Release Date 4/9/2010

Picture summary:

-Klingon the pig as a grown-up. I had a dream about a pig before I moved here, and I have been looking for a black-white-black pig with these colors.

-The pagan dancers for Easter.

-A lumber camp on the side or the road. They take the good logs away, but the junky ones get processed here by a small portable sawmill.

-Kate showing people their pictures that she took.

-A canoe on the water. These guys were all out trying a new fishing technique.

It took all week to get out kayaking, but I finally did on Friday afternoon.

I just took a slow lap around Nusa Island, and paddled out to the point where our new house will be, if it becomes our new house. Not much has happened on that front in over a month, so we are disappointed. It was looking really good there for a while, then progress slowed to a crawl and stopped. We spoke to the landlord earlier this week, and she is still waiting on the carpenters to do more work on the kitchen. She was upset that they weren’t working so it still seems to be a go…

It was very calm on this day, a small surf break, but the tide was way out so it was not safe to surf at all. From talking to the board surfers it seems high tide is the best time because there is the most water over the rocks then.

I saw a stand-up paddle boarder from Nusa. One of the guys out there has offered to let me try it, so I have to go back when I have more time.

Truth: Sometimes things don't work out as planned.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv weekend summary vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

We had a rough weekend trying to have a vacation trip over Easter. We took a trip “down the highway”, which is what everybody says when they go out of Kavieng. There is only one highway, and only one direction to go, so that is actually pretty descriptive. It turned into a highway to hell trip.

We met a guy at Nago Island a month or so ago who told us fantastic stories about Japanese WWII planes crashed in the jungle near his wife’s village at the other end of the island and he offered to take us down there on a sightseeing trip, so we decided to take the plunge and do it.

It was 12 hour drive each way. The highway got smaller and smaller turning to a crushed coral road, and eventually just 2 tire tracks in the dirt. At many places we had to drive through rivers because there were no bridges.

We got all the way down there and then we had all kinds of problems with the local people. Our guide had not told them we were coming, and he didn’t have the right people lined-up to take us up into the woods. It is actually difficult to get this kind of message sent because it is basically a game of telephone. The cellphones don’t work in this area, so to send a message he needs to find someone who is headed to that village, and ask them to give the people there a message.

At any rate we spent the first morning going from village to village via boat, trying to arrange a local guide. At one village the chiefs couldn’t agree to let us go onto their land, or that’s what we think happened anyway; at another the people who knew the way had all gone for the day, etc etc… Eventually we ended up in a place called “Moricon”, by the end of the trip I was calling it “Mordor”….

A bunch of young local guys came with us, to help guide us, and help us with our equipment. We weren’t that worried about actually finding the plane, and decided that we didn’t care if they couldn’t find it, but we wanted to camp up in the jungle for the night. We hiked 4 hours up a river bed and they showed us a rusty piece of metal that didn’t look like anything that came off a plane.

It took us a while to realize it, but there was then a big disagreement with our guide and the local people, and it turned out they didn’t want to let us stay in jungle for the night. We tried arguing the point, but the guy who was carrying the water had already dumped 90% of it out, so we were kind of screwed. It is very very hot, and you can’t live without water. This trail was high-up the side of a mountain, and there was no water available to purify, so we had to go back.

There were a series of other setbacks and problems, the worst being that the next day we found out they had stolen things out of our bags when carrying them. We were forced to hire some of the local guys to carry our stuff, and we often got separated from them on the path. It was impressive to watch these young guys with bare feet, briskly hiking up over tree roots and rocks with very heavy packs. They went much much faster than we could. We couldn’t come close to keeping up with them.

We were angry and upset, and didn’t really trust them the next day when an alternate hike was proposed, so we spent the day in their village. It was Easter Sunday and they did a church service/sing-sing to celebrate.

We met a bunch of guys fishing from outrigger canoes. They were trying a new kind of deepwater fishing using a really long line with multiple hooks. One guy had learned it at a local training session, and he was teaching all the others.

We chatted with them for a while, and eventually bought one of their canoes to take home with us. We now have another boat to paddle!

A sing-sing is their traditional dance performance. I have seen a couple of them now, but this was the first one that was tied to a Christian religious ceremony. About ½ way through Easter service a bunch of guys come out of the woods doing a traditional dance and chanting. They make little wood ceremonial staves to use during the dance. These were interesting they were canoe paddles on one side, and axes on the other. The axe or machete is never far away in all their decorations at these things.

Since it was Easter the axe paddles are painted with Christian slogans “Em Nau King of Kings” or “Jeru - salam” or “Hapy Aister”. You can see in one pictures the guys have made little wood knives, with crosses cut in them, and a kid behind is carrying a bible, while the dance across the sand, doing a pagan dance, and enter the Church. It is a funny mix of different belief systems, but they seemed to have something for everyone.

Anyway we still haven’t managed to go camping, but we did get to see the jungle along with getting jerked around and ripped off, so it was an expensive and painful walk in the woods.

Fire Date 4/6/2010

Email to my friend who gave me the grill in question.

vvvvvvvv
Hi B,

So Kate and I come back from a very difficult Easter weekend where a holiday went a bit out of control, and then there is a blackout in town.

The problem turns out to be the fact that the power company didn't pay the bill to fuel supplier and they cut them off. The power company was actually telling people this as their excuse.

I found some expensive organic beef in one of the supermarkets that I was saving in the freezer. If your house is over 95 degrees and the power goes out on your fridge for 16 hours you have a problem. I think, Ha no problem. We will have a nogat power party. (nogat means no in tok pisin).

So we have some people over and I get the food ready by flashlight. I light the grill and go back upstairs to have a beer and entertain the guests while the grill "warms" up. Well into my beer I notice an orange light from the front of the house. I actually thought the power had gone back on. Hmm... A sarcastic Australian surfer says "maybe your house is on fire Ha Ha..."

Anyway the power wasn't back on, but the grill had caught fire. It burned off the fitting where the gas goes in the grill and I had a homemade flamethrower shooting huge flames onto the side of the house, this was turning into a "nogood" party....

I managed to turn the gas off, but I think the grill is going to need some work. I guess I'll give them a call, but this looks worse than when the glass broke when you owned it.

I thought you would appreciate this picture Notice both burners are at FULL THROTTLE....

Release Date 3/22/2009

Kate and I took a paddle out Rawl (or Ral) Island for a campout.

This is the beautiful little deserted island we camped on for my Birthday in October. It is about a 2hour paddle out of town.

This time we left early, and it was a bit overcast so we didn't get killed by the heat. It was a nice day, very calm.

When we got there the surfers from Nusa were at a break off of the north tip of the island having fun. We talked to one of them the next day, when they weren't surfing and he confirmed that they can only surf this break on high tide.

We did hear about some spectacular accidents, people needing massive numbers of stitches, craked open heads, and branching coral sticking out of legs like pincushions, so I don't feel like quite as much of a wimp about not doing much kayak surfing.

We had a nice day hanging out, and did some snorkeling here. I tried a bit of spearfishing, but the fish and pretty nervous about friendly divers with spearguns. I only took one shot, but I was using a smaller gun and I just got a cloud of scales. Fortunately the emergency food was free range steak, so we didn't suffer.

The pictures are on kate's camera, so I need to get them....

We actually stayed over Sunday night because the weather wasn't good on Saturday. It worked out fine because we were able to get-up, break camp, paddle back, and Kate was at her desk before 10:00AM.


Truth: If something doesn't work out, it often makes sense to try again.

Release Date 3/17/2010

Nobody was celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. We did go for a beer at Nusa resort on the way home, but it wasn’t green.

Kate and I went for an after work paddle.

I released this msg just outside of Kavieng Harbor in front of the new house we want to rent, aka the beach house. Nothing has been done on it for a month, so things are a bit slowed down, and we are a bit disappointed.

We saw this cute little, tasty little hog, playing by the beach. If we took a shot at him we would have blown-up this canoe, and his owners would have been angry. This is what my Florida friends call a "New York Fryer"

It was a very very still day, absolutely no wind totally flat. There was surf, but just big rolling swells. I paddled in through the breakers to the beach in font of the beach house. In moderate or light surf it will be easy to launch from here.

It was a beautiful evening. Everything was so still. This picture doesn’t do it justice, just the flat “oily” sea for the bottle release.

We came right up on a pod of dolphins. Fortunately the marine mammal protection act does not apply here, so we could get close to them. Kind of curious I have never seen anybody eating dolphins. Probably too hard to catch, or they don’t taste that good.

I got back to PNG on Saturday, and it was great to get back out on the water.

Truth: Fuel smells bad.

not release date 2/7/2010

We actually didn’t release a bottle, but I wanted to post pictures of the new house Kate found for us on the beach. We have been talking to the owner for a few months, and they have started heavy duty construction work renovating it, so it is starting to look like we might actually be able to rent it. You never know with big projects here, some of them never ever happen.

It is about 1 mile out of town, and because of the way the road twists around it might be faster to kayak to work than bike, certainly a whole lot nicer….

The house is just outside of the harbor on what is really the North coast, but they call the East coast of the island. The surf is only a few feet on the day I took these pictures, but sometimes it is much higher. The picture through the trees is from the deck, just outside of our bedroom. It is right on the water, like 30ft from it, but up high on pilings so I don’t think it will flood.

The kayaks can go right under the house, which will be great since now we have to go to Kate’s office, and get them out of her storage container. Which she needs to fill with work stuff.

This area was heavily fortified by the Japanese during the war. There is the turrent mechanism from an artillery piece in the side yard, and the neighbors have a really cool pillbox in their yard. I’m actually surprised they didn’t incorporate it in their house. There are supposed to be several other gun emplacements around somewhere, I have to check it out more carefully next time.

The house was kind of a wreck, but the owner is having a massive renovation done, and it seems like they are doing a pretty good job.

We are still waiting on parts for the water system. This area does not get city water, so we need to have a large tank put in, with a system to collect rain water from the roof. There is also a lot of work to do inside the house, but they have put on a new roof, all new windows, and new screens.

On Friday on the way home we saw the sky was all lit up from a massive fire. For some reason someone was burning a giant patch of swamp/grassland. Maybe for planting, but we drove over near it, and took this little video.

On Saturday we went for a short paddle and hung out on Nago Island. Some of the local kids were out chopping down coconuts. They gave us one, so I sent them out for a kayak ride. They seemed to get a kick out of it, and we enjoyed the coconut.

Later the Nago security guard told us a fantastic story about a crashed Japanese war plane in his village on the other end of the island. He said t he plane came and was filled-up with gold that they mined, then it crashed with the gold still in it. But the local kustom chief has made it taboo, and there is an evil spirit in the form of giant snake that guards the gold.

Release Date 1/26/2010

Right as I got in the water these people went by on this boat towing a kid standing on a surfboard. It looked just like my youth, with me and my friends skimboarding up and down the river on a piece of plywood. The kid didn’t get a lot of style points, but he stayed up, and they were moving pretty fast…

I had a cold so had to take a few days off of paddling. Plans of doing a massive weekend trip were cancelled, but I finally felt good enough to go today.

I paddled out to Edamango Island again. It is about 2.5 NM away, but the wind was again blowing pretty heavily right out of the west so it took over an hour to get there. I nailed the boat on the reef pretty good coming into shore. It was the classic stay on the back of the wave, but of course I couldn’t and even laying flat on the back of the boat the bow got buried in the water and smacked the rock. I beached the kayak and did a bit of snorkeling.

This is the same island where Kate said all the beautiful blue coral on the beach is a kind of fire coral, so it was unpleasant swimming out to the reef. At points it was only about 1 ft deep with the swell exposing the rocks. I often hear a voice in my head like Homer Simpson “Ha Marine Biologist what does she know, Humph” but I am a bit smarter than Homer so I put my paddling shoes on my hands and managed to get over the rocks without getting stung.

It was overcast and all stirred up by the wind, but this was clearly the best place for coral I have ever seen. There are huge expanses of growing coral all kinds. It was all a dusky gray because of the, overcast day, and sediment. “Crappy visibility” of only 20ft. It must be amazing in the sun on a calm day. I saw tons of little fish and even a few little grouper all less than 2ft long. You can tell the tasty fish, they take off as soon as they see you.

I did a bunch of free dives. The coral is all shallow, at 30 ft it was just pebbly rocks and sand, but if it wasn’t so windy and the current so strong I could have gone out a lot further and maybe found a rise out in the water where there were bigger fish.

It got a little intense at one point as I got around the point of the island because the current got really strong. Like if you don’t use your hands to do the crawl you are going to go backwards and be swept out to sea kind of strong.

I saw a turtle right when I got in the water. Its head was buried in the rocks eating algae, and it totally freaked when it looked up and saw me 10 ft away. They can really move when they want to. I wonder how the locals catch them, and this was just a little guy.

I also saw a really cool black tipped reef shark about 2ft long, cruising in amongst the rocks..

I screwed-up my sinuses by freediving, and haven’t been the same since. I guess I wasn’t officially “better” yet.

On the way back in I saw a great sunset, and as usual the wind died so I didn’t get a free ride in. I couldn’t surf in either because the swell was almost directly broadside.

The next day there was a tremendous storm about 6AM while I was eating breakfast and 2 huge banana trees fell over in the yard. I chopped them up with our machete (bush knife). Banana trees have very shallow root systems and are always the first to go in a storm.

You can’t tell from the picture but this stalk of them weighs about 50 pounds. These were cooking bananas, like plantains in the US, and I made them for dinner. They have a nasty sticky sap in them, that I can NOT get off of the cutting board or the knife. They tasted ok, like plantains, but the dogs didn’t like them at all. I probably should have covered them with salt and butter that’s how I ate it.

I want the “house meri” literally house woman, but means the person who cleans our house to take them. I left her a note, let’s see if it was understandable….

Bikpela Win Bugarup Bananna Tri. Ples Yu kisim dispela I Kai Kai.
Big Wind broke banana tree. Please take them and eat.

Its got one of my favorite Tok Pisin words in it. Buggarup. Eg Buggered-Up, means broken….

Hopefully she won’t chop down all the other trees in the yard, or cook one of the dogs, because what I wrote made no sense…

Truth:
Something about the weather, but I can’t make it out…

Release Date 1/19/2010

1/19/2010

Also no bottle sorry, hope I don’t have to rename the blog….

After a particularly frustrating day at work I went out to paddle. Kate is out of town on a trip with some friends in India, so went out fairly late for a short trip. I paddled out around Nusa Island. It has been very windy lately, and the swell has been big. It is deceiving in the harbor, but once you pass the reef into the real sea it hits you.

This day it reminded me of the Atlantic. The ocean was a dark gray, swell from the sea, and wind waves on top of them. It was impressive. Unlike home it was not cold and upleasant. It was overcast, but still about 80 degrees, and even a chilly willy like me was comfortable in just a shirt and shorts.

I went around the two islands out the point to check out the new house we want to rent. We have found a ramshackle house on the coast that the owners want to fix-up and rent to us.

Inside it really looks like a beach shack. It is only about 30feet from the shore, and there is the constant roar of the surf smashing into the reef about 100 yards away. I hope we don’t go deaf.

The big revelation today was that about 50 yards away from the house it looks like I can do a launch, into surf, but not the terrible surf that comes in from the North. Maybe I can keep some of the kayaks under the house. Fingers crossed…. They have to actually do the work and fix it up, since it is falling down, but we are totally ready to go if it happens.

Unfortunately my camera battery went dead, so I couldn’t get a picture of it. I did get a nice picture of the surf crashing into “the blowhole” This was pretty interesting since it is sheer rock right on the coast, and massive clapotis coming out while the surf comes in. The picture doesn’t do it justice. It could be Wales…. This spray is about 30ft high…