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.