Move Date 8/16/2010

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Or

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

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.