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!