Photo shows Corsair perched on the edge of the fringing coral reef inside the lee of Kwatoto Island in PNG's D'Entrecasteaux Group.

We are in Manly Boat Harbour on the west side of Moreton Bay with Sundari, making last minute preparations to head north along the Queensland coast. Alison's old school chum, Clodagh, will be sailing with us for the first part of our trip, flying into Brisbane from WA's Albany, while sister Sue from Sheffield and the French Charentes, will join us later this year.

We were here 35 years ago in our first yacht, the 1933 kauri sloop, "Corsair", also preparing to head north towards the Torres Strait after a visit from Alison's sister and brother in law, Susan and Nick.

Little did we know at the time that we would end up teaching and living in Papua New Guinea for nearly ten years, an experience like nothing else we have ever had, before or after. At the time we sort of blundered into life in PNG, having little cruising money to sail on to Asia and the Red Sea as we had originally planned.

In the end, we taught in three PNG government high schools, mostly in rural areas, and with mostly PNG citizens as teachers and colleagues. The last year we were in PNG we had a cooperative agreement with the nascent tourist bureau in Milne Bay Province to approach the island province's villagers to see whether eco tourism development would be acceptable to them.

From a sailing point of view, it was the most challenging, dangerous, exhilarating and rewarding of times, often sailing in waters that had never been charted sufficiently, or at all, more often than not without a working auxiliary engine, relying on sailing skills that we had to develop fast to avoid a multiude of potential calamities.

Our status as teachers in PNG's own education system gave us a window onto a world that few have ever had the privilege to experience. PNG was certainly at the time we were there somewhere between the stone-age and the space age, having to cope with the pressures of both.

The photos in this blog give a small indication of our time out of school and on the water while we were in PNG. Will we return? We would love to, but in some ways, Corsair was probably an ideal vessel to explore the more remote and interesting parts of this fascinating country, of a size and construction that ordinary villagers could cope with and adapt to. Despite the fact that Saraoni, our second yacht we owned for over 22 years, was named after one of our favourite PNG anchorages, we feel that fancy yachts sailing into PNG waters may be just a bit too much for ordinary villagers to be comfortable with, who for the most part showed us the most amazing generosity and hospitality while we were sailing amongst their astonishingly beautiful island homes.

Early Days with Corsair



Corsair, a 1933 kauri racing sloop, was bought by us in Auckland in 1986, and brought up to some sort of ocean readiness in a Panmure boat yard (first photo) over a 6 month time period. The second photo shows Corsair on its first sea outing at Izzie Bay on Rangitoto island in the Hauraki Gulf, and the third photo shows Alison skippering Corsair back into Auckland Harbour. We were to cross the turbulent Tasman only a few months later, after little prior experience, an ocean adventure that took us 17 sometimes tortuous days.

The Papuan Gulf - 1988-1989

After sailing from NZ's Bay of Islands in July 1987 (mid winter!), first to New Caledonia, then along the Queensland coast, we arrived in Port Moresby, PNG's capital, expecting to sail back to Cairns to earn some more money before continuing westwards into Asia. Instead, more by accident than intention, we ended up at Ihu High Scool in PNG's Gulf Province, surrounded by jungle, teaching for a year and a half. We tried to get Corsair into Ihu's swift flowing Vailala river, but with no charting ever having been done, this was quite a perilous adventure and we ended up nearly sunk on the bar and forced to beat south against the trade winds for 120 miles back to Port Moresby, returning to Ihu more sensibly by small plane instead.

Ihu was in fact only accessible by occasional small plane landings or unnanounced arrivals of the freight ship. Many of the school kids who weren't from the local area had to walk to school and back at the start and end of each term for up to a week at a time through the bush. There was no phone contact with the outside world, but Alison built and ran the school's trade store, which became a popular place for school kids, staff, government workers and villagers near and far.



Photo shows an exuberant end of year 'class party' for Alison's class group. They saved up all year to have a feast at the end of the school year!

The Torres Strait and Daru - 1989 to 1993

Our second school posting was at Daru High School, situated on the island of Daru at the northern end of the Torres Strait. Daru was a dysfunctional and chaotic town but also the 'capital' of PNG's resource rich Western province. We stayed there for four years, anchored in the lee of the island in what euphemistically could be called a 'harbour'. We made two trips down to Australia's Thursday Island during that time, mostly under sail, as our engine soon went kaput, a perilous 100 nm trip through swift currents and jagged reefs.



Daru's wharf and most frequent cargo ship are shown in the top two photos, counterposed with the commonly seen local sailing canoes, with their sails stitched together out of rice bags.



Daru was located between impoverished PNG and affluent Australia. Many Daru residents had relatives on both sides of the porous border. The Torres Strait is a fascinating place with a troubled history. Daru families had high hopes for their kids' achievements in school and our time at the school was often hard work. Apart from the odd foreign volunteer, all the teachers were PNG trained citizens, teaching a high school curriculum all in English! Successful high school students went on to senior secondary school elsewhere in PNG and the highest achievers were given scholarships to continue secondary school in Australia.

Photos show a PNG colleague's extended family on Corsair on a holiday trip back to his mainland home, a science teacher at an end of year graduation with the adoring family audience at the ceremony (top right and centre right photos). The bottom two photos were taken in a remote inland village where Geoff helped a student set up a solar electrification project - all funded through his own fundraising efforts!

Alotau and Milne Bay - 1995 to 1998



Photo shows Corsair anchored off the picturesque East Cape of Milne Bay in late 1997. There are far too many photos of this part of our sailing lives, and so have posted them in the gallery HERE.
Just click on the link, then each photo opens up when you select it in the gallery. Switch from one photo to another by pressing 'Next' in the menu bar.

Our third and final school posting was to Alotau's Cameron Secondary School in PNG's eastern Milne Bay Province. This was a pretty and geographically varied island archipelago region. We spent the first two years teaching, both as heads of department in the newly created senior school. Our students for the most part went on to college, university or tech college if successful in their exams. Those who didn't do so well went back to their respective villages. We were given a newly built house courtesy of EU funding, but like elsewhere in our PNG school postings we slept on Corsair, using the house as a convenient place to leave our surplus boat stuff and freshen up for school time. Our school house was in fact used as a favourite lodging spot for visitors and inspectors who turned up at the school from time to time!

Our last year in Milne Bay was spent cruising around most of the province, charting anchorages and taking notes of facilities and hazards, talking to villagers and generally enjoying ourselves. Many Milne Bay people have a good command of English as well as Tok Pisin, Motu and their own and possibly other local languages and dialects so it was easy to learn a lot about their way of life, hopes and dreams.

Whatever we learned we passed on to Jennifer Varsilli, the enthusiastic Milne Bay tourism department head, who wanted to know whether small scale village based eco tourism was feasible in selected parts of the province, as direct flights into Alotau from Cairns had just started.

We were lucky as many of the villagers recognised us as teachers from the same school that their kids were at, or had gone to. This made quite a difference when travelling around the beautiful coastline of Milne Bay's islands and mainland bays. Incidentally, we still have hundreds of detailed drawings and notes of the anchorages we went to and explored, mostly being the only yacht to have ventured there. It was only in the Louisiades did we ever really encounter any other cruising yachts. At Bagaman in the Calvados Chain we met up with Heather and John from Bundaberg in Queensland on their 32 foot yacht "Kindred Spirit", who we have kept in contact with ever since.



Photo shows Corsair on show and on sale in Port Moresby marina early 1998.

We finally left PNG in February 1998 after trying to sell Corsair in Port Moresby. We left the boat eventually with an Australian couple who managed moorings south of the city and flew to Cairns and bought Saraoni, our second yacht. Saraoni was named after the island that protected our favourite anchorage at the mouth of Milne Bay while teaching in Alotau. Corsair was finally sold after 8 months while we were engaged in teaching at schools in Darwin in the Northern Territory.