Solidaire: SailBlogs

Liapari

Ella and Eric — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:30:03 -0600

To our delight someone has lent us an inverter. So in our final days of our travels we get the fun of the diversion of our laptops for email, blogs and most importantly, the enjoyment of watching Denzel Washinton (28 films on one cheap pirated DVD). Only Sven will understand with our previous 40 film collection of Nicolas Cage. How they get them on one DVD and still in good quality I do not know. You can go into a well respected store and it will say on the wall 'new pirated movies to copy', to resell. Denzel and Nick Cage came in mass produced, quality, high gloss packaging and have Chinese subtitles on as default. In places like we've been the western price for a DVD is completely prohibitive, public TV is ultra low coverage or non-existent and there are no movie theaters. This is one example where major studios can't complain about loss of potential sales, even comparatively rich western tourists like us aren't about to spend $840 (NZ$30 x 28) on Denzel Washington, so the typical 'lost revenue' calculations are completely wrong. We live in a time where so-called 'global' culture is increasingly defined by Hollywood so how can we reasonably cut whole nations of from that? (Continued...)

No more power

Eric and Ella — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 03:50:05 -0600

Hi everyone, just a quick update, to let you know that unless we get very lucky this will be our last blog until we get home on the 17th. Our inverter is broken so no more power to the laptops. We will keep writing blogs and may just have to do a bulk posting when we get home. This also means no more email from us, but we got no more sailing to do so unless you hear about an airline Solomon disaster then we are safe and sound. (Continued...)

Bye Bye PNG

Ella and Eric — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 03:50:03 -0600

We are rolling along the eastern coast of Bougainville, almost ready to say good bye to PNG and return into Solomon waters. The waves are steep and the wind is fair, which has us bouncing and running downwind with some pace. The full moon brightening the sky brings comfort to those scared-of-the-dark feelings and the silvery waves spread silvery caps along the water's surface. We are feeling reasonably cheery, ready to knuckle down on watch and dive into a book over the night. Nearby the mountainous outcrops of the mineral rich soil of Bougainville hover close by, producing many a reef which we have to attentively navigate around under the bright night sky. (Continued...)