen…We did have a nice time; the food was very good, and we were made to feel very welcome. 

Pete's 2011 head wound

And Pete didn’t stand up suddenly under a sharp wooden beam; we left unscathed!

The next night was dinner at Letma and Ali’s house, in a stony little cove in the curve of the bay.  They live in an idyllic setting, with their own little bit of beach, some sheltering greenery, a garden of flowers, fruit, vegetables.  Ali built the house himself, and apologised for its simplicity.  It is, of course, just beautiful, with a wide verandah, where we sat for an hour or so before dinner was ready.  Beautiful but…very empty, although I noticed one or two cushions on the sleeping platform, where the three little boys sleep with their mother and father and, at the other end of the platform, under the eaves, a big pile of taro. 

2XS from Letma and Ali's cove

Dinner was delicious.  Local veggies and – four boiled lobster to share!