We advanced a good 9 miles today on the trek to Green Island. Green island is a little atoll like island with high hills on the surrounding parts. It lies in the north area between Bouganville and New Ireland. If possible we will turn for Kapingamaringi from here. More likely we will hop the rest of the islands along the northeast coast of New Ireland and stop in at Kaveing. Then sail to Manu where we will finally be able to sail NE to Kapingamaringi. We shall see. We'll turn right at the first opportunity.

We are anchored in Oema island. Oema island is a deserted jungle coated island with three bays on the south shore and a huge bird population. The first bay is deep and settled in the northerly conditions. The second is not so deep and the third is on the Southeast point and would only be good in a pure NW wind. Squalls and fluctuations in the wind direction had us decidedly anchored in bay #1.

It is deep here but if you look around you can find a 360 anchor spot in 90 feet. If you don't mind hanging off the island you can anchor in 30 feet of nice sand. Should a squall come through and back you around you will certainly be on the beach and the drag slope is steep. The other option is the one Eric on Whisteler chooses.

That is to anchor in 50 feet with short scope (counteracted by the fact that you are pulling the anchor uphill), back toward the beach, then jump in an inflatable kayak to tie a line to a tree. It is the most work to get settled and to depart but it gives you the best back yard. That close to shore you are also totally out of the wind, which can be good or bad, and you need to deal with the additional insect population the easy access provides.

All in all I think it is the way to go in some of these spots, especially if you are staying a couple nights. Our 4AM out time and lack of a floating kayak have us lying to one hook off of the bow for the time being.

The little beach in the NW end of the bay is lovely and I'm sure there's a lot of good snorkeling and scuba diving around the edges. Alas we will be out early.

We were also sad to leave North Bay on Fauro. It was perhaps even a little nicer than this bay. Tuna can be found jumping about at all hours. We dropped a line in the water right over a group of feeding fish on the way here and instantly caught a Little Tunny. Hideko made us some yummy sushi for dinner and we shared the bounty Angelique and Whistler.

Things are very calm as I type at 6PM, so with luck we will have a light wind motor to Kieta tomorrow.

P.S. Hideko and I have now watched every Star Trek episode and movie ever made. It was a fun 28 seasons. We now have Eric on Whistler hooked on Enterprise. He is on track to finish season one in about a week...

Hideko and I have switched to Academy Award Best Picture films now. We watched Wings, Broadway Melody and All Quiet on the Western Front and hope to proceed through to the present in chronological order. We'll see.