12/24/2009, Rabaul
Our trip to Kokopo yesterday was exciting, in the morning we caught a bus which was sitting on the back of a truck with wooden bars slanted to sit on. The buses are called "PMVs", standing for People Moving Vehicles. Some name come up with by a bureaucratic official that we think is quite funny. But it is a really good transport system given the amount of people they manage to transport around, so we liked it despite our sore bums. It was a fascinating experience just being able to be on this rackety PMV, squeezed between people, outside on this truck, for the one hour trip. This is many peoples daily commute and the trip offered us beautiful views and insight into the region.
Arriving in Kokopo -we are are the only white people in the whole town and they treat us differently, Eric jokes and says its affirmative action- as we go to line up to put our bags in the bag check to go into the supermarket, security tells us we do not have to do this, and are allowed to go in the supermarket with our bags. Positive discrimination to encourage white people to "shop" at supermarkets??? And then as we got to the ATM, there is a large line where it goes way out side the room where the ATMS are situated, about 10 people can fit in the room. As we approach through the line and reach the room, immediately a security guard stands outside the room so no one can get in after us- we are allowed a private session with the ATM so to speak, instead of having 8 people lined up behind us. It was an odd feeling, treated so obviously different to the other people- and given these "privileges" of trust. Its a weird racism towards white people form a Papua New Guinea community. Positive discrimination to encourage more tourists? I was afraid that it would make things worse- ie. make people resent us but perhaps it is just the reaction of a community trying to make up for the bad/dangerous reputation of their country.
Talking about bank security, at some point when we were waiting in the line two trucks pulled up and about ten guys with large shotguns, assault rifles and body armour jumped out, these guys looked mean, "private security" looking after the money transferred. Rather scary.
Anyhow Kokopo was buzzing full of people, it was a lovely shiny sunny day but everyone was carrying bright colored umbrellas - using them as parasols, that really made it feel bright. The fastest growing city in Papua New Guinea we are told- The shops were full- as you would expect anywhere a couple days before Christmas and with Christmas music and decorations everywhere it really feels like Christmas. We devised a plan to buy each other Christmas presents while we were in the same shops.
Also on the news the headline story we watched was about Christmas- the headline was that people were forgetting what the true message of Christmas was- from 3 different church pastors, who were saying there is too much focus on 'giving' and not on the celebration of Jesus Christ and the gifts of God.. something like that. It was bizarre- a reminder that PNG is a very Christian country. In New Zealand people are reminded the opposite! That it is about giving rather than receiving. Perhaps giving has an importance in Melanesian custom that I don't know about. When you give someone something here they are semi-indebted to you until they give something back- which for some yachts has began a 'giving war' with each party one-upping the other over and over. Still, a lot, even the majority of the women are wearing 'pacific gowns' similar to New Caledonia, they are apparently originated from the days that missionaries gave them to women to show that they had been baptised. It's hard to imagine they've forgotten the Christian part of Christmas..
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12/24/2009, Rabaul
On my Birthday I got to wake up to pancakes and then a stroll around Rabaul, we saw the museum and Japanese bunkers. A stroll around Rabaul was amazing and it is one of the most interesting places we have spent time yet. Apparently we are lucky to have arrived when we did, as a day before it was flooding and the wind was spraying such constant ash that you needed an umbrella to walk around- perhaps that is what added to the sereneness of it all. We saw destroyed roads, and churches with their crosses bent, plenty of ruins. They have a massive built in stormwater systems which is as indicator of how much rain they get and now it is the beginning of the rainy season. Looking at the lonely planet it has an indication of where all the roads used to go and you can see how it must of been one of the prettiest cities in the south pacific, now it is definitely one of the most interesting! We have been absolutely amazed. I liked spending my birthday in such a special place.
Our quarantine man talked a bit more about the 1994 eruption for us: "people started moving by instinct with no deaths, there was a plan for immigration after the activity in the eighties but when it started shaking with - eruptions earthquakes after less than 5 minute intervals.." he said, "people in town started first to move, it reminded me of pictures of rwanda- everyone with children -at the roadside walking past with all their belongings and everything they own moving to safer grounds... it erupted at 6 o'clock Monday morning - pumice filling the whole bay.. people thought you could walk across the whole harbour which was filled with huge pieces of pumice".
Of course then for the full strange experience in Rabaul a strange "rabid" dog came and bit me unprovoked, I didn't even realise it was there, just minding my own business until a few seconds up to where it bit me out of nowhere. It really shook me up. Luckily someone who the dog may have belonged to or who knew the dog quickly yelled at it, chasing it away as it gnawed at my calf. Only a slight bruise was produced, the teeth of a dog are not that sharp lucky and it did not hold on too long and pierce my skin. Too quickly it happened and I did not really have time to face my attacker. Nonetheless I am definitely a cat person now! I am hoping the dog bite is not an indication of what the rest of my year is supposed to be like.
I got treated to nice strangers buying me drinks for lunch, 'Trade Winds' a Papua New Guinea vodka RTD which is perfectly named for sailors, and held their 21st anniversary key for some photos. Miriam and Anna who are both single mother locals chatted and drank with us and as the conversation turned to Papua New Guinea politics they raved about how corrupt the government was and that the Australian colonials never should have left. I asked about women politicians and Miriam said "No there aren't any because if the women were in politics they would do a damn good job and fix everything" I liked this quote. And these women who were so different to what we had expected from Papua New Guinea. Anna has invited us to carols for tonight!
Later Eric baked me a birthday cake and tidbits, and we went out for dinner at the Rabaul hotel and later opened a very precious and delicious bottle of dessert wine that Pat gave to Eric. It was a fantastic day! Now perhaps people will be less patronizing of my age being to young to be sailing? I mean its crazy how I am starting to think of 35 year olds as young because they are the closest cruisers we meet to our age...
Anyway I cannot wait for tonight, for christmas carols and a french chrismas eve dinner. We have decorations up on the boat, christmas CDs playing and stockings hanging from the cabin top but of course I am missing home at this time.
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12/21/2009, Kokopo
We have arrived in Kokopo and were in the process of clearing into customs. The anchorage is rolly as hell and the place stinks similar to Rotorua. As we sailed in large areas of pumice floated in the water, and the air is hazy with volcanic ash. The water is as clear as anything and we can see starfish on the sand bottom floor. Kokopo is close to the city of Rabaul, originally the largest on New Britain, which has dismantled with volcanic eruptions and the population has supposedly sprouted back up in Kokopo instead, moving away from the ash filled Rabaul, well anyway we are heading there now. And as the saying goes "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas" covered in ash from the terrifying volcano. We can see it from here spurting out ash and steam.
As we motor the short distance from Kokopo to Rabaul the landscape changes completely, here it is completely barren, Mordor feeling, totally deprived of life. It's an amazingly desolate sight as we weave our way between floating pumice patches. Rabaul looks like a post-apocalyptic movie set, abandoned houses and burnt trees line the shore on it's outskirts, it's as if the 1994 eruption happened just last month. Appropriately a large thunderstorm chooses this moment to approach - enhancing the mood with thunderclaps that echo off the surrounding volcanoes as we anchor near a small jetty and see that even the beach is black ash.
Papua is a far cry from the flat seas and windless days of the Solomon's, instead we have plenty of wind (something we are not used to now) and are forced to beat up into the swell. Furthermore last week was the first south pacific cyclone of the year, Mick, formed near the Solomons and headed east. Happy that we are completely safe from it, cyclones are an important factor that has meant the hurry towards the northwest. Hearing of Mick makes our mission relevant.
We are back to 'civilisation' so to speak, with paved and busy roads, large TV screens in the banks, and much bigger cities. We're looking forward to finding some well stocked supermarkets - even 'large cities' in the Solomons didn't have more than a few basic items. The population of Papua is six million, making it comparable to New Zealand and much larger than its pacific island cousins. The Solomons had only five hundred thousand and Vanuatu only two hundred thousand.
Having made it to Papua New Guinea we are revising our security plans for this infamous crime haven. The locals we met when we anchored on New Ireland on the way here (aren't the names terrible) were very friendly, traded coconuts and told us about a nearby market. Some kids spent a long time hanging around our boat absorbing the unusual novelty of it all and kept their hands responsibly to themselves. Everyone in Kokopo seemed very open and welcoming as well, but the warnings have stuck in our heads - we lock the boat carefully and keep everything inside and out of sight.
The cops we saw in Kokopo had automatic shotguns and military style helmets - well, with no uniforms we hoped they were cops... An aussie man who has lived here for 40 years told us we didn't have to worry about thieves in Rabaul for a while "The police shot them all last week, they don't F*ck about here". I don't think he was joking.
One of the most shocking statistics about Papua New Gunea are the rates of rape and sexual violence towards women. According to the statistics its the norm rather than the exception which make me frightened. One article I read said that the police officers had to be requested to not rape the victims, like they didn't know that was wrong or unacceptable?
Anyhow from now on I am Eric's so-called "property", as sexist and demeaning as that is too me, in this place it will keep me away from harm. People often ask us if we are married and of course we deny this completely, Eric for a start wants to make a political statement about different forms of relationships being acceptable, ie non marriage, and we're not so concerned about the missionary inspired judgment. But here that either puts me as 'fair game' or as some sort of prostitute - not a good way to get respect. I have felt that in the Solomons anyway. In PNG therefore, we will let people assume we are married - and not correct them if they do. Hopefully this should mean more respect and safety for me.
In Melanisia, both Vanuatu and the Solomon's have talked about a bride price. The male when want to marry someone's daughter, must pay a fee to her parents, something like some pigs or special customary shell money as various people have told us along the way, cash works too these days. This fee they have paid now means they 'own' the woman. She belongs to him. Which makes it difficult for a women to leave in tricky situations and seems to be representative of the gender relations that exist here. The term 'bride price' has supposedly been coined by colonials and has made the situation worse, as the arguers for defending pacific customs say when challenged on human rights. The women and children belong to the man.
So for outward purposes and safety reasons here - I 'belong' to Eric. yuck, yuck!
In many customs it works the other way which raises interest with me, many customs play a dowry price, that is the females family pay the man when a couple gets married. So why doesn't the man belong to the women then???
Anyway- Christmas is going to be quite different to my last 20 years I have spent christmas doing the exact same thing. I am going to miss my large lunch with my dads side of the family and my large dinner with my mums side of the family. But it will be an exciting different sort of Christmas, a plan is being devised with two other yachts that are round this part who happen to be French so it looks like we will be having a French Christmas in Papua New Guinea!
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12/18/2009, Bogainville Waters
Passed into Papa New Guinea (PNG) waters at midday a couple of days ago, passage making our way to the eastern tip of New Britain. It is off the mainland of PNG. We are heading in a French convoy of three ships although one has raced ahead with its speedy engine in the lack of wind periods. A solo sailor who is happy to split our night watch into 3 shifts makes for a different sort of cruise- but I am unable to comprehend all radio communications, all held in Francais. Wind is rare at 5 degrees south, so close to the equator this time of year but we adore it when we have it and currently at midnight we have 7-8 knots of winds and I am loving our 3.5 knot speed that we're moving.
I enjoyed our time at the Treasuries, with trade we are well stocked up with food, Snake beans, pawpaw, lemons, chilies, egg plants, tomatoes, large sweet grapefruit, beans, bananas, kumara, eggs, crabs and coconuts. Very helpful in feeding us. There were always many canoed around us, lots of curious pikininis (pigeon English for children) watching us closely, smiling, playing, but it can be tiresome work always being the zoo animal so to speak. We made some interesting friendships with a man named Dominic, and I liked this man called Roy Junior as well as his friendly family - his dad, Roy Senior, now over 70, used to work in broadcasting, announcing for the BBC in the Solomons and even spent three years working for Radio Hauraki!
Visits in the night made it a tiresome adventure. at least for Eric. The first night we got a visit at 10 o'clock at a night and then again at midnight from groups of men asking if we wanted to hear Christmas Carols, they were high or perhaps drunk and slightly scary, as any group of men paddling out to you in the night when you are asleep feels. We heard their singing as they caroled to one of the other boats. The next night at 4am a man came and asked if we wanted to trade for coconut crabs.. It was 4am in the morning! 'Go away we are sleeping' Eric said too politely. Another yacht complained to the chief. The trouble being as we are told that it being so close to Christmas everyone living in the cities come home to their villages spreading the "crime" and "destruction" of the cities. Ie. they blame it on people from Honiara, Ghizo etc, sometimes calling them Rascals, PNG has many Rascals we are told often.
Roy Junior escorted us around the large village of 600 people, many of them pikininis. It was amazing to think this whole village has been rebuilt since the large tsunami of 2007. We were keen to purchase a few basic items, flour, eggs and milk powder- and it was interesting being led around from shop to shop- these shops of course were completely ambiguous -just peoples homes that seemed to have each only one or two random items in bulk, someone with Rice, someone with crackers, others with sugar and flour etc. It felt like asking people in their little huts whether we could purchase their limited supply of personal food. But still nice in the heat to get a close glimpse into the reality of their homes.
We also visited their Church which was built by New Zealanders during WW2, it had a little memorial plaque for the US and NZ soldiers who had perished there in the Treasuries, listing all the names. The allies had bombed the previous church, ironically hiding Japanese ammo. Happily, a NZ army intelligence Sargent had been covertly landed before the invasion to warn the locals to hide in the jungle - so none were killed. The chief showed us many photos of Treasuries history, very unfortunate that a lot were damaged by the Tsunami. Their were photos from the war, and from October the 27th (the anniversary of the allied landing)when they have many visitors for a veterans day sort of thing. There was much explanation over the war, which I guess is bizarre in a way - like as it just happened yesterday or something - we have moved on so to speak. Then again it affected them much more than it did people in New Zealand (their whole village lived in the jungle for over a year to stay safe if the Japanese counter-attacked) and it is also the reason for some of the few visitors they receive, so it's natural for them to place importance on it. We did not realise when we started planning our route that we would be doing a World War II history cruise!
Next stop Rabaul where the Japanese had a major base, at the peak of the war its garrison was 97,000 troops which the allies, sensibly, never bothered to attack (although 20,000 bombs were dropped on the area). The major interest in Rabaul nowadays is the fact that in 1994 it was completely flattened when Mt Tavurvur erupted and buried the city under 1-2m of heavy ash, collapsing most of the buildings. It's said to still be an impressive sight with ash and rubble creating an apocalyptic landscape in the old town. Mt Tavurvur is still active and we've heard rumors that it had an eruption just last week so we're looking forward to some more great volcano sights.
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12/15/2009, The Treasury Islands
The sea was stunningly blue today - I think it s a bit like the Inuit when they talk about snow, so many different names, that what the sea is like for sailors - can never get over it.
So as we reached the Treasury Islands today it felt like this was a special place, some places just vibrate with a certain shine to them. As we anchored we were overwhelmed by the amount of people who came out and welcomed us, swimming and paddling with many kids, curious about us. We have one guy who is going to dive for crayfish for us tomorrow and many that have offered to trade produce from their gardens when we go ashore to the village. Tired from the lack of sleep from our passage last night we went to an ex- Kiwi and US WWII base which was absolutely littered with ex army supplies, many rusting planes crashed, rusting anti-aircraft guns etc, the place was full of it. It felt surreal as a man named Roy, aged 75, remembered the war and shared memories and information with us, he was 8 when NZ troops landed here. It's amazing to think that during the course of his lifetime he has watched brand new army equipment rust and disintegrate in the jungle around his home - to end up as the rusty wreckage we see today. It was picture to think of this man, being a young boy when perhaps my great grandfather came on land and fought the Japanese.
Yes, the Treasuries have a specifically special connection with New Zealand. It was a Kiwi force who defeated the Japanese here- to make way for an Allied base to attack the much larger neighbor Bougainville in Paupa New Guinea. It was also the first on land defeat that the Japanese aggressor faced, and here in the Treasuries and well as in Villa Lavella were the places whee NZ ran its own military operations. And as we came ashore I wondered what it would have been like for them, certainly our book on the pacific war, shows common experiences, intense bush, intense heat, intense mosquitos and intense rain. The steep cliffs make us wonder how the soldiers fared when they were landing.
Coming just from Villa Lavella (the other historical place for NZ in the pacific), a bigger island still in the western Solomons has a boat yard that we will store our boat come February. We stayed a couple of nights and despite my distaste for the immature, bigoted misogynist kiwi owner and group of friends that had come for a kiwi style 'bbq' the location was a nice sheltered lagoon. We got these pumpkin sized grapefruit traded with a local which was a highlight, and saw some leech like fish/squid near our boat while Eric was about to jump in, a little afraid of these hovering creatures- I suggested throwing in something in, sure enough they scattered away squirting ink everywhere.
We'll be checking out the weather forecast to figure out the best time to leave here for our passage to Rabaul. Fingers crossed we'll have a few days to spend here first.
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12/11/2009, Liapari
You may think that Cruising is quite the solitary experience, just Eric and I stuck in our tiny boat with only each other to talk to, that is not at all true and specifically recently around Ghizo and Noro our social life has kept us celebrating the 'holiday' months. Recently it feels like its more of a 'western' drinks holidays than a cultural learning experience. Still, when all the cultural locals are -still- trying to sell us more of their carvings (a 'traditional' industry started by the church) it can be nice to relax with non-salesmen.
Just in the last few days we have had drinks with NZ/Aus boat Auspray and the Anglo Saxon crews round Ghizo, an altruistic ship that helped lots after the tsunami here two years ago, drinks and dinner with Basque separatist and revolutionist old man (72 years!) Gerard and his young women crew Meline. It's tricky trying to talk French but Europeans so far live up to the stereotype of a well supplied fancy liquor cabinet. We had drinks on British Catamaran Tigger with the entire anchorage, lots of luxury space but perhaps a bit libertarian as the discussion turned. Drinks with slow and heavy Aussie boat Second Wind, neo-conservative, ex-army and max security prison chef Brian sleeps outside, with a flare gun that fires shotgun shells. He also puts down boards with nails in them to keep off intruders (eeek). And of course we've had guests around to our tiny abode too. Most recently we had a lovely evening with Gerard and Meline sipping G&T and whiskey, speaking broken English and French and enjoying a delicious tomato and shellfish fettucine.
Having cleared out of cutsoms at Noro we have headed back towards the islands surrounding Ghizo, not being able to make all the way too Vella Lavella. We have had nice North West monsoon weather, which feels like it has finally come through, it means tacking upwind, but its much much much better that our days without wind that have been plaguing us and forcing us to turn the motor on throughout the Solomons. Both of us are suffering from a side effect of our anti malarial drugs which makes us consider going off them - we won't, but it sure is annoying.
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