Release Date 12/21/2010

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

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

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

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

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.

Release Date 10/14/2010

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.