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.

No Release Date 10/2/2010

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

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.