Message In a Bottle Project

Release Date 1/15/2012

2012-01-16T22:44:00.001-05:00

It was my first paddle of the year.

Not the first time in the water that was at Coney Island for the Polar Bear Swim, but I didn't get a chance to toss a bottle out there.

I went North from Pier 40, met a friend at Pier 96, and we went on over to Mitsuwa for lunch. It was a gusty wind up to 15 knots, and cold in the low 30s, but as long as we kept moving we were ok.

We saw a really cool cable laying ship that has been out in the harbor for weeks. It is called the Guilo Verne (Jules Verne). The big ship wasn't doing any work, but they were stretching the cable over by the Jersey side from a barge.

I took this interesting picture at the Crab House restaurant, notice the huge tangle of fishing tackle in the background.

I foolishly didn't bring any lights and was getting dark by the time I got back. If I had been out any longer it would have been dangerous. It gets dark so early I should pretty always bring a light this time of year.

I was all full of sake at home, so I bought a 12yo bottle of Japanese whiskey, and enjoyed it in a nice warm bath at home.

Truth: Sometimes people lie

Release Date 11/14/2011

2011-11-17T09:59:00.001-05:00

Breezy Point.

We tried to go surfing on yet another very very mild latefall day. It was 70 degrees when we loaded up the boats in Park Slope, andmaybe 65 at the put in, and a bit overcast.

Low tide was around 4:00PM, and we got on the water by2:00PM.

There was very little surf, and it was broken up, so itwas hard to catch good rides, but we had fun playing around in it, and tryingto catch waves.

After a while I got bored and tried to do some fishing, buta fish bit off the end of my lure, and that seemed to make it veryunappetizing, since I didn’t get any more bites. I did paddle around the point and saw lots of people surfcasting and some jetski guys jumping the shore surf. It was amazing how high they could jump on fairly small waves.

I watched a fisherman catch a small stripped bass, but he told me later that was the only one he caught, and that the fishing has been very poor this year. It might be because the water is still very warm, and fish haven't migrated.

We enjoyed our bagels and a few glasses of wine and watchedthe Sun settle into a cloudy Western sky. We started back around 4:45PM, and probably got out of the water by6:00PM when it was pretty dark.

Truth: It’s colder when dark.

Release Date 10/30/2011

2011-11-04T09:31:00.003-05:00

I went to a kayaking seminar up in Stonington CT. The ideawas to paddle in all the tide races near there. They have 2 that are normally used. Sugar Reef, andsome other nearby reefs that run on the ebb, and Wikapesa passage that runs onthe flood.

On 10/28 we went to Sugar Reef for a tide race paddle, butit was a bust because it was VERY windy, but the wind was going with current,and effectively flattened it to nothing.

We could see where it would normally be running at about1:00PM, and stayed for about an hour, but it never really turned on and the waves were barely 1foot peak to trough.

Using the Currenct predictions for Napatree point we get amax ebb at 14:40 of 3.1 knots, so this should have made the race run, but thewind was going in exactly the same direction, and knocked off. We got on the reef around 2:00PM. Spreading out to the West from Sugar Reef, wealso tried some other spots that are part of the same reef system, HoreshoeReef?? But there were no good waves anywhere.

The weather the next day was even worse, more wind from theNorthwest around 20Kts. The plan was to paddle out to a place called Wikapessapass just off the Eastern tip of the Fischer’s Island. The current wasflooding. This spot only runs on the flood, so it would have been Wind againstcurrent.

The instructors tried to split the people into 3 groups, butthe participants didn’t really pay attention and were soon spread out all overthe harbor, about 20 people total. I got way out in front figuring the leaderwould take us to the best spot, but he went a bit down current along thesouthern side of Fischer’s Island. I think his plan was to work along the shoreout of the current back up to the spot, but the people were so spread out theygot concerned, and took most of the group back to the CT shore.

Yes it WAS windy

One of the groups from the far back went on to the pass, andhad a good hour or so of surfing, because their instructor noticed the currentwas less further East, and had them paddle over that way. Nobody else knew that was happening, and I had to stick with my group.

The slog back along the coast was miserable since it stayedreally windy, with the wind shifting off to the Northeast, and then pretty heavyrain. We stopped for lunch right outside of the harbor, which was reallyunpleasant in the cold rain. I didn’t have a chart and wasn’t paying attentionor I would have requested we simply go back to the bar. It was only a 30 minutepaddle from lunch back to the dock.

On the third day the wind was even greater, and I took theless aggressive choice of the two trips back to Napatree Point. It was so coldand the wind so strong that I though getting back to Wikapesa not have been possible,but this was a mistake, since that group went out, surfed, and came back beforewe got back from a boring slog along the beach.

I didn’t have any pogies or gloves, but was able to borrow aset of gloves from a friend on the last day.

The entire region was pummeled by SNOW Saturday and Sunday,but in our little sliver of CT it was just rain. We saw the snow on the driveback on Sunday night.

Truth: Ice is slippery.

Release Date 10/23/2011

2011-11-04T09:31:00.000-05:00

For my birthday I went hunting in Florida in the LowerSuwannee National Wildlife Refuge. We were hunting wild pigs, or feral hogs(which sounds cooler).

It was a great time of year to be out in the woods, a bitcool in the early morning, but really nice in the afternoons.

I went to an isolated part of our favorite spot to verythick brush. I got up in a tree where I got one a number of years ago, andwaited. It is black powder season and we were using primitive single shot muzzleloading guns where you have to manually add the powder and shot. They are MUCHmore accurate and reliable than the old-time kind, and almost always go off,but the reloading is very time consuming.

After an hour or so ~ 11:00 AM I saw some movement in the bush, andthen a pig appeared rooting around in the palmettos. I waited 5 minutes or sofor him to get closer, and very cautiously got ready. When I thought he wasclose enough I took a shot, but I MISSED him.

The noise from these guns is deafening and the hog ran righttoward me. The noise was so tremendous he didn’t know where it had come from,and he basically run right under my tree, coming within a few feet of me, butthen of course he disappeared into the bush never to be seen again.

Later that same day, about 15:00 I saw another one from another tree, buthe never got close enough to get a bead on, so I didn’t get a shot in on him.The second one was at a new spot, and I needed to clear a bit more of the deadbranches out of the way to hunt from that tree.

Truth: Sometimes you miss.

Release Date 10/16/2011

2011-11-04T09:25:00.000-05:00

I went for an afternoon paddle on a weekend, and I FINALLYsaw the parrots of Weehawken, after many years I finally made it there.

All the Tide Race boats were out at a show, so I took theOuter Island. Like the LV Explorer, I find this boat difficult to controlbecause I can’t hook my knees into it well.

It was windy from the South so we didn’t want to get too farup river, hence the parrot stop for lunch.

Truth:

Wood is softer than rock.

Release Date 10/10/2011

2011-11-04T09:24:00.000-05:00

I went with some friends to go surfing at Breezy Point. Itwas another really nice day, but there was no surf, or very very little surfanyway.

We had fun farting around in the little waves, and then had a nicelunch of Bagel Hole bagels and Bandit box wine.

It was cool to skip out on work for a day and lounge in the last really nice day of the year on the beach!

Release Date 10/9/2011

2011-11-04T09:20:00.001-05:00

We went for a BBQ picnic on the piers down below the GowanusCanal entrance. It was an afternoon/evening picnic that I extended into asleepover in a bivy bag.

Current turned back to flood about 3:30PM when we arrived.

I called and emailed everyone I could think of, and finallygot a pretty good of about 12 people in the end from Pier 96, Pier 66, Pier 40,and Red Hook.

I didn’t do a great job on the fire. I wanted to keep it onthe “downlow” so as not to attract attention, but it was ok, and another smartperson brought a campstove to take up the slack. I put the fire too close tothe water so it was snuffed out during the fish cooking session, but the stovecame to the rescue.

The night was really nice, warm about 70 degrees, and an almost full moon. There is a bit too much ambient light from the neighboring piers. I watched tugs and all kinds of boats go in and out of the harbor all night. There is a perfect view of the Statue of Liberty from here.

It was a crazy warm day, it must have been 80 in the heightof the afternoon.

I forgot my camera, but I got a woman to email me thispicture of me trying to drown her kid by giving him a ride.

I paddled the Tide Race Xplore S, which is a nice boat, sortof like an Explorer.

I had always wanted to camp here, but it was kind of anticlimacticas a solo event. I got up early and left so I could try and go surfing onMonday 10/10/2011.

Truth: Fire is Hot

Release Date 9/30/2011

2011-10-08T11:29:00.001-05:00

I went for an afternoon paddle in the Hudson. The original plan was to go out withsome of the folks from Red Hook, butnone of them could make it, so I went on my own from NY Kayak.

I was trying out one of the Tide Race boats the “Xcape”. Itwas a bit too wide for me, and super stable, meaning it was difficult to get itup on edge, but when I did it felt like it would go right on over, no secondarystability, and very wide.

I paddled north in a pretty strong ebb around 5:00PM. I gotup to the cruise ship terminals, and had to wait while one of the boats pulledout.

I then went around the terminal, which was very difficult insuch a strong current, it totally wore me out. I rested for a bit at pier 96,then flew home in a stiff current.

My arm that has been bothering me really hurt the next day,but after 2 days it felt pretty good again.

Truth: Its good to try everything.

Release Date 9/25/2011

2011-10-08T11:18:00.001-05:00

The “Inlet”.

Low Tide at the inlet was 11;40, and we got into the waterabout 12:00PM after a leisurely trip over Bellport.

We had an easy paddle over from a launch at the East Moriches Coast Guard Station. Soon we were inthe current being drawn toward the inlet.

It was a pretty busy place with a bunch of people fishingfor stripers in the outgoing tide. We got blown right out and did a bit ofsurfing out on the East side of the inlet on some pretty big waves.

Then we paddled over to the West side and surfed a few wavesover there. I was using a borrowed boat a pretty heavy plastic Baja, and I washappy to have it but I wasn’t strong enough to kick it around in the surf, and wasn't really dressed for a swim, so I was pretty cautious.

We surfed the waves over there, and decided to stop luncharound 14:30. It was overcast, but the wind was mellow and had very relaxinglunch and some refreshment. We started back around 16:00. We surfed a bit afterwe left, the waves were reduced, but still substantial.

There was a nutty guy buzzing the inlet in an ultralight andflying very close to the water and the beach, like 10 feet, and we took a bunchof pictures.

By the time we got to the inlet we were very quickly beingsucked right into it. A prefect Trip. Still a ton of boats even late late inthe afternoon. I was fishing but not very enthusiastically, and I I didn’tcatch anything.

We got back justbefore dusk and could easily find the put-in.

I'm using some borrowed pictures, my camera has gone missing, but I hope to get it back soon it has pictures and a truth...

Truth:

Release Date 9/24/2011

2011-10-08T11:10:00.001-05:00

Release Date 9/24/2011

We paddled out from East Patchouge to Watch Hill then overto Davis Park for a drink at the Casino. It’svery definitely the “shoulder season” out here and not so many people around.

We were VERY lucky with the weather this weekend. It wassupposed to be really bad, and rainedvery hard all day on Friday, all day throughout the city and Long Island, but Ihad planned to go to a friend’s housefor Saturday and Sunday on the Island, so I went anyway, and it didn't rain at all, a bit overcast, basically perfect paddling weather.

We didn’t get on the water until about 15:15 and got over toWatch Hill in an hour. I wanted to go tothe bar there, but held-off until we went to the Casino in Davis Park, which I had been promised was "much better".

The bar really reminded us of a place in Metuchick RIout on the beach where we had been after a kayak class. There was bit of surf,but we had walked through the island from the bay side so we didn’t have todeal. When we got cold we went inside.

For the 1.5 hours we were there these guys were tuning upfor a “show” but they never started playing. Just test 1 2 3 4 and a bit ofwasted away in Margaritaville we never heard and actual song.

We paddled back across the bay into a beautiful sunset.

Wehadn’t seen the sun all day, just the sunset. It never rained on us, but we sawand incredible rainbow, and it was the first time I saw an entire rainbow. Itstarted from the mainland of Long Island andwent all the over to the South of Fire Island, and you could see both halves ofit, I have never seen that before, and maybe never will again. Here are the 2 halves; it took up almost the entire horizon.

Then it got dark. Very dark.

We were surfing wind waves, and had a very loose compasscourse, by the time it was dark we weren’t sure where we going. We reached land,and decided to go East, when we didn’t find anything after 10 minutes we wentWest, then eventually we decided to go back East. After a while, 15 minutes, wefound a familiar landmark and we realized we were very far East near Bellport,so we went there which is where the kayaks live and took a cab back to the put-in.

Truth: I was cold and had been drinking, so I don’tremember.

Release Date 9/18/2011

2011-09-20T00:21:00.000-05:00

I went kayak surfing at Breezy Point.

The tides were perfect for an afternoon paddle, high in the harbor was around noon, we got on the water around 2:00PM so we had a nice ride out in the ebb.

There was a good amount of swell and we got some nice rides.

We started off with the smaller waves, and then I foolishly went way over to the East where some big dumping waves were breaking. These waves are actually pretty big, the picture doesn't do it justice...

I got one or two ok rides off of it, then got trashed twice in succession. I drank a bit of water on the first one, even though the water was cold and violent it was still a lot better than worrying about the rocks and reef in PNG. After that I went back to the smaller waves....

The water temp was 68 degrees, and it was overcast, so once I was wet it was a bit chilly. I only had a reed top and and a very light paddling jacket.

We stopped for lunch after about an hour to take a break and have some wine and lunch. Then we paddled back to the car.

There was an amazing view of the sun breaking through the clouds. The pictures were ok, but it was really amazing live.

Truth:
It is disappointing when you expect something and then it isn't there.

Release Date 9/4/2011

2011-09-09T20:46:00.001-05:00

I went for a paddle in the Hudson with an Outer Island from New York Kayak Company, I am in their club, so I can take any boat if its available.

I went North to meet-up with some friends from Pier 96, then we went up to Edgewater to have a picnic lunch. I was very lucky to snag a bottle of wine from the deli before we left. They still flaunt the liquor laws when you get out on the fringes in NYC, and 12th Avenue is the fringes...

The river is still filthy from the Hurricane. It looks like chocolate milk, worse than it is even in the spring after the snow melts.

We had a nice relaxing lunch, and I wanted to just lie down for a snooze. These guys were cooking up some kind of crazy soup the whole time we were there. They were very old-school, just a blackened pot, a bunch of driftwood, and all kinds of meat and vegetables, but they did have a corkscrew, so that was really good for us.

After lunch we went across the river then up the Harlem against the tide to catch some friends on a circumnavigation around Manhattan. We found them a few miles in, and had a nice ride with the current back downtown.

I was pretty pooped by the end of the day, and I gave my shoulder a good work out. It continues to get better and better.

We saw a nice sunset, but its clearly not the South Pacific any more...

Truth:
Soup makes good food.

Release Date 8/13/2011

2011-08-14T13:17:00.001-05:00

I went with a bunch of friends to do a swim support for the Stonewall foundation out on Fire Island.

It was a hoot to get out in the water, but I had a bit too much fun the night before so I wasn't feeling completely "fresh" in the morning. Here I am staggering up the beach trying to get ready....


tim vs the morning morning is winning.

this dude was ready to go.

The swim was uneventful. My swimmer was very strong and did a great job. He started in the last section, but passed-up a lot of the other swimmers who had started in earlier heats. I made it to the bloddy marys before most of my friends. I was feeling better after a drink, a bagel, and some medicine.

I need to get some new black paddling gear this looks a little too flowery.

We tooled around some other parts of FI, and went over to another bar in the Pines for a refresh before paddling back to the shore.

My shoulder felt awful by the end of the day, but it felt better the next morning, maybe I just need to work it a bit more. Lifting the boat up at the end of the day was terrible.

Truth: The picture didn't come out and I forgot it....

Release date 7/31/2011

2011-08-05T23:07:00.000-05:00

Back in the USA...

I joined the New York Kayak Company club and paddled a tide race Xcite out and around to see all the old sites.

I went from Pier 40 to Pier 96, then back down, and across to Valentino Pier to my old Red Hook location.

All the public kayak programs were going really well. I was rushing to get to Red Hook, but of course they didn't need me at all. I bought a T-shirt and the only thing I could do to help was to ride a bike up to staples to make copies of the wiavers for them.

I liked the tide-race, but without surf or shallow water, I couldn't really test it out very much.

My shoulder is getting better and better, but it isn't completely fixed yet.

Truth: Some things change, Some things don't...

Release date 6/26/2011

2011-08-05T23:01:00.000-05:00

I went out for a quick paddle to test out my shoulder, but of course the next week got away from me, and it was my LAST paddle in PNG.

Wish I had done something more dramatic, but my arm was still messed-up and it was hard work just doing this.

I made a truth, but it got lost in the shuffle.

"Things get lost in the shuffle" how about that....

Kate started a fire one morning and tossed the burning toast in a pot. I got home and thought "Oh Kate made my dinner" Well sort of.....


Dinner???

Here is a movie of big rainstorm, and some dogs happy to see the master returning...

Release date 6/7/2011

2011-06-21T14:16:00.001-05:00

I went along with Kate to a place on the PNG mainland near the city of Lae called Kamiali a wildlife management area. She had to meet a researcher who was working there, and we had heard so many terrible things about Lae I wanted to see it for myself what all the hubbub, or was the ewwweee?, was about.

It didn’t quite live up to our expectations because we didn’t see any actual crime or dead bodies, but there was definitely an “edge” to the place. Maybe the most noticeable was when we walked around in town by ourselves outside the hotel gates or armored van and people starred at us like we were in a remote village where they don’t get any white people. The crafts for sale on the street were very inexpensive, and I had to keep my eye on Kate around the deeply discounted puppies.

We were met by the airport car service, Guard Dog Security. These guys are a real hoot. They have capitalized on the crime hype. Everybody is so terrified they pay 96Kina for a ride from the airport instead of 20Kina on a PMV. They wear military fatigues and were supposed to be armed, but they weren’t. We gave the guys some biscuits, and if they had guns, I bet they would have let us shoot them if bought them more bullets. They did drive really really fast, and the windows were covered in a wire mesh.

I absolutely love their logo, it is a little head of doggie, in the yellow shield. Look closely you have seen this before….

That’s right it is a direct takeoff of the US 101st Airborne logo, Air Cavalry, like in Apocalypse Now, but they have substituted the horse for a dog. We also like it because the dog looks like Stinky! We suspect he is not sharing his royalties with us.

We departed and left from the lovely Eye Grease Market for the ride out there. As in my last post "Eye Grease" is supposed to mean beautiful, it wasn’t. It was muddy, scary, and filthy.

The boat ride out and back was really long, over 2 hours, it would have been a lot longer but the boats have tiller steered 75HP engines on them, so they move pretty quickly. The drivers have huge overdeveloped left arms. There aren’t a lot of people living along this coast, and the scenery was amazing. I was huddled under a tarp, and didn’t take any pictures because of the rain.

The lodge was ok, a bit rundown, but after a few years in PNG it doesn’t seem so bad. It must have been really nice at one point; unfortunately it has been decaying ever since it was first built. It is now only used by visiting researchers, but was supposed to be a tourist lodge, that never happened.

Seems like it was built by some silly Canadian CUSA volunteers as a development project, but they didn’t set-up any business model to lure tourists. It is such a hell boat ride from a hell city that no tourist in his right mind would come here anyway. The diving isn’t great because some muddy rivers enter into the sea in the village. They should have spent the money putting in a float plane facility.

The locals use a lot of sailing canoes in this area, and all of the sails are made of traditional mats which is really unique. In Alaotau we only saw one traditional sail out of hundreds.

There was a lot of activity in the village because a big-wig had died so they were getting ready for his mat-mat funeral. We bumped into group after group of women and girls on the beach hauling wood for the BBQ, the men were probably all out fishing, and carrying wood is wok blong meri anyway...

In one village on an island we found this giant pile of coral.

They are harvesting and drying it to make the lime for Beetlenut. This pile is basically one full boat load of coral. It sits out in the rain and sun and gets a bit bleached, then they process it. It was hard to get anybody to describe the processing of it, or the amount of money they could make because they seem to know the white people don’t approve of killing and grinding-up coral, but kate did get a video of a guy describing the entire process.

The people in this area don’t chew coral lime, they only chew with lime made of shell. The coral lime is supposed to be very “hot” or strongpela, and they sell it to people in the highlands.

To make it into powder they burn it in a bamboo fire. Then rinse it, then cook it again in a pot, and it breaks down into a very very fine dust.

The 2 videos at the bottom show a lady rinsing it, then cooking it the final time. Its hard to see in the video but it basically just cooks to dust. The weird thing is that the shells look really dirty, and they don’t clean them very well, but when it finally breaks down in the last stage it turns pure white. Its almost like magic, the black stuff just disappears.

This was the coolest house ever. The corner closest to the front shows the vines going into the ground, then they have trimmed it like a giant topiary. We couldn’t get a straight answer from the guy how long it had been growing, but we suspect he has rebuilt the house underneath it once or twice. This traditional houses only last 5 or 10 years.

Not sure if it will come out, but I made this map to show Kate’s replacement where the house is. Maybe download and blow-up the picture if you’re really curious.

Here are two pictures from Kavieng that snuck in this post. This is a pile of clams I got at the market, it comes in a basket woven out of a palm frond. 6 Kina, about $2.50.

This sunset picture is from a kayak trip I did a few weeks ago.

I had a pretty bad bike wreck and hurt my shoulder this week, so no kayaking for a while. I was riding to work in the dark really early in the morning and I went down trying to get around a mud puddle. I am still worried about it, but after 4 days it seems to be getting better, and hurts less than it did before. I still can’t easily lift my arm over my head, and certainly couldn’t carry my boat to the water, much less paddle it…

This picture was from my phone, and it didn’t really come out, but it is pretty funny. There are two articles about Bouganville, a semi autonomous part of PNG that is half in and half out of the country after they had a little war in the 1990s. The area is very poor, and just generally a mess after the insurrection.

The top article talks about how they local government is meeting with a Chinese government to get an investment to rebuild the main city into a “model” city, sort of like that place in the Truman show. The Chinese will invest 1.5 Billion Kina and build the city something like that.

The other article on the same page talks about a protest they recently had in the same city where the local people wanted to get rid of the all the Chinese merchants running the trade and food stores, and how several of the stores had been destroyed or looted. The people had signs saying “Kong-Kong Get Out”.

Both articles carried quotes from Government officials, but not the same official. The one government official for the racists protest was basically acknowledging that the government was looking into steps to “preserve local business enterprises” basically supporting the racist looters.

What isn’t said, but the subtext is, that this island contains one of the richest copper mines in the entire world, that’s what the war was about. So the Chinese government might give them their Truman show city, if they can get a real good deal on all the copper.

I made a truth on the Lae, but can’t remember it…

Paddle Date 5/30/2011

2011-05-23T14:49:00.004-05:00

Ive been having trouble finding empty bottles, and been kind of lazy so I haven't release many bottles, and only done a little bit of kayaking.

This picture of these little kids was taken on 5/22/2011 while Kate was out of town. I kayaked over to Nusa and then went out in a friend's motor boat to go snorkeling. I got cooked by the sun, so I was glad it was just a short paddle home. I actually paddled to my office, probably the only time I will ever do that, to pick up the power cord for my laptop.

This picture of Stinky and Maity is during an incredibly low tide out front of our house. The dogs and I could walk right out to the edge of the reef.

I have been paddling a few times since then, and I have to carry my kayak down to the West to a small cut just to get in the water where I can paddle.

I had the most amazing email today from a woman who found the January 2nd, 2006 bottle out in the Hamptons. Check it out:

January 2006 blog entry.

This weekend Kate and I are going on a romantic get-a-way....

We fly to Lae, a city renowned for crime, dirt, disease, and industry. It has rascals, cholera, and a lot of containerized shipping. I think its the worst spot in Papua New Guinea, so its good to check that off our list.

We call a security service called "Guard Dog Security". The Guard Dog dudes give us a ride to town. The ride itself should be worth the 100Kina each we have to pay. Because of the crime it is in an armored car, and the drivers are armed. They drive really really fast because according to the guide book: "Its difficult to hold-up a car when it is traveling at 150 KMH."

We go to a place called "The Eye Grease Market".

If we get there at Tea time we can have light lunch there of cucumber sandwiches, otherwise it is a smoked fish on a dirty leaf, or a leftover cookie from the Executive Club at the Rabaul Airport.

At the market we hopefully meet-up with a guy name Hann from the research station Kate needs to go to. We give him 1,000 Kina about $400 for fuel for the boat and he drives us to the research station.

One slight wrinkle is that there is no way to call the research station, and they may think we are arriving on Monday, so we might get to spend the night in Lae. We sent him a text message to say we were coming a day earlier, but he has to walk for a few hours from the research station, and climb up a tree to get his messages, and of course Digicel is renowned for delivering messages days late if the receiver isn't connected when it comes in. I am hoping for the Lae International Hotel, rather than a pile of Banana leaves at the Eye Grease.

Release Date 5/13/2011

2011-05-16T23:52:00.014-05:00

I released this message off of Simberi Island in the Tabar island group.

Kate and I went on a cruise with the good folks at PNG Surfaris on their ship the PNG Explorer. The Explorer is run by a couple Andrew and Jude who are great hosts.

This is really luxury cruising. The main business of the ship is taking surfers to remote surf spots during the surf season November – April, but they are now starting to add diving and fishing charters. The boat is really nice, Kate and I had a private cabin. The food is always amazing, and we were extra lucky because the fishermen were providing constant fresh fish at each stop. Note speargun in background.

The ship also features a spunky lorikeet mascot named Teop. Teop was a holy terror. Kate kept trying to be friends with him, and he would get along with her very nicely unless his owners were nearby. As soon as he saw one of his masters he would go into attack mode and skreetch and bite Kate who had been petting him or playing with him.That just made her want his attention all the more. I think I may learn something from this little bird...

From Kavieng we went to Lihir Island, where we picked-up two guys who flew in from Australia to go fishing, then we went to the Lyra Reef for a couple of days, and finished up in the Tabar island group.

The beautiful and small island of Lihir is off the East Coast of New Ireland about 100KM down the road from Kavieng and 35Kms off the coast. The island is the site of a HUGE gold mine. After an upgrade this year they plan to extract up to 1 Million ounces a year from the Mine. So that would be worth over 1 Billion Dollars a year.

We walked around the town a bit, but it was Saturday when we arrived so most things were closed. I had hoped to buy lots of groceries since the town has a lot of money there is more stuff available. I did managed to get a few things at one place that we got into right before it closed.

We couldn’t go a tour of the mine, but we did drive by in the motor boat to try and get a good look at it. We took some pictures, but we couldn’t get too close.

The photos with the round circle were through Kate’s binoculars.

The island is volcanic, and still slightly active. You can see all the steam vents that are venting the steam from the mine site in the pictures. The miners use this energy to produce some of the electricity for the facility which is pretty cool.

It’s really amazing to see such a large sophisticated complex in a remote place like this tiny island.

After Lihir we went to a huge offshore reef, called the Lyra Reef, that rises up from thousands of feet to within 30ft of the surface. This is very unique because it is about 100KM from Lihir the nearest land, so it is truly out in the ocean. The Explorer at over 60 feet is just barely able to go there safely.

Lyra is basically an extinct volcano that rose up from the floor of the sea, but didn’t form and island. It is arranged as an Atoll about 30 miles across. Kate and I did a number of dives and snorkels on it, and the coral cover and fish life was amazing.

On one dive there were hundreds of fish of all different types swirling around looking at us. They had probably never seen a diver before and just seemed to be curious. Since it is such a remote spot, and it rises up from the deep so it’s the only thing around for many many miles the fishing is very good.

The two other guests on the boat were fishermen, and spent every day trolling for fish. They caught a lot of dogtooth tuna, and Kate and I went out with them once and each caught a fish. The one I got was huge about 60lbs. See the photo. This is definitely the biggest fish I ever caught. We will be eating it for months since we were able to freeze it all. I'd like to say I speared it freediving, but it was rod and reel, and it was a big task to get it back to the boat. My arm was sore for a couple of days.

I’m sure this is most untouched and pristine place that I will ever dive at in my life. I’m really glad I was able to go.

Unfortunately it was pretty rough out there, and it got rougher and rougher as time passed so we had to leave after only 2 days. By that point just about all of us were a bit seasick. It was a shame we couldn’t spend more time diving and exploring.

We did find a couple of old fishing longlines on the bottom, and saw a large fishing boat that was probably laying one out on one day. So even though it is remote it is actively fished by these huge ships. Because it is rock and coral they can only do longline fishing, not net trawling which would be even more destructive.

The longlines can be miles long and we followed one that had been lost and was wrapped around the bottom for hundreds of yards. From the coral growth on it Kate thought it had only been there for 6 months or a year. We cut some of it away, but it was very heavy line, and there was just tons of it.

I estimate that the two guys who were fishing every day caught 1,000 KG of fish over the entire trip. The PNG Explorer crew had borrowed a large industrial freezer for the trip and if we had stayed at Lyra for longer they probably would have filled it all the way to the top. We all took fish home, and we also shared a lot with all the villagers we met at Tabar and Simberi.

When it got too rough we went to a protected anchorage at Tabar Island for a few days of more fishing and diving, and then over to Simberi Island. Like Lihir Simberi has a much smaller gold mine on it.

Last month the Provincial Government brought Kate out to asses the damage done by a Cyanide spill at the mine. Cyanide is used in gold mining the separate the gold from the rock. One of their holding tanks ruptured spilling it right into the water near the surface and it caused a huge fish kill, and extensive damage to the coral.

All of these mines use a system called Deep Sea Talings Disposal. Which basically just means having a giant pipe that dumps the tailings deep into the water. This is also pretty destructive, but the tailings are released at very deep depths so it doesn’t disrupt the coral and shallow water fish. This would never be allowed in the US or Australia, instead the mine would have to process the tailings, but here there are no regulations against it.

At Tabar we saw spinner dolphins jumping out of the water one day. I took a video, but it didn’t come out very well. These are small dolphins that leap up into the air and spin around quickly it looked really cool. They also played around the bow wake of the boat when it was at speed.

The next day we saw a large pod of pilot whales. These are very small whales, not much bigger than dolphins with round bulbous heads. They stayed around the boat, and we were able to get out into the water and snorkel with them which was really interesting. We took some pictures and videos, but it doesn’t do it justice.

At some points the whales would roll over underwater and look up at us. The younger/smaller ones seemed almost as interested in us as we were of them. In a few cases we just saw them come up from deep water and head directly toward us, turning away at the last minute when they reached the boat.

On two of the dives we saw old nets that had been lost from trawlers. These were huge heavy things that we couldn’t remove. At a reef off of Simberi part of the Net and floats formed a huge underwater arch that we could swim through below the surface. This had been there a long time there was hard coral growing around the rope such that it almost completely covered it.

This is my foot in a giant clam shell. The clam is no longer around, just his shell is left:

This is my head in a giant clamshell:

Check out this giant hunk of trawler net. It just went on and on down the slope to over 150ft, we couldn't see the end of it:

One of the most interesting fish we saw was a cuttlefish. These are related to squid, and they are very very good at blending into the background by changing colors quickly. They go from almost white when over sand to a very dark mottled color when on top of a coral backdrop. The video below shows it changing color and swimming away.

All in all it was a great adventure.

Truth: Its hard to remember everywhere you have been.

Release Date 4.25.2011

2011-04-26T17:24:00.004-05:00

Release date 4/25/2011

I picked-up my boat from Kate’s office after it was repaired and paddled home. It was a nice day so I took a very long detour out to Edmago island. I got it fixed for K30 about $12!!

Also one more picture of the hole in my boat. That is water draining out of it!!

Saw a big school of tuna feeding, and tried to video them.

I bumped into a few people I knew out there who were snorkeling and saw this hawk. I think it is one of the hawks who live on Rawl, or maybe they have moved…

I saw a lot of people out in canoes. I think because it was calm they could easily launch. Also it was a holiday, Easter Monday, so everybody had time off to go fishing.

I timed myself coming back, I had a slight headwind, and was paddling the slower of my two boats, but I was warmed-up and paddling pretty hard:

45 minutes Edmago to SW tip of Nusa

45 minutes tip of Nusa to landing through the surf at my house.

This picture is our hot-tub. It was made by a bomb that missed the Japanese gun emplacements that used to be near our house. We sometimes sit in it for a cool off after a run or a hot day.

Truth: Sometimes it doesn’t rain

Release Date 4/23/2011

2011-04-26T17:16:00.005-05:00

Kate was going to an event to kick off a Mangrove Planting program down the highway at the Solwara School. This is a facility run by Aslan Awareness a local NGO organization that she does a lot of work with.

They are about 5 miles down the coast. I decided I would try to paddle down to attend if I could find them and then either cartop or paddle back.

I had to run the market that morning because I had made an arrangement with a woman to purchase some rose bushes. It was the day before Easter, which iis a huge holiday here, a 4 day weekend, so she naturally didn’t show up, but I still bought a bunch of food and got a late start.

I had no idea if I could find their place because I have only been there a few times, and only by land. Fortunately I found a couple of kids swimming right about when I thought I might be close and they gave me vague directions (around the next point).

I then called Kate and guessed she and I were looking at the same point. I paddled for another 15 minutes, and thought I saw it, but it looked too small so I went further than called again.

Kate couldn’t see me, but other people on the beach told her I had already passed by, so I turned around and went in.

The whole thing was delayed so even though I got there at 11:00 it didn’t start till later.

The program was kicked-off by Miss PNG, Rachel James.

She is from New Ireland and is a Marine Bilologist. She has been an Ambassador for environmentalism and conservation, and has been in the news often promoting it.

Here is a picture of her and Kate. I just missed the embrace…

I wimped out and took a car ride home, since I had been cooked pretty well by the time I got there. The sunscreen washes off and I had much more sun on my hands and dark bands of intense tan.

I didn’t even realize it was Earth Day! It was actually Earth Day in the US, it was the day after Earth Day here.

There have been great and really full moons this week, that make it almost light when I ride to work in the dark in the mornings. This picture is about an hour before sunrise taken to the West out of Nusa Island. Really pretty and nice.

For Easter we went out to a local island, Uissen, with the staff from a restaurant in town “Bamboo” They had a great meal and all the kids had fun on an egg hunt. Unfortunately we got dumped on by intense rain and had to spend about 90 minutes huddled in the local’s huts, under trees, and even in the water trying to stay dry and warm. The food was great.

I never get over what litterbugs people are here. We should take them all to the US to see some of the beaches around NYC. The owner was trying to get them to keep things clean, but the minute she turned her back they would throw things in the ocean.

The beach and island was just stunning and beautiful, and they had chucked a huge bag of trash that we had picked-up, along with an assortment of beer cans, plates and foil. I picked it all up and brought it back to the boat, but noticed it wasn’t with us when we left. The people who lived there offered to “take care of it” hopefully this didn’t mean tossing it back in the ocean!

Truth:

You need water to live.

Release Date 4/15/2011

2011-04-18T16:40:00.010-05:00

Tax day in the USA, a good day to go paddling in PNG…

I went for an afternoon paddle and then met Kate at Nusa resort on an island for drinks. Kate was swimming over from her office about ¾ of a mile, and I paddled from our house. I found her out in the harbor on her way there.

We passed this boat on way. It had a canoe in the middle of it, but they had offloaded the canoe by the time I took this picture. People have great names for boats. Our favorite is "Ey No Wrong yet" (nothing is wrong yet). Presumably this is a very negative way of saying "Smooth Sailing". It sort of sums up the attitude of the language and the culture.

We hung out with some of the other local ex-pats and had a nice dinner. It was a great night to paddle since the moon was full. Kate took a boat back to her truck, and I paddled back.

I was more than a bit nervous about the surf landing through the reef in the dark. Although I could see enough to paddle I could not see the swell and judge the landing well.

On the way out I was rejected once, and capsized. The tide was low on this return trip, so it was just dumping surf on rock. Very dangerous, but only for 30 or 40 feet since the full force of the wave is expended almost instantly when it breaks.

Our neighbors were sitting around a campfire down where I usually go through the surf, and they say my light. 3 or 4 kids were jumping up and down with burning log torches to make it more dramatic.

Eventually I just said what the hell and gave it a try. I made it in a bit, but then got nailed by a huge wave. It slammed the boat down into the reef, but I managed to brace into it, so I didn’t get rolled. It did make a really impressive noise.

When I got back over to our house I couldn’t lift the boat, the front seemed heavy. I had taken all Kate’s snorkel gear, but when I tried to unload it I realized the entire front hatch was flooded. I had torn a huge hole in the seem along the bow. A spot that had already leaked slightly and been patched several times.

Kate was Francis, a guy at her office, do some work on her boat, so I had him fix my boat as well. He did a great job for only K40 about $25. Her is a picture of him next to the boat.

I guess I have to limit night paddling, or find a better place to land.

Earlier in the afternoon I came home and found Jesus on my doorstep under a beer bottle. It took a while, but I realized somebody had stopped by to invite us to a religious gathering, and since they didn’t want the note to blow away they put it under a beer bottle. That was very “PNG”. …

Also checkout this funny picture from the newspaper. Some villagers caught a crocodile and were going to eat it, For some reason the paper wanted two pictures, but the inset picture is exactly the same as the main picture just smaller and oval. Not sure what the intent was.

Another funny newspaper picture. A story about 2 tourists in a double kayak getting swept out to sea and rescued by a fishing boat, accompanied by a picture of a person rolling a kayak. Not sure what the message is. Must have been the only kayak picture they had in inventory.

Here is a picture of Kate giving Stinky his Sunday breakfast of cognac infused French Toast with whipped cream. Stinky is VERY interested in it, so he has stood-up to take a whiff. He is a bit of snob, but this was good cognac so he ate it happily.

I have to keep a constant monitor on Kate so she doesn’t scoop up another puppy. Here she is with the neighbors dog, "Jealous", a very cute puppy, but becoming an annoying dog quickly.

Truth:

Its hard to give charity to people you know.

Rain Date 4/9/2011

2011-04-18T16:31:00.005-05:00

My first time out paddling since I got back over 1 week ago. Just too busy and too much stuff going on, also the weather had been bad.

It had rained all day, and I thought it was finally over, but of course as soon as I got out in the water it started to dump on me again. It is so warm here, that it wasn’t a problem. I had a light jacket on, and got dumped on 2 times and still it wasn’t cold, quite a feat for a “chilly willy” like me.

I didn’t get around to releasing a message, and I didn’t stay out very long because I didn’t want to have to go through the surf in the dark.

I made it back to PNG successfully.

The airport was still closed when I arrived. There was a dispute between the local people and the government about a lot of money that the Government owed the traditional landowners when the town was built. This dispute went on for years and years, so the locals put a “Gor-Gor” on the airport. Basically they shut it down and post some branches from a special plant and nobody will dare cross it. Sort of like a curse. This is a very powerful mechanism, and the airport, which wasn’t even on disputed land was closed for 10 days. A big problem since there is only one airport on the island. This means no mail, no newspapers, 100 reservations a day canceled, if you run tourist business no customers, if you are on vacation no way home, etc etc…

I had arranged to get a lift with some friends who run a surf charter business. PNG Surfaris from the next island over. I flew in Rabaul in New Britian where they were picking up some of their clients the next day.

There was an assortment of other lost souls going to Kavieng. A pilot who lives in town, a dive tourist going to a resort, and some local guys coming back from a surf contest on the mainland of PNG. It was very luxurious, compared to the other option: an open crossing in a "banana boat", a trip through the hills, and then down the coast in a public mini bus. That would have been hot, dangerous, and exhausting.

I saw this big ship on my way back home.

It is run by a company called “Nautilis” they are doing deep sea mining. Everyone in the conservation community is worried about the impact it will have when it brings tons of silt up from the bottom. God knows what will happen deep down below 1,000 feet or more where they are sucking up all the dirt. Currently they are just doing testing. The ship doesn’t anchor it just hovers with a computer controlled positioning system using thrusters and GPS. I passed it on the way back to Kavieng.

I didn't enjoy the cruise much because I was still getting over my cold, was jetlagged, and just wanted to be back home. We were delayed one additional day by a cancelled flight of their paying customers, but finally left on Monday morning, and arrived in Kavieng the next morning. I think that makes a new record for a NYC->PNG leg of about 100 hours.

The drought broke when I was away, and it rained quite a bit. So everything is green again, and our water tank is full to overflowing.

The surf has died down, so it is not so noisy at our house, and it is safe to get out by kayak or swim out to the ocean. There were a number of weeks where it was too dangerous to get out from our beach.

As we get toward the end of our stay I feel I need to do more outdoor fun stuff because I know I will miss it when we go back home.

Release Date 3/7/2011

2011-03-20T12:25:00.005-05:00

I went out for a short paddle down the coast. I tried a bit of fishing, but I have continued my streak of zero fish and a lot of frustration with weeds and tangles. I think I am going to try using just monofilament line. It is very hard to manage, but the problem might be that because the water is so clear the fish see the fabric line, even though I have a long clear leader on it.

I went down to Panapai, and I think I found a cut in the reef that we could land in if we ever go down to visit friends who live there. I got back in just over an hour with some fairly viggorus paddling, even though because of the fishing it took over 1.5 hours to get there.

There was a lot of floating seaweed around, and I saw many little islands of crabs living on the coconuts and logs that were floating. Seems like they don’t like trash because its usually light colored, and they crabs show-up too much.

I’m getting ready for another trip back to NYC for work. I leave on Friday. I go via Las Vegas for a conference.

We have all kinds of problems with rats in our office. Kate gave me some hand sanitizer and they chewed into it, drank a bunch, and then chucked the bottle on the floor. Later that morning one of the rats came out and ran by me, they usually don’t do that during the day, but I think he “had a load on.”

I was able to save most of it, and I transferred into a glass jar, but that didn’t stop them; the next night they just nawwed a whole in the top to have their little drinky winky. I guess I can’t leave it in the office any more.

I have added hand sanitizer to the growing list of things the rats have eaten going from less to more toxicity:

Dried Ramen

Milk, they took the whole carton.

Coffee.

Bettelnut

Hand Sanitizer

Super Glue

These are TOUGH animals. I hope they don’t turn on us.

Truth: If possible don’t take things apart.

Release Date 2/21/2011

2011-02-24T19:30:00.004-05:00

On Sunday Kate and I went out to Nusa resort to try paddling a double kayak, and it went surprisingly well. We went out to the blow-hole dive site for some snorkeling the same place I went last week. It was a bit rough and the water was kind of stirred-up, but the paddling was fine.

They have a number of double boats out there, We took a fairly short Italian kayak that wasn’t very fast and didn’t have hatches, but it was light and easy to maneuver. They have a much larger 3 piece one that we are going to try next time. The big one is big enough to camp out of. It has hatches and is very long, but it is really heavy.

We are thinking things might be a good solution for us, since Kate doesn’t like paddling as much as I do, and isn’t into paddling hard, but is happy to sit in the boat while I get a good workout. Since there are 2 of us we will probably be as fast as if I was by myself.

On the way back in we came across the most incredible school of small fish I have ever seen. We could not see to the end of it from the surface or under the water, and we swam almost 50 yards apart from each other, and we were both in the middle of it.

We took some videos, but you can’t get a scope of the size of the school because the camera doesn’t see that far under water, but all the shadows and black splotches on just masses of fish.

On Monday and I didn’t have to go to the office. I planned on a big day of kayaking, but I started to work on something and got carried away. The next thing I knew it was 3:00PM and I didn’t have much time left for paddling!

I sure found a nice office, check it out. That white space above and to the left of the monitor is the ocean.

The surf was pretty big, as it has been for a while, so I don’t want to come home after dark and deal with it.

As soon as I got out in the water 2 dolphins swam right up next to me. Because I was so close to the breakers they didn’t hear me, and I got right up to them.

Kate was out doing a visit to one of the communities they work in, and she had to go and set-up a planning meeting. My plan was to get out near Nago island so that I could see her when she came back, but she had landed before I even launched, so I wasn’t even close.

She did do some fishing on the way home, so I had tasty tuna for dinner when I got there. Once I got around past Nusa the sea was very smooth, since the swell was in the other direction and the wind had died. I got a great sunset. In the picture you can see the sun dropping below the Island of New Hanover way in the distance.

When I got back near our house there was pretty good size swell. A guy was driving by me in a motor boat as I was nervously putting on my helmet for the return to shore. He waved, but I noticed later when he saw that I was going in he turned around. I like to think it was to help me, but it might have just been curiosity to see if the white man would be smashed to pieces.

I managed to get past the first really big break, but a big mass of white water caught me and I capsized in the shallow water. The wave was so big that it was plenty deep enough to roll back up. I did loose my pump so I had to actually paddle around a bit in a very heavy tidal rip and the surf to recover it.

I got a good audience of local people on the shore watching, and of course the guy in the boat was waiting for me to get blown out past the breakers again. In the end it was ok I recovered the pump, and was able to paddle back up against the rip tide to our house.

I’m not sure what the best strategy is for this big dumping surf, other than of course the obvious not to paddle in it. It almost seems like I might be better trying to go in sideways since if the boat starts to surf the bow gets nailed into the bottom. I don’t like the idea at all of trying to lay over sideways into a 4 foot wave either.

Release Date 2/8/2011

2011-02-11T17:37:00.001-05:00

I went right on to snow and ice in NYC from our vacation and didn’t get back to PNG and into the water until February.

The surf has finally died down a bit so it is only a little bit dangerous to kayak out from our house now, but I make sure to always wear my helmet.

I wasn’t paying attention when this boat pulled out so I missed it, but I tried to hitch a free ride. They were trailing a skiff and then a rope from the skiff. This is an old Indonesian ferry boat that a local guy has bought. It is pretty narrow and has huge outriggers made of trees hanging off either side. This is a very lousy video of it.

Truth: If you look for something you can usually find it.

Release Date 1/8/2011

2011-02-11T17:34:00.004-05:00

The picture is from the Sydney Harbor bridge way way up high.

These 2 guys were booking along on surf skis. Paddling the Sydney makes NYC look like a country lane. The traffic was tremendous, but these dudes were going right down the middle of the channel in their skis with no PFDs.

We went to NZ for a vacation over new years. I was too lazy to take a lot of pictures, and I haven’t gotten copies from Kate. I released a note on a piece of wood in NZ a week later. The beaches and coastline were really spectacular.

On the beach where I released the note we saw a penguin sitting up in the cliff. We tracked him from the water and found him sitting up in the weeds staring at us like Burgess Meridith.

No Truth: (there was no room on the piece of wood).

Release Date 12/21/2010

2011-02-11T17:17:00.002-05:00

I went for a short afternoon paddle. I hadn’t been out in a long time…

I went by my favorite spot for surf pictures, the blow-hole. And got a short movie. This would definitely be a 5 star plus landing. Paddle up on the rocks at high tide, and land, then get the hell out of the boat quickly before the next wave.

Kate made this note for our “haus meri” describing how to feed the

dogs and asking her to keep an eye out for the top to her water bottle.

Truth: Christmas is coming.

New Paddle Date 1/15/2011

2011-01-15T19:52:00.003-05:00

Ok So I haven't been paddling and I'm in NYC with no drysuit and a ton of work to do, so I'll be spending a lot of time inside.

On my last trip back here I brought my broken paddle blades back and sent them to the "manufacturer" Onno Paddles. I love these paddles, and I felt so stupid when I broke mine by sliding the boat out of the rack with the paddle in the cockpit.

Patrick the owner of Onno is a great guy, and he very kindly offered to fix the broken one. I bought my first Onno when I broke a Werner paddle and they wouldn't fix it. Werner wouldn't even give me a discount or a break because I admited I broke it doing something stupid. Their solution was to throw it away and order another one, my solution was to find another manufacturer.

The problem with buying paddles through the mail is that the shipping is a killer so I ordered the fixed one to be put on a 2-piece shaft and then I ordered a new 1-piece. It came in this really cool wooden coffin/box. You don't get this with that mass produced crap from Werner!! Check it out...

Release Date 11/15/2010

2010-12-12T22:57:00.006-05:00

I went out for an afternoon paddle. It was slightly overcast, so very comfortable, but the sea was surprisingly rough. It was a combination of 3ft plus swells with a lot of wind, and wind waves that made things very confusing.

I planned to go fishing, but abandoned that because it would have been too difficult to deal with a fish if I hooked one in the rough weather.

I just went out for 2 hours down the coast and back again. I paddled at a good clip and got a decent workout. At one point I was feel proud of myself for braving the surf and the rough sea when I noticed there was a guy out fishing in his outrigger canoe. His only safety gear was half a coconut shell for a bailer. I can’t imagine how they get the canoes with no bulkheads out through the surf. He said the he “slip here” and pointed to the shore. He wasn’t afraid to go fishing, in fact that is what he came for. Note his feet hanging over the side, his only concession to the rough sea.

I saw, or actually just saw the last bit of the most amazing thing. I looked over my shoulder and saw a big 3ft long fish flying through the air going straight back into water from over 5ft high. It must have jumped all the way up in the air, like 10ft and turned over and I saw it on the way down. I have never seen any fish jump anywhere near that high, and wish I had been closer, and also seen it from the start.

On the weekend Kate and I watched a huge pod of dolphins swim by our porch. They were little ones, and jet black stretching out for 100s of yards. We estimated there were over 100 of them. Also saw a bunch of frigate birds 25 or so flying around in giant circles gliding on the thermals.

Last Friday was a very interesting day, very much a day in the life of in PNG. We both had difficult mornings at work struggling with bad infrastructure and difficult people and situations.

Some guys came into Kate’s office with two tags they had taken off a sea turtle. A large turtle had climbed up on the shore to lay eggs in the middle of the night. It basically came right up to their shelter, dug a hole and started laying. The guys stopped it, ate the eggs, and were presumably planning on eating the turtle when they saw the tags. They brought the tags to Kate’s office, it took almost a week for them to get a ride and make it up to our town.

Kate has worked on sea turtle projects before, so she arranged a field trip out to see where it was caught, and if it was still alive. It turns out they hadn't killed it; they just flipped it over and left it on its back. Turtles aren’t limber enough to turn themselves over, and people don’t have fridges, so this is a good way to keep your food ready. They held off eating it because the tags might mean it was a special turtle or something. It sat there for 6 DAYS in the sun with dogs nipping at its flippers dying a slow death.

When we got there it was still alive, so Kate took all the necessary data points, and the local guys helpped her put the tags back on and they let it go. The tags were from Australia which is on the order of 1,000 miles away, so it made a very long journey!

This area of the coast was very beautiful. It is much calmer because it isn’t exposed to the surf like our side is. I think I could paddle all the way down here in a day, and get a ride back, so I’m thinking about doing that someday. We also saw a really cool archeology something, but it is secret now, so I can’t post any info on it.

Kate later found out that they aren't sure where the turtle was tagged.

Apparently some researches had taken these tags out for a research trip, but they never returned. They were out off the coast of Australia on the Great Barrier Reef, and they never returned. Their organization assumed they had capsized and were killed.

When we got back to town we went to “the club” associated with the golf course for a light supper. We feel so fancy now that we belong to a golf club and have dining privileges!

We started talking to an older ex-pat who had lived in the country for over 30 years. He was telling us various stories and getting loaded. Then he started yelling at the security guards working at the club because they were coming in, buying beer, and reselling it through the gate. It is not possible to buy beer after 5:00PM here in the store.

He made a stink because it was a violation of club rules, then when they did it again he grabbed a young guy and started throwing him around. One thing led to another, including the ex-pat’s kids getting scarred and starting to cry, it took 10 people to keep them apart.

The white guy left, we waited a while then we left too, but in the meantime somebody put bottles and nails under our tire so we got a flat before we got home. Presumably they thought we were in league with the other guy.

This is the 2nd time since we have been here we have befriended someone in a bar, then they get drunk, and make and ugly scene and we are branded the “friend of that a-hole xyz” While Kate and I were changing the tire 3 local guys in their church clothes showed up and helped us change the tire so the night ended on a nice note.

Truth: Reorganization Cleans things up

Paddle Date 10/27/2010

2010-11-07T21:30:00.005-05:00

I went out for an afternoon paddle from our house. The surf was pretty high at our house, but fairly mellow on the outside of Nusa. The difference was the direction of the swell. It was from the North East, and Nusa faces West, so when I got around the front of the island I could paddle right up to it.

I did a good surf ride in on way home. As long as the waves aren’t too big, AND its high tide I can come right into the front of our house safely.

11/1/2010

We spent a week in Alotau for the annual PNG Canoe Festival. It was cool, but a bit of a disappointment. I missed all the paddling canoes, and some of the cool things we found and bought were stolen. Welcome to PNG….In true PNG form it was very disorganized, and the few paddlers that were there only came in the mornings when we weren’t around.

Most of the boats were sailing canoes. They are MUCH bigger than the traditional paddling ones we have in New Ireland. The boats are totally symmetrical, and the sail always has to be outside the outrigger, so when they “come around” the bow becomes the stern, and they start sailing in the other direction, while the sail stays out away from the outrigger.

We did a ride on one of them on the first day which was cool.

We went up to a resort called Tawalli for a few days before to do a bit of scuba diving. I think the diving up here is even better than it is in New Ireland. I found a cool spear on the bottom of the reef, but it was stolen from our hotel when we went into Alotau, so I didn’t get to take it home.

One of the interesting things to do at the resort was a tour of the "skull caves" The local people used to display the skulls of their enemies that they killed and ate around their houses, but when the missionaries came they relocated all the skulls to remote caves. The skulls are being slowly covered over by limestone and incorporated into the rock.

We also bought a traditional fishing spear but that was broken by the airline. It was not a good weekend for souvenir fishing spears.

Release Date 10/22/2010

2010-10-24T23:35:00.009-05:00

I got off work early and went for a birthday paddle. I wasn’t able to swing a birthday trip this year, but we are going to the PNG Canoe festival next week. That is a big culture show and outrigger canoe race that is held every year in Alotau PNG.

The paddle was nice. The surf has remained mellow, and I was about to go out and in directly in front of our house. On the way back in the dark I landed on the reef and got stuck for a second, tide was falling, and was down by about 1/3, so that must be the minimum tide for a crossing.

I just went down the coast to the little school on the highway. I could clearly see the Fisheries College, but it was still quite a ways away. It was just about an hour to the school.

I was surprised by some dolphins I paddled

right up to them. They freaked out when the saw me at the last minute. It was rough so I don’t think they could hear the paddle or the boat until it was right on top of them.

The moon was up in the early evening, and it was full, so even after the sun went down it was very light.

Kate had been going out every night to check for the palalo worms. These are worms who live in the reef and spawn once a year a few days after the full moon in September and October. People had told us that it happened last month when she was out of town, but she has continued checked to keep track. All of the worms, many different species, all spawn on the same night and time every year so they can be sure they will meet other worms.

There were millions of them in the shallow water near the reef squirming all over the place. She caught a number of them, to get samples, and soon we had all the little kids from next door our helping. It was an army of field biologists to do her bidding.

Some people eat them, so I fried-up a batch. It tasted like a creamy spinach, it was very rich. The doggies helped me finish it off. I just cooked the little ones, a guy on the beach told me the bigger ones were more like prawns (shrimp), but Kate was hogging all of those for her stupid science stuff.

Truth: Sometimes its your birthday.

2010-10-24T23:35:00.001-05:00

Release Date 10/14/2010

2010-10-19T17:42:00.005-05:00

I made it back to PNG and took a quick paddle over to Nusa for dinner. Nusa is very close to our new house. It is a shorter paddle there, than it is back to Kate’s office. It might have only seemed like a shorter paddle since I wasn’t towing a boat like the last time I made the trip.

On the way out I saw this wacky Indonesian fishing boat. Those are giant outriggers made out of huge logs on the side of it. The guy who owns the local Fish plant bought it and is using it for some kind of plundering of the sea project.

The surf has remained fairly low and I had an easy time getting back in. I was too tired from the jet lag to drink anything so that made the trip home a lot easier.

Truth: Electricity makes life easier.

No Release Date 10/2/2010

2010-10-19T17:26:00.005-05:00

I was back for a visit in NYC and I went paddling with my old dtbh kayak buddies.

We, or actually I, was trying to collect a ton of beach glass to us for my next Figment Festival art project. Years ago I found a beach in Staten Island that was totally covered in it. In my memory the entire beach was glass, with just a few rocks.

I found the beach but it only had some glass on it, not nearly as much as I remember. I picked up some, then found quite a bit more at another location that some of the real “locals” pointed me to.

We also found a bit of trash on some of the beaches. You don't see this amount of crap in PNG yet!

When we got way down near the very bottom of Bayone we saw what appeared to be a castle perched, up on top of a grassy cliff. For a while we thought we were in Scotland. It turned out to be an exclusive golf course!

It is totally crazy to have a golf course here.

Compare and contrast the course with the next door neighbor fuel terminal. St. Andrews doesn't have anything like this!

It does have a nice beach, and I am dreaming of some guerilla evening golf to the tune of full moon someday in the future.

I did find a whole bunch of floating golf balls. It turns out the driving range is made-up of floating balls and a 5 acre area sectioned off by an oil boom. A lot of balls must get hit out of the park. I brought them back to PNG.

Now I just have to train the dogs to fetch them out of the surf off of my porch and I’m all set.

We fooled around a lot on the way home. Most of the delays were caused by me picking up glass. It got very very dark, as it usually does at night, and the tide turned against us. The trip ended just like the old days paddling into the tide, in the dark, into the wind without enough lights. We got back to the boathouse around 9:00PM, totally missing going out for drinks with friends after the boathouse closed.

Snorkeling/Freediving 9/6/2010 - 9/8/2010

2010-09-11T21:01:00.003-05:00

I went snorkeling in front of the house a few times this week. Looks like the diving here will be very good. I was only freediving but there are lots of fish because there is a huge ledge that runs along the end of the reef.

At one section there is a cool swimthrough. You enter vertically on the flat of the reef at about 30 feet and come out horizontally in the side of the ledge at about 40. I have to give it a try as a freedive when Kate is out there with me.

I have seen lots of pelagic fish, tuna and jacks, and a couple of pretty good size sharks.

We are going to try and get tanks and do this as a dive, because its too deep to spend much time down there just holding my breath.

Earlier in the week I found these excellent mangoes at the market. Everybody in town was complaining about the price. They are 7 kina, about $3 USD; Still cheaper than Dean and Deluca, but not by much. They are called Rabaul Mangoes, after the town on New Britian with the volcano.

I had to fix the network antenna at the Government office. I was putting in a new mast for the antenna. The antenna is right next to this old Japanese artillery piece. This is by far the best one I have seen since I have been here. Notice the PNG style networking tools, a shovel and a piece of hardwood.

No Release Date 9/6/2010

2010-09-11T20:57:00.000-05:00

I went for an afternoon paddle on a very rainy and stormy Monday. I was supposed to go diving at one of the best dive sites around here, Albatross Pass, but it was cancelled because of bad weather.

I waited till the very end of the day, then thought I would duck out on an afternoon paddle. It was still pretty stormy and windy, but the tide was high and did a launch through the surf, in front of the house.

The swell was pretty big, and by the time I turned around it was getting very dark. Since it was cloudy it got extra dark, extra early.

It was pretty hairy near the end. I haven’t been paddling in big waves in the dark in a while, and forgot how disorienting it can be.

As I got close to the house I could see that Kate was down on the beach with our giant super bright flashlight.

http://www.intova.net/products/intova-super-nova/

She of course couldn’t see me because of the dark, and she was worried. I almost accidently got surfed in, in the heavy surf, but managed to get back out and go around to the entrance to the harbor where the surf was much less. I walked back up the beach.

Just another reminder that I should always bring a light, even if its only close to dark!

There was a torrential rain storm about 15 minutes after I got back, that would have been very unpleasant since it was way too rough to get out a jacket when I was on the water.

Release Date 9/2/2010

2010-09-11T20:44:00.006-05:00

I went for an afterwork paddle from the house.

I finally finshed fixing up the racks for the boats under the house so now it was time to paddle. All of the neighbor kids came over and joined in when I was working on it. By the time Kate came home there were 6 of them doing various jobs with me. I launched at high tide, its only about 10 steps from where we keep the boats to the water, and I can paddle right from there. When the tide is low I have to carry the boat a ways down the beach to a cut in the reef to get out, but at high tide if I can get through the surf I can go straight out.

I just went down the coast for about 45 minutes. I found a little kid’s toy that had been carved out of a piece of Styrofoam. This is the second one of these I have found here, and there is very little trash, so it must be a common thing.

There are people living all along the coast. I saw some flags posted on the beach where I turned around. These look like what I have seen in the past where a section of the beach is marked as a sacred area, where people can’t go, or more commonly where only men can go. There is no sign just a couple of flags marking off sections of the beach. You are supposed to know, and the only way is to ask a local. So if in doubt don’t go in there!

As always it was great to get back on the water after all the millions of home repairs.

Truth: If you wait something will happen.

Move Date 8/16/2010

2010-08-22T18:18:00.013-05:00

We FINALLY moved into our new house.

Papua New Guinea landlords, contractors, are bad, but the plumber was a new kind of bad, so it took a while…

We are still getting settled, every afternoon after lunch, and every weekend, has been a different construction, repair, cleaning, break up dog fight, job, but we are getting to the end of it. I want to bring the kayaks over soon, We already unpacked the gin.

I’m including some pictures, and you can see the highs and the lows of the place.

The backyard.

Although it looks like an ICBM bunker, it is in fact our water tank, the water comes from the rainwater off the roof.

The front yard.

The house is behind the trees you can’t quite see it.

A dog on the porch (Maity).

He was bad, so he was chained up, Stinky was moving too fast and his portrait was blurry. They have developed a fighting technique with the other dogs. Maity goes out to make friends, the neighbor dog attacks him, when the other dog’s back is turned Stinky jumps on top and gets the other dog by the neck. It’s both savage and effective.

A view of the sea from the porch.

A view of the side of the house.

The big metal thing on the left hand side of the picture is the turret to a Japanese artillery piece that was left here at the end of WWII. It is solid steel and weighs more than a car.

A view of the hammock.

We bought this hammock when we lived in Brooklyn, but our yard was too small to put up, and we have been toting it around for a couple of years. This is its last move.

The neighbors.

They live in a traditional house with no electricity, no plumbing, no nothing. I went outside to type this on the porch, and 8 little kids were staring at me, so I went inside. We did put up bamboo shades.

Release Date 8/1/2010

2010-08-01T23:51:00.002-05:00

Release Date 8/1/2010

We decided at the last minute to take a dive trip for the weekend on a local couple’s dive boat, the PNG Explorer, We went up to see the a sunken ship off of New Hanover. The ship was a Japanese ship, and American planes caught it when it was delivering a minisub. The minisub is laying about 100ft away from the wreck on the bottom. It is really small, I can't imagine people living in it.

There was another smaller wreck nearby that we also dove.

The captain of our ship showed us a picture from WWII of one ship on fire, and almost completely sunk, and the other one under attack. You can see the sailors running, and the bomb dropping toward the ship. All of the people in the picture were probably killed. Really intense.

The diving was nice, interesting wrecks and very sheltered, but the visibility wasn’t great, maybe 30 or 40 feet. It is often over 200 here, so I’m sure getting spoiled.

The food and drinking on the ship was also excellent, and it was nice to get away.

We also took a trip up a local river, and watched a young guy climb up a bettlenut tree.

This guy on the beach looks like sideshow bob on the Simpsons.

Kate is wearing this crazy radar reflecting hat that a friend of mine gave me in NYC.

Truth: (can’t read it picture too faint)

Release Date 7/20/2010

2010-08-01T23:41:00.006-05:00

Release Date 7/20/2010

Just did a short evening paddle to try and get some exercise. We have been really busy trying to get our new house sorted out, so I haven’t had much time for kayaking.

A few days earlier I was trying to sort out the internet link between the government offices, and took these pictures of this giant gun. It is in really good shape, and is in the hill right above my office. You can actually see the bits of brass mechanism that controlled the firing, and the gears look like they would turn with some grease. It’s just nutty this stuff is laying around….

Check out this bettlenut stand. It is made out of an old truck cab. Its hard to read, but it says “Transformers!” on the awning. A space age robot transformed itself into a narcotics stand.

Truth: Some things happen when you aren’t expecting them to.

Release Date 7/11/2010

2010-07-11T23:43:00.003-05:00

I went out for a short Sunday evening paddle.

I went out around the near the beach house point, but then it got really dark, so I went back. I didn’t want to deal with the surf in the dark.

There is still no moon, so it is impossible to see anything when the sun goes down. There are only a few points of light for reference along the shore, one of them is our new house’s security lights.

I have been meaning to do a long trip with lots of paddling, and I wanted to do a lot of it at night. I have to remember to plan the trip for when the moon is full, and also to do the paddling around the moon. Ie night paddling with an early moon rise, or early morning paddling with a late moon set.

On the way back in the harbor I was trying to avoid the surf breaks on either side of the harbor entrance, and also not get run over. Other motorboats zip around, some with no lights on. I also came across groups of people fishing in canoes who were just invisible until I was right up on them.

Everybody is a bit nervous. Last week some armed men stole a boat from one of the dive companies. When the divers were under water the came up and pointed guns at the crew and took the boat. When divers came up their crew were there treading water. The worry is they will use the boat for a big crime, and use it as a getaway boat. It was one of the fastest ones in the town. Yikes it’s like Somalia.

I went to check the progress on the house this weekend. It is coming along. They attached a pipe from the neighboring large house for the water, since our tank still isn’t ready. Our contractor is supposed to start on Thursday to do the work we need to fix it all up.

Truth: You don't know how much you need electricity until you don't have it.

Not Release Date 7/6/2010

2010-07-08T03:57:00.004-05:00

No Release Date 7/6/2010

I wasn’t feeling much like paddling, but wanted to go for a snorkel so I went out Edamago Island. I had wanted to go to Rawl, but the heat was just killer and I was feeling crappy, after an hour so I stopped at Edamago.

As I was approaching the island there was this funny area in the lee with bubbles all over it. It must have been from the surf, and then the swell changed and just left this hot sticky scummy water. Yech. You can “feel” the heat in this picture…

I had to immediately jump in the water to try and cool down. I went out to the West and then eventually to the south near the surf break, but the time I went over to the break I was on the outside of it.

The water was cloudy to the West but I kept swimming farther and farther out looking for something different. I must have been 300 yards from shore, when I found very clear water toward the south, outside the break. The reef here was amazing, all kinds of coral and TONS of it. Lots of fish too. I saw one or two that would have been worth catching, and even 2 small sea turtles. It was really beautiful, and so close to town. In the future it would be best to snorkel from the kayak without the long swim from shore through surf and shallow water.

When I got a cramp in my foot, I was borrowing too small fins, I wanted to go in and realized I would have a problem getting over the break since it was very shallow on top of the reef. There wasn’t much surf, but there was a bit. Eventually I found a small valley where the water was a tad deeper. Fortunately it got deeper one I got past the break and I could swim right up to the shore. This would NOT be possible at a low tide.

I found a cool poison nut growing a new tree on the beach. Kate says these nuts are poison and that the local people grind them up to use them for fishing by stunning the reef fish. So do NOT eat these, they are NOT small funny shaped coconuts!

Found Date 05/2010

2010-07-08T03:46:00.004-05:00

One of my regular kayaking friends found this message floating in New York Harbor. It’s hard to believe that it was in the water for 4 years. It doesn’t look very worn or faded. It was in a large plastic juice bottle.

The story was really wacky, and didn’t make any sense. I’m not sure if the person who wrote it dropped it into the water, or if they just reused the paper.

I tried searching for the author:

Lynne E. Bryant

2345 Broadway #324

NY NY 10024.

PO Box 342

Madison Square Station

129 East 23rd St.

NY NY 10010

But can’t find her for sure. I suppose I’ll try and send a letter when I get back to the USA.

Blow-up the picture below and read the wacked out story…

Release Date 7/5/2010

2010-07-08T03:37:00.004-05:00

Release Date 7/5/2010

(I actually released the 7/3/2010 message on this paddle I forgot on 7/3)

We went to a big fourth of July party yesterday, and I /was feeling a bit raw, but wanted to get out for a paddle in the late afternoon. I didn’t get on the water until 5 or so, and it quickly got very dark.

The tide was pretty high, and there was no moon, so when it got dark I couldn’t see a thing.

I decided to go to the north around Cape Surrat(sp?) and go along the coast since the water was high, and it looked like it was pretty shallow.

I saw a few people a young woman came out to the beach, followed by 2 young guys with guitars, go figure???

It gets very swampy a bit further on, and if there are people living in there, they aren’t right on the waters edge, its just miles and miles of mangroves.

I did find one spot where somebody had cut a bunch of branches, but I can’t imagine why. It seemed the stuff they cut away was right there in the water, but they must have taken some of it with them.

It was shallow and boring so I turned around just as it was getting really dark and paddled home using the lights on the cape as a beacon.

Once I came around the corner I was blinded by a super bright light at Nago Island. A lot of the rest of town was dark because of the blackouts, but they make their own electricity out there.

The bioluminescence has been really impressive lately. Maybe because there is no moon, but it just glows very brightly in a light green. I tried making a movie of it, it just came out as black with a few white spots. It is stronger and weaker in places, but when it is going it is really going and super bright.

Release Date 7/3/2010

2010-07-08T03:28:00.004-05:00

Kate and took our canoe out for its inaugural voyage. We bought it a couple of months ago when we did our trip down the East coast to the southern end of New Ireland.

We had to take it apart to get it home, and we didn’t get around to putting it back together until today. We did paint it with leftover paint, but now that it is done I realize it looks like a German Uboat. Dark Gray, with black trim. I will not name it "U232" or anything, I promise.

The canoe leaks quite a bit. Kate called it “sweating” it just comes right through the wood, like sweat. So we need to bring a bailer with us on our next trip. I have seen other canoe paddlers, doing a lot bailing. I watched 2 kids in leaky canoe, the one in the front with a coconut shell was bailing furiously while the kid in the back was paddling, but they couldn’t get to the shore in time…

We paddled over to Nusa Resort to have drinks and dinner. The boat has a bad habit of turning to the left toward the outrigger. Even when I paddle on the left hand side it turns left, but I’ve noticed this in other canoes, so it might be operator error, not an assembly problem.

We are just back after one month in the USA. We didn’t get a real vacation there because we were both working a lot, but I tried to get my quota of rich food in. Bad news is I have high cholesterol, got to lay off that New Zealand butter.

Our Bodies of water project was a big success. We had a lot of fun, saw a ton of friends, saw some real freaks. The fact that some people thought we were freaks was a bonus.

See www.bodiesoftrash.org for details and pictures.

Truth: If you are living it you don’t need to read about it.

Release date 5/25/2010

2010-05-25T21:12:00.007-05:00

I paddled out from the dock to Edamago island. It was a beautiful still afternoon, and slightly raining, which is actually ideal paddling weather here since its not too hot.

When I got there I was picking up junk on the beach and I found one of the messages in a bottle I released 4 months ago. It floated around out there for a while then ended-up back on the same island that I went to that day. See 1/26/2010. I wonder how long it sat on the beach, and how long it circulated in the water….

I had a nice paddle and re-released it along with a new bottle.
Truth: Sometimes rare things do happen.

Earlier that week I went to check-out some WWII artifacts. This pillbox and two giant guns are on Nusa Island. Right near the blow-hole spot where I have been paddling and diving.

The guns are in pretty good shape, and I can now say for sure the giant metal object in the yard at the new beach house is the bottom part of a shore gun. I wonder what happened to the rest of it…

There are giant springs scattered all around the place that must have been part of the shock absorber mechanism Kind of amazing that this stuff is just sitting around in the jungle here..

Release Date 5/18/2010

2010-05-21T03:56:00.006-05:00

No release 5/13/2010.

I did a short paddle for a few hours in the evening. I was going to check out this lumber ship, but it pulled-up the anchor and took off right as I got close. It’s funny that its from Hong Kong, we will be going there in a couple of weeks, I’ll look for this logging ship.

It was another very calm and beautiful night. The sunsets are always great, even if you don’t actually see the sun drop below the clouds, like you do in the USA. The pictures don’t do it justice, the colors are all over the place…

5/16/2010 Diving…

We went out to Albatross Pass for diving with Scuba Ventures on 5/16/2010. The best time to dive the pass is on an incoming current, into the pass.

The dive is very nice wall with a lot of pelagic and reef fish on it. We went back and forth along the wall, then anchored ourselves at 20 some odd fish with a hook and just hung out in the current.

This was a very nice dive, I really enjoyed the end part just waiting in the current. It seemed almost as if I was at the aquarium watching hundreds of fish swim back and forth. My favorite were the sharks and mackerel who moved so quickly back and forth out in the deep water. This would be a good place for spearfishing…

The current was running pretty strongly up into the pass to the North around 10:00AM in the morning. The extreme low tide for the day was around noon, so at 10:00AM it was a falling tide near the bottom of the range. There didn’t seem to much current at all when we went back through around 13:00.

Release Date 5/18/2010

I went out for a short paddle to Nusa to talk to some outfitters who were running a multi-day kayaking trip. They said I could go along with them, but they later changed their mind, so in the end I didn’t go.

It was kind of a half-assed trip anyway. Paddling with a bunch of inexperienced people with a client in the front of each double and a Papua New Guinean guide in the back. They were headed up toward New Hanover, which is the same direction I hope to go on a trip soon. I’m just going to have to do it on my own I guess.

It was a very clear night, and I could see New Hanover off in the distance, see the pictures…

Truth: Overcast days are good.