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?

Now we're in Liapari, spending the time getting Solidaire ready to be abandoned. Backing the boat up into a tiny spot between a stern tied boat and a rusting steel jetty was a bit of a mission but we're almost past one of the most stressful exercise and onto excessive stowing away, packing, fixing and cleaning. We've got plenty of stuff to bring back and with weight restrictions on flights it means picking and choosing quite carefully. There are a bunch of broken things to bring home to fix, wind-vane parts, the electric autohelm, PACTOR modem, some broken cables. As we were doing some packing today it was interesting looking through some of the cold weather gear, really like - do we wear that? It seemed ridiculous to have so much excessive warm gear, and wearing it.. erhh? Putting actual clothes on, other than shorts and t-shirt, now seems bizarre to us and we can't quite seem to picture needing to wear any of our warm socks, gloves and woolen gear.

On our return to the Solomons, we have spent nights in Bairoko bay, Ghizo, Noro and other places in the Ghizo lagoon. Dealing with the various check in issue and assessing any damage from the apparent tsunamis just a month ago. Not to many tales of damage mainly we were just told that it wasn't nearly as bad as the one in 2007, and no obvious destruction- the difference between 7 and 8 in the Richter scale is huge. The quake was felt throughout this whole area though. Now at least Ghizo has got the picture and are relocating their hospital to up the hill where it is not so vulnerable to Tsunami damage, in 2007 it was massive. And the help was hard because the hospital was underwater. It's a bit scary to leave our boat in such a natural disaster hotspot but at least the boat is well protected in here.

Recently our short 3-4 hour trips have turned into day-long voyages with much reefing and changes of sail as large dark clouds appear from ahead or behind producing sometimes as high as 40 knot winds. It has not been so pleasant and helped us break even more things; the large steel bracket broke and our secondary alternator fell off the engine, probably metal fatigue, which shorted out our inverter and one of our laptop cables (thankfully not our laptop). There is some electrolysis damaging the hull, seen in bubbles on the paint below the waterline - and our electrical bilge pumps don't really wanna do their pumping job. But we are getting through it. A few more days and the boat will be shipshape and ready to spend some quality time alone.

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.

Best wishes and catcha on the 17th.

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.

That was early in the night and then..

The wind is howling a little more, the waves are furiously steepening - it takes a little time to remember that we do float, the moon has disappeared and the black darkness rules - and as Eric is putting in the second reef for the mainsail so we are only sailing with a small sliver of sail, a wave attacks our self steering and the whole top part is stolen from us. How dreadful the notion is to us of hand steering the rest of the way, only made worse by furious rain that leaves me freezing and shivering in my New Zealand winter coat and with all the washboards closed up to keep the cabin from getting soaked as well, I sort of feel banished to the cockpit, shut out of the boat. Already our sleeping routines are screwed up from the first night of the passage with me suffering from a migraine. Now we may have to shorten our shifts to counteract the energy of hand steering and struggle with the sleep consequences. The nearby Bougainville coast in the darkness seems suddenly more frightening as I shudder and recall stories of yachts harassed and chased just sailing past - just the name puts fear in our loved ones hearts. But we can rely at least on the weather to protect us - it's too rough for banana boats. During our turns on watch we both concentrate hard on the compass, keeping well clear of the land and the shallower water so that at last we make it through the night with nothing else going wrong.

..OK, we're getting slightly distracted by our sailing conditions - this post, our departure from PNG, is meant to be about reflecting on our impressions of Papua New Guinea. A summing up, so to speak, of some of the things that seem to be happening in this evolving country. Things we may have missed when blogging about the day to day events. So, forget our passage-making hardships, we're coping fine.. back to the issue at hand:

The first thing to say is that the people were amazingly friendly and far form the rascals that we had feared. Contrasting the general 'common knowledge' perspective extensively. It seemed very much that these people would have to be living in hugely poor and awful conditions to turn into rascals. Perhaps these are the conditions of the slums in the large cities, rampant unemployment, poverty and desparation. We did not meet anyone from these areas, Port Morsby, Lae, Wewak that could turn these prejudices around. The common words from areas in the islands we visited were "It is dangerous and corrupt there - but nice people here". With Solidaire, for better or worse, our visit was limited to the coast and safe waters. Certainly we feel we have had some small things taken (where does all our cutlery keep going??) but it's far from the terrifying pirate hangouts we fear from stories - for example just recently a shipping company has bought a warship to protect its shipping line off the coast of Africa. Now we have warships providing security for commercial boats - perhaps a tad excessive but does that not mean excessive danger? Certainly they think it's worth the cost, and they're insured!

One of the most interesting points that makes PNG stand out is its excess of languages. Everyone we met spoke at least 3 languages; their own language for their village or area, pidgin, and English. It made it very hard to learn words from peoples language, when we wanted to be polite and greet people in their language - but it felt like every village we went to had a different was of saying good night, good evening, and good morning. Marroom, verah, arua, were a few of them we learnt but it was impossible to keep up. However in a country where 13% of the worlds languages exist, with over 800 distinct and different languages it seems one of the biggest barriers is communication and fragmentation throughout the country. On top of language there are also accents or versions of Pidgin- which apparently makes the communication hard between the two geopolitical areas, the islands and the mainland and highlands. Specifically the islands feel marginalised as the minority group because they are not understood by mainlanders. The ramification of so many distinct languages is increased tribal and village loyalty and leaves a fragmented county. For example the parliament sports almost exclusively independent MPs not very associated with a political party, loyal only to themselves and their electorates, which creates a situation ripe for corruption. It's a very complicated issue that faces PNG people. It's impossible to imagine what this part of the world would be like if it hadn't been for colonialism and the common language it has brought.

Furthermore the aspirations of young people we spoke to were interesting. What they wanted to be after school for men was generally limited to saying they wanted vocational training to be a mechanic or a carpenter. A few boys also said they wanted to be teachers as well. Perhaps a high status job within their village with usefulness applying there skills, but definitely not that ambitious feeling from a New Zealand perspective. The ambition of a generation is a strong tell tale of the future of the county, or are their dreams more sensible, our youth deluded by Hollywood? One women said she was inspired to be a public servant in New Zealand, we have blogged about her previously, but very few women responded, generally paid work is left for men and the occasional unmarried teacher. Cities are different, but it's much harder for us to have conversations with school age (anywhere from 5 to 25) people.

Another item to discuss is our experience with PNG traditional custom, its fair to say that it has been much more untouched and unaffected by western influence in some ways, or in some areas, than a lot of the rest of Melanesia (with the exception of the strong presence of Christianity). Our funniest story regarding custom was anchoring beside a beach which was taboo for women to be on. Perplexed by this arrangement on how to land - but generally practical the villagers very much wanted to show us their village and so we "disobeyed" their custom with their approval and landed with me walking on the beach quickly up to the forest. To be completely honest I was not too worried to disobey restricted female activity. Many portions of the beaches or secluded nooks and crannies in traditional villages have been reserved for men and are taboo to others (women and children). Which just sort of pulls in your gut to disobey.

Talking about gender relations further, at the same village no less, when we arrived we asked a man if there was a river nearby that we could do washing and perhaps even top up our water tanks. He said "You should have come earlier because we could have got the women to carry the water for you". It seemed a slightly excessive offer to us, 20 liter water containers from a river half an hour walk away! But anyway the most plain and obvious observation in gender relations is the amount of gender segregation in public that exists, you never see men and women together, boys and men of all ages hang out only in their crowds, and women and girls conversely. There are no couples apparent and intergender friendships is probably unheard of. Even sitting on different sides of the room at all times and greeting us separately is normal here, with the slight exception of really small children under the age of 10, you sometimes see them with their brothers and sisters. This level of segregation is quite bewildering to me. Already we're breaking their system by hanging out with each other and I feel sometimes sightly odd that I am talking to Eric, or sitting next to him where only men are - the women sitting together some distance away.

To conclude then, Papua New Guinea is a pacific nation just like home and certain aspects did remind us of how close and connected we may be. Kai bars are where you can get a quick snacks to eat, fish and chips are popular and in the global economy New Zealand cheese and milk still dominate this far from home. A fact that generates much excitement and anticipation of our cheese eating days. One of the best moments after months of no cheese was eating the delicious alluring substance sometime close to Christmas, thanks Mainland!

Today we had a very delightful relaxed Sunday day, with a long snorkel and reading our books on the typical beautiful tropical beach. Here in the Green Islands it is just what you imagine, the stereotype of what a tropical island with long white sandy beach, cropped by coconut palm trees and astounding clear and warm water. The perfect place for relaxation and getting rid of any pre-return-home worry. Eventually the amount of admirers watching us increased fourfold and we moved on, only to end up playing some fun last card with some local boys, George and Billy.

Later in the afternoon we joined the local village church session, it was a very happy feeling in the sun laying on the lawn with other people who arrived not early enough to fit into the small hot church. Laying on the lawn and listening to the amazing sounds of singing and guitar music, they had very nice voices indeed and the whole service was probably the best we have been too- with very little actual preaching and lots of music. It felt a bit more like going to a concert, admiring the voices, we were feeling very content when a very small and oh-so-cute few weeks old pig stumbled between us, unafraid of the commotion. Eric thought it was a bit like a Jehovahs witness pamphlet, perfect idyllic village view with pigs, dogs and chickens wandering peacefully in the village, while the church overflowed with peaceful people watching and listening. Our only slight discomfort was biting ants where we sat.

After the service we had a very jolly talk to the priest from the Philippines and then later the chief. The priest without any prompting told us much about what was happening in the world with politics. He talked about Helen Clark, John Key, Obama and Somare (PNG prime minister) He educated us on Bougainville, of which the Green Islands are part, the people consider themselves Bogainvillians- with many banana boats every day going to Bougainville and back, despite the long 3-4 hour journey. For us this is fantastic, we get a taste of Bougainville without risking our necks or feeling in danger. Come May 2010 there is an election for the government in Bougainville which is relatively significant because it paves the way for whether they want to be independent from Papua New Guinea. In five year we are told there is supposed to be a referendum for this independence.

One man we met called Lawrence was definitely in favour of such independence and very scathing of the rest of PNG. "Where is Bougainville's investment in infrastructure?" he said, "How is the Government in Port Moresby looking after us?". Then another man from the same village was not so sure about this independence, his son was on a Government scholarship to become a secondary school teacher.

The Philippino priest explained critically that the current Prime Minister was doing nothing about infrastructure , but the politicians could still afford a jet. He did not have much power and kept getting votes of no confidence against him, forcing Parliament to close, apparently the Parliament this term will be unable to meet its constitutional obligation to sit a certain number of times - even if they sit every day from now until 2012!

Today is a significant day because, as it is the end of January, tomorrow all the pikininis and adults still in education start school. This means boarding school for many and a passenger ship is expected to carry school children, or rather school adults, to Buka and Bougainville, it will also be bringing teachers and some children for the school here. The end of their holiday and their visit to their village and back to work in cities for many too. A change in the population will probably make a difference to all the villages we visit.

This will mean no more pikininis visiting us constantly. We have a great time talking to pikininis, coming back and forth with many things to trade, the same pikininis just keep on returning - desperate to trade for more lollies and other various items. One particularly funny moment was one of the canoes filling with water looking quickly like it was going to sink. The little pikinins had to jump out, and with the help of neighboring canoes bailed the canoe out. Being made of wood they cannot sink, but float just below the surface of the water. They were laughing so much as one of the girls sat in the canoe underwater. Anyhow all this trading has meant no more rice, all our salt and sugar gone, all our flour too, we traded some of our tins, all our soap, our ropes are disappearing and fish hooks and line. But we are now enjoying chewing on sugar cane and eating many new fruit. Fresh tomatoes are a treat too.

One man trading some fish tells us the story of his recent arranged marriage. He is 25, the normal age of marriage here he explains- he was away at school in Bougainville for vocational training and when he got home his parents told him that he had a wife. She is a girl from his village so they already knew each other, it must be strange though, no wonder the pikinini boys and girls tend to hang out separately. They have one newborn child now but he will be going back to school in Bougainville tomorrow. While he's away learning to be a mechanic his wife and daughter will be staying with his mother.

We are feeling relaxed after our gentle stroll back home to the yacht tonight during which we came upon many a ribbeting frog, hopping everywhere. It seems like maybe they flourish because of the abundance of mosquitos - do frogs eat mosquitos? Or maybe they share a common breeding ground. Anyway, both frogs and mosquitos are represented in greater numbers than we've seen anywhere else.

Last night we found ourselves sailing in a shipping lane unexpectedly. We were surprised to see so many ships come past every hour and afraid as we were crossing perpendicular east ward across the north-south lane on top of a fast current taking us at 8 knots towards our destination (way ahead of schedule, we had to heave to and wait for light to enter the lagoon). Hoping every time we saw a ship that they had seen us. The closest large container ship came within a mile of us wishing that it was decision not to alter its course rather than one of not being aware of us. There's nothing much a little sailing boat can do to a container ship speeding at a zillion miles per hour with slow turning ability. So that night we kept an extra well anticipated lookout, turning the radar on regularly to measure the distance and bearing of ships, checking whether they were on a collision course with us. Ella re-read "Ten Degrees of Reckoning" just to raise her concerns- a story of a cruising family just off the coast of New Zealand mauled over by a container ship. We thought also of that young sailor attempting to be the youngest solo sailor to sail round the world, who on her first night out of Australia crashed into a much larger vessel. So collisions at sea do happen - despite the vastness of the ocean. But altering our course seemed futile in all the situations we encountered. At very least it's reassuring to have a steel hull (making us show up well on radar) and bright masthead light.

Anyway after a reasonably anxious night, we made it to the pretty atoll of the Green Islands, just above Bougainville and east of New Ireland. Just to complete our full World War II tour for New Zealand's actions, but actually it is a wonderful lagoon encircled by a tiara shaped island providing an anchorage with plenty of shelter. It seems too small an atoll to warrant a battle, but here once again the New Zealand soldiers drove out the Japanese to build an airfield. This one to allow the allied airforce to attack Kavieng. Although reasonably far from Kavieng, the closer islands would have been within reach of the Japanese planes. The Kiwis stationed here reckoned this island was better than the last place- perhaps referring to the Treasuries, (although we're not sure about this - we loved the Treasuries - perhaps a drop in temperature is what they were thinking about). Rampant malaria was the real downside of the Green Islands.

Back in Siar a man told us that watching the footage Paul took of his people's music five years ago was really sad, many people cried - because so many people were not there anymore. Many people since that time had died, primarily because of Malaria. He said that their area had big problems with Malaria and lost lots of children. A very sad story that seems to reappear in a lot of these places we visit. It's tragic that in the year 2010 the world still can't get it's act together enough to save people from such a preventable death.

Anyhow, best catch up on some sleep, we're looking forward to exploring more of the Green Islands this afternoon and in the following days. We're hoping the sun will come out for some great snorkeling.

Now we are anchored in Siar, a spot on southern New Ireland. Outside what used to be UNDP (United Nations development program) buildings- which are now abandoned. When we anchored it was difficult, with many attempts to set the anchor- in what is really not a good anchorage at all. Rolly, bad holding and no protection- a bit of a "Kokopo" as we refer to it now. On the trip here we caught a yummy large mahi mahi, which has to be one of the most hideous fish alive with a large forehead. It was very tasty though, as delicious baked fillets and poisson cru.

We have come to Siar to meet a man called Paul who is a friend of Ella's mother and is an academic at Victoria University who stays in PNG villages and records their music. Unfortunately our attempt to cross paths has failed, he being away from the village for awhile. Its a pity because we were interested in first of all seeing an academic in the field and also the music that comes with what he is studying.

Nonetheless Siar is fantastic place to visit with very friendly people who have escorted us around on our adventures. The place is yet another victim of a natural disaster, with a large earthquake hitting them just over 10 years ago which has made them rather isolated, destroying the road and only connection to central and northern New Ireland. A large difference from what we saw of the Bolumski highway up north. A new school is opening to start in their village for February and the locals are working hard on the new homes for the new teachers to join them. Primary education is now free in New Ireland, attributed to the very controversial politician governor Julius Chen (also known for hiring South African mercenaries to deal with the Bougainville conflict) .

Our day started with an attempt to get a banana boat to take us to where Paul is working this week away from his village. First however we had to get fuel for the outboard and this meant riding it south alongside the steep, black sand beach. We stopped at a little village that looked just like any other, however with a barrel or so of petrol to sell. Quickly we realised we did not have enough cash and that it would be too expensive anyway to make the long voyage to Rei. So we retreated and they dropped us back at our boat. It was still worth the fun voyage with locals in the village heaving the large boat down and up the steep beach. At one time Ella felt a bit like an arabian princess, carried on a litter, embarrassed as well. As we were pushing the boat into the waves, the ten men or so motioned for both of us to jump on board so that we did not have to get wet. (We are not really worried about this because we are yachties) but anyway Ella obeyed and Eric didn't which meant, 11 men were pushing just her on this boat down the slope into the surf. Later we also enjoyed a couple of canoe rides over the surf too.

The next trip we made later was a walk down the disused highway to the nearby river mouth for a much needed wash. Plenty of butterflies led our way, many wonderful colours and varieties flittered around us, it felt similar to the Dunedin museum butterfly exhibition, and similar in temperature too, we can't imagine how we are going to survive the temperatures back home! The beautiful green bush, with pretty tropical flowers pressed close on both sides of the track grabbing at our shins as we whacked through. Interrupted only by stopping to shake hands with everyone we met - each one introduced to us as yet another family member (mostly aunties) of our guide. The river mouth was gentle and formed a pool that we relaxed in. A bit worried about its stillness hiding some crocodiles but Ella's favourite question: 'are there crocodiles?' made the locals quick to reassure us that it was safe. We really enjoy the feeling that fresh water brings after weeks and weeks of salt. Two young men called Frank and Billy walked us there and rejoiced in learning how to use our camera and taking some shots. A common theme here abroad where digital cameras, with their ability to show people the photo just taken, are a big hit.

Siar has also been a great place for our stockpiles, both with the pissing down rain filling our what were our almost dry tanks. But also with the amount of vegies and particularly fruit that people have gathered for us. Yes, we are the only yacht to have visited the area so we are quite a treat for them too. One of the things about cruising is we not only get to see the lives and cultures of people in other countries, but we also get to give them a glimpse of how we live. Its always fun having a couple of people back to the boat for a cup'a answering questions about our life style too. The first of these is almost always about storms at sea and how long it takes to travel from place to place. We think we are starting to get into the groove of this cruising thing.