The 250 nautical miles crossing from Budi-Budi to Alotau proves enjoyable, mainly sailing in a nice breeze and despite the tricky navigation around constellations of reefs poorly chartered.
The formalities in Alotau prove complex with quarantine giving us a bit of a headache. However we find a lovely anchorage sheltered from the tradewinds only 5 Nm across the bay. Waga Waga is a small bay at the step of high mountains covered with a very lush rain forest and giant trees. A small beach is at swimming distance and the locals will prove extremely friendly.
Just anchored in front of this village, we are attracted by some festive preparations onshore under a gigantic raintree (music, traditional dance, kaikai and a very big pig). We decide to join in and are informed that "big men from Moresby" are expected including the PNG Vice President and the Province Governor (an ex French Speaking Swiss). We are happy spectators of the show and honoured to be invited to share the lunch and meet the officials.
We are meeting Pastor Fred and his wife Rebecca (Pastor of the Pentecost congregation) who organised a delicious dinner for us. It is a difficult task for him to juggle with both the Christian faith and the inhabitants' belief in witchcraft. Traditions, customs are very present in the area. Fred and Rebecca will prove as keen to hear about our dimdim (white people) way of life as we are to hear about stories and myths of Milne Bay.
Our regular commuting to Alotau with the daily dinghy taking the villagers to the market place and our attendance at the Pentecost church, make us very popular with the locals. We feel very quickly accepted by the community.
Milne Bay was the scene of a major battle between the Japanese and the British during WWII. The forest but also the sea is full of wrecks and one can still see many relics of war machines.
After two weeks of "city life" we head to the Louisiades archipelago. This is a cruising ground for Australian yachties who come here for a few weeks of holidays (Cairns is only 4 days away). Although the playground is promising, the water is very murky with lot of sand and strong currents. Furthermore, we only have a week of good weather, the rest of the time is constantly windy (20 to 40 knots) and often overcast.
Our experience with the locals is a bit mixed : Some villagers in the most popular anchorages expect the dim dim to give goods outright and are somehow distant : it seems that Australian "tourist" yachties have spoiled somewhat the relation with the inhabitants.
The highlight of our stay will be the two weeks spent in Kamatal Island. Yvan who leaves with his family on the Motu welcomes the locals travelling in sailing outrigger canoes from Missima to the Calvados Chain Islands. Kamatal is conveniently located in the middle of the sailing routes and is a very natural stopover for the travellers who try to avoid sailing at night. This is a great pleasure to watch these true double-ender sailing canoe reaching 12m in length which are all made of wood and built only with hand tools.
Kamatal is a stunning small lagoon surrounded by passes and islets, the marine life is prolific and the water visibility is by far the best in the Louisiades.
Yvan is a proud man who enjoys the visit of foreign yachts and Chasse Spleen is the largest so far. He has built a "yacht club" (biggest hut of the village which we thought was the church!) in order to welcome dimdim visitors. He very kindly organised a dinner for us, killing the pig in our honour. Our relations with Yvan are very friendly (a bit more difficult with his wife who does not speak English) and he visits the boat everyday to have a "smoke" with Marc and enjoy a rest away from the village. He is very much in love with his way of life and sees not need to travel to other islands. His passion is the sailing canoes: we discover he is building a new one and we are stunned to see the entire process is done by hand including the planks (no saw, only axes, adzes, chisels and plane). This seems quite unreal in our days.
After two weeks we need to go back to Alotau to clear out of PNG with our visas expiring soon. We will make a short stop in Duchateau Islands (three wild inhabited motus south East of the Calvados Chain) to ensure we have enough of wind angle to maximise our chances to sail straight to Cairns (Australia). The boys are pestering us with their wish list: hamburgers and fries, Ice creams, legos, books and some baguettes! It is time for them to resume a "civilised" life!
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After 6 months in the Solomon Islands, we resume our travels heading for Papua New Guinea. Although we have not cleared with local authorities yet, we stop in Budi Budi atoll which is located very conveniently, half way between Ghizo and Milne Bay.
We arrive in clear weather and the combination of all shades of blue water, pristine islets surrounded by white sandy beaches, reminds of both Tuamotus (French Polynesia) and San Blas Islands (Panama).
Indeed we have found a little paradise. This is the most remote place we have been in since we started our journey as well as one of the most welcoming. It is needless to say that we will not stay here for a week as initially planned but for over a month! Bad weather towards the end of our stay gives us a good excuse to enjoy the premises a bit longer.
Every morning we are greeted by pods of bottlenose and spinner dolphins swimming around the boat. As we arrive to the villages we are welcomed by dozens of kids and adults alike, all smiles. The two villages are just beautiful. There are roughly 300 inhabitants (a mix of Polynesian and Melanesian blood) living in two of the islets. The huts are built on the sand and are made of pandanus and palm trees. The main means of transportation between the islands are wooden outrigger wooden some with "patchwork" sails made of any material that could take the wind (including bin or rice bags).
The appearance of the villages has probably not changed much in the past 200 years. There is no running water, no mean of communication, no electricity (not even a solar panel), no medical aid, no shop, and no use of money. There is a primary school but teachers have to volunteer to come to Budi Budi which to PNG standards is very isolated. The school is mostly taught in English although many adults do not speak English (Education reach the Island in the early 80's, few years after PNG independence). The school is mostly taught in English although many children and adults do not speak English.
The first island with the a few western "civilisation" basics is Woodlark which separated from Budi Budi by 50 nautical miles of unchartered coral reefs.
As usual the boys are surrounded by friends and having a hell of time, swimming, jumping in the water, having nice canoe rides or making fires. It is a fight every day to bring them back on Chasse Spleen to the delight of the villagers who find this very funny. We always try to be back on the boat before dawn to avoid any risk of mosquito bites unless we have appropriate protection (Malaria is a big problem here.) The locals clearly enjoy the boys' company and it is a welcome break for us to organise some activities with Chief Tao and not worry about the monsters.
Our relations with the villagers are great but one has to say that the arrival of Chasse Spleen offers an opportunity to find clothes, rice, hooks, fishing lines, batteries, rubber of the spear guns, fishing net. The villagers trade these goods for crayfish, coconut crabs, bananas, papayas, sweet potatoes, eggs or bush lime or beautiful bags made of pandanus. We are escorted by Chief Tao and his family to the church, (the biggest hut of the main islands) and this is the opportunity to give them a few books and pens that are needed for Sunday religious school. We also organise very popular video sessions with the boys' portable DVD player. 35 persons from all generations are sitting together watching the Lion King. This is quite an amazing experience.
Marc offers his Mc Gyver's services, i.e. repairs fins, the leaks in their rain-water tank, torches, radio as well as gives lecture on outboard maintenance.
The villagers mostly live from local resources such as fish, shells, clams, crayfish, chicken and pigs. Coconuts are used for every meal as a sauce, oil or as main course. They also have some vegetables and fruits. We still amazed by their ingenuity to grow taro or sweet potatoes in an extremely poor soil consisting mostly of coral and sand.
For the past 3 years, The men have collected "beche de mer" (sea cucumbers) for the Chinese. This has provided them with a new source of income and modern dinghies with outboards. They use this money to buy gasoline (outrageously expensive), rice, batteries, flour and other goods. The "beches de mer" season only last 6 months and they try to collect as many as possible before trade winds settle. This is a fairly dangerous activity, the main spot being 25 nautical miles out from the atoll in open sea, in fairly shallow water. This can be very rough when bad weather arises. In fact they lost a teenager on their last expedition and recovered him 8 hours later in the dark. We will hear few weeks later that a ban on beche de mer harvesting will be implemented as of October in all PNG. It will be very tough for our friends as the harvesting was their only source of money. To give up the little comfort brought by this source of cash (clothes, rice, oil, tobacco, outboard engine) will be hard for this people. Furthermore they have stopped building the large sailing canoes to travel to Alotau or Woodlark and we are not too sure how they will communicate with the outside world.
We are also invited by both chief for "kaikai", first Tao and Elsie prepare us a chicken with local delicacies, the chicken taste great although has been training for the marathon! A few days later, as Marc hinted that the local pigs look very healthy, Chief William orders to kill the pig for us and invite us for dinner. The meal is absolutely delicious. The pig has been cooking all afternoon with hot stones recovered by sand (the Polynesian way). They also prepared some papayas stuffed with coconut and coconut rice. We are treated like pashas. Noticing how much we enjoy our dinner, William prepares us a doggy bag with some pieces of pig. During our stay in Budi Budi, every time a pig is killed he will ensure that we get a few pieces for our dinner.
We naturally invite both chiefs on Chasse Spleen for kaikai, generally offering pasta with sauce as an introduction to "European cuisine". We also try to challenge them on some desserts with fruit tarts made with canned European fruits (pears) which they have never tried before. Our relation with both chiefs is very cordial and Marc goes fishing with Tao on a regular basis. He also brings the villagers giant barracudas (the biggest he ever caught) on a few occasions. They have never seen a "dim dim" bringing back big fishes!
Snorkelling in the area is not great mostly as a result of sand affecting the visibility. We however enjoy major shell hunts with the boys walking for hours on the reef to improve the quality of our collection. Among other activities, one evening Marc goes to pick up crayfishes with Tao. Although the conditions are poor (very strong currents) they managed to pick up 6 massive creatures within one hour. According to Tao, this was a very poor result! We also organise a coconut crab hunt with Tao and his wife Elsie. We leave in the canoes for a nearby island. The result is limited but we have a lot of fun searching in any hole or tree for the crabs. We resume our campaign the next day on another island and Tao spots a hole on the ground, where the beast is resting! Although tied up and left in a bucket on the deck, the creature manages to escape in the night are we are woken up by strange steps. We find that the crab travel from the bow to the stern of Chasse Spleen and was just about to fall on our head through the hatch. This could have proved quite painful! We rush to cook the beast and prepare ourselves for a great dinner!
On Sunday after church, the whole village sits outside under the trees. It is time for open talks or to raise any issues with the daily life. We are invited by both chiefs to stay. After the men have their smoke (Marc has brought half cigars for William and Tao), we head for a casual and unplanned kaikai (pumpkin and dumplings made of flour and coconut) at Chief Williams' place. This is one of the highlights of our stay, sharing some nice stories about the mystic rock between Budi Budi and Woodlark. We understand that the accident with the boy is the consequence of teenagers misbehaving few days earlier on the rock, and not showing enough respect to the spirits.
Williams also explains in details the kula ring which was in the past the inter islands trade route. The ring covers all Milne Bay Province from the Louisiades, Samarai, d'Entrecasteaux, Woodlark to Budi Budi. The large outrigger sailing canoes were visiting other islands of the ring with Bagis hanging at the bow as a sign of peace and trade willingness (Bagis are special necklaces made of shells equivalent to money or more precisely a bill of debt). The bagi would be negotiated against goods, land and wife. Budi Budi was the northern end of the kula ring and was renowned for pigs, grass skirts and canoes. Williams showed us one of his bagis which still nowadays represents substantial value.
This nice gathering is also the perfect occasion for Marc to chew some bettle nut with them (nicknamed PNG gum). The taste is apparently not great and I have never seen Marc spitting so much within a few minutes. Fortunately he did not chew it long enough for his teeth and mouth to become bright red, which is usually not a pretty sight!
After a month in Budi Budi and many unforgettable experiences we need to head to the mainland, Samarai and Alotau to officialise our entry in Papua New Guinea. We leave Budi Budi with regret, but will make sure we will return and bring back some goodies to our friends.
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We head north to the Arnarvon Islands in the Manning Strait (between Choiseul and Isabel Provinces). This marine reserve is famous for the conservation of turtles and giant clams. Arnarvon is the oldest reserve in the Solomon and was founded in cooperation with the three communities close to the islands. Locals can fish for substance, collect megapode eggs but turtles and clams are fully protected. Any commercial activity is banned.
We arrive in poor weather conditions and are relieved to see Philip, a ranger coming to meet Chasse Spleen to show us the way among coral heads to the anchorage in the lagoon. After a few hours of rest, we go onshore and are warned that turtles eggs are about to hatch. We did not expect the adventure to start so fast, but we follow our guide to reach a Green Turtle nest. We dig the sand and the boys make a path to help the baby turtles to reach the sea. It only takes a few minutes before we see the first little creatures come out of their nest. The boys are thrilled to help the turtles to the water, safe from "naughty crabs" (as Alexis calls them).
The giant clams are the other big attraction in the islands. They mostly sit in 1-2 meters of water and can reach 1.40m and 140 kg. They have all sorts of different colours and are absolutely beautiful. The coral around them is spectacular. Arnarvon is a place for snorkelling, diving is disappointing with very strong currents and lots of sand in the water affecting the visibility.
We decide to spend time with the rangers: capturing turtles for tagging purposes (turtle rodeo), patrolling beaches at night (when females are coming onshore to lay eggs) and patrolling Sikopo the northern Island. Turtle rodeo consists in spotting any turtle swimming and jumping on its back at the appropriate time to catch it and bring it back to the boat. The main purpose is to record turtles: tagging, measuring and ensuring they are healthy. After 4 tries, Marc successfully catches a small green female turtle. Sikopo is the home of milk fishes and crocodiles. Despite all our efforts, we will never see one!
Unfortunately we are not in Arnarvon during the best season and will not see a turtle laying eggs but we will be the spectators of a turtle mating. The poor female has to cope with three very ardent males riding on her back. They absolutely ignored us and the dinghy was merely one meter away from the show. Before our departure, we are lucky enough to assist to the hatching of Hoxbills turtle. This is an unforgettable experience.
We promised to visit Peava and Kavolavata before leaving the Solomon Islands and we have to go as our visas are soon expiring. We are greeted by our usual friends. Kelsi has been working on a big "Spirit of Solomon" representing Marc spearfishing a kingfish (Spannish mackerel).
On our way to Ghizo, we stop in Noro (tuna fishing port) for a refuelling operation. Since the hose is too short, the boys (Marc and Kelsi) need to fill, roll and empty 12 barrels (250 litres each) of diesel by hand into our tanks. Marc's face is partially burned after siphoning diesel the entire afternoon. We reach Ghizo safely to enjoy our last week in the Solomon.
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