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

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

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

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

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.