Budibudi to Rabaul
27/10/2019 En Route to Budibudi Island, Papua New Guinea
The last couple of days have been fun. I finally got to go dive on that WW2 wreck after spending a good 30 minutes looking for it again. It was as good as Vanja made out, if not better. She mainly liked the coral and fish, and although it was very good, I just loved seeing the plane. Here was this awesome war machine brought about to create terror and destruction, no doubt killing many people. It now sits on the ocean floor looking beautiful and peaceful, providing a home to this colourful little ecosystem that probably wouldn’t exist otherwise. It just got me thinking about how the world goes on. We as people may ruin a lot of it, and ourselves, nut no matter what we do I think nature will always prevail. And that is a good thing. I don’t know, maybe I’m getting too much sun.
Other than that it’s been pretty much the same thing, hang out in the morning, do some trading, eat lunch, do some trading, do some boat chores, do some trading, have dinner and go to bed.
Yesterday broke the routine a little bit as we decided to head into the village to watch the local sports carnival of soccer and netball. It’s slightly different here to how it was on Brooker Island in that there are teams from 2 neighbouring islands that come here to play. It was really interesting to see this sleepy village come to life with all the players and spectators arriving from around the area. It was nice to see a bunch of our new trader friends play in one of the games, though they only had 8 people on the team. They managed a nil-nil draw which was a good result against the leading team in the competition. I asked where everyone was and they said they were all out fishing or working in the garden for the Sunday feast tomorrow.
After the games we said goodbye to Martin, our guide/host/friend. It was quite sad to say goodbye to Martin. I feel like I’ve let him down somehow. His needs are so little, yet I could only help with a few of them from here. That reminds me, if anyone knows how to fix a compass, or has a small solar regulator, please get in touch!
We left his morning for the overnight hop to Budibudi Island, the furthest Island in the Milne District of PNG. It really is way the hell out there when you look on a map. We exited the island group through the West Passage noting 3 squalls around us. Squalls have been a common occurrence over the last couple of weeks. It’s like the weather has just switched over to some other level causing a lot of cloud cover, not much rain, but a lot of squalls. I guess this is the beginning of the wet season up here. Well anyway, none of the 3 squalls affected us other than changing the wind direction from the North and completed cutting it off for an hour. So for the first couple of hours we motored along in completely calm water hoping the wind would return, even though it is so much nicer to travel when there is no wind.
When we got out of the lee of the islands the wind finally returned. It jumped up to 12kts just off our nose. We hoisted all the sails and switched off the engines for a fast but bumpy ride. The wind is now around 15kts and the waves have grown significantly. The boat is very loud and uncomfortable and there is a new creak around our starboard steps making sleeping very difficult. Anyway, lets just say this leg has not been very good so far.
30/10/2019 Budibudi Island, Papua New Guinea
We’ve been anchored off Budibudi Island for a couple of days now. This place is astonishing. How these people continue to live here baffles the mind. We are literally hundreds of miles from anywhere! And here on these tiny little islands, barely 2 metres above sea level live about 300 people on 2 islands.
It is much of the same for us really, they have been coming out in a steady stream on their dugout canoes and makeshift sailing canoes to trade goods. The difference here being that they don’t have any soil on these islands so their diets consist of eggs, yams, bananas and coconuts… and that’s it! One guy, Dennis, left his guest book with us to sign. Everyone has been incredibly friendly. A bunch of girls dropped by yesterday for a few things. As they paddled away they started up a beautiful harmonious song which left us dumbstruck is was so nice.
Unfortunately the weather has not been very nice since arriving. The clouds are endless, and the wind has been blowing pretty much steady between 15-25kts the whole time. It wouldn’t be so bad, but the rigging makes this horrendous humming sound at about 22kts, causing the same affect as fingernails down a chalkboard or a squealing knife on a plate of china. Ugh.
We have had a good taste of what it’s like to be outside of a medical radius lately. Firstly I cut my foot back at Panasia which has been healing nicely, thanks for asking. And now Lara has this weird festering pus ball on her foot that seems to be spreading. We cleaned it up as best we could and started her on a course of antibiotics. This was 3 days ago, and she just now passed the halfway mark of the antibiotics. It is looking much better, but still can’t say for sure whether it will heal. So we are keeping a close eye on it and keeping her out of the water. My other foot is also a little infected around a small cut I got on a walk on Panapompom. It really is amazing how well bacteria thrive in these humid hot conditions. Every little cut we need to clean and disinfect. We are having to start a nightly tradition of checking each other’s feet for new cuts to clean. Sort of like a group of gorillas picking at each other’s nits.
03/11/2019 En Route to Rabaul, New Britain, Papua New Guinea
We sadly left beautiful Budibudi this morning for the 2-3 day trip to Rabaul, the old capital of New Britain Island. Budibudi has easily been our favourite island so far. From the moment we arrived the locals have made us feel safe and welcome. We would’ve stayed longer, but the weather was looking good and we are running a little late in the season. If we wait too long there’s a chance the Northwest monsoon may startup causing us all sorts of problems for our current itinerary.
Anyway, I’m not exactly sure what I loved so much about Budibudi, everything really. The people were easily the friendliest yet, but it was also the location and the remoteness of this place that just let us relax into it. We struck up some nice friendships with a few of the locals, even having an impromptu party on the boat with 4 of us in the cockpit having a beer while Lara and Jake blew the minds of about 6 kids inside with their iPads playing Minecraft, music and movies. It was great to watch.
Hans, the first person to come and greet us became quite a good friend. He was saying on one occasion that we are only the 3rd boat in history to invite him on board for a chat. This seemed incredible to us since he also said that they get about 10-15 yachts a year coming to the islands. I tell you, cruisers are missing out! He was a wealth of info and full of interesting stories. He told us all about the cocaine that showed up on the island a couple of years ago, and also how witchcraft and wizardry came to an end only 20 years ago when Christianity arrived. He also told me the astonishing custom of how men and women become married in the village. “Only men are allowed to look for women, and only at nighttime”, he says. “How do you meet women at nighttime?” I ask, because it’s not like there are any bars or cafes around. He says, “Well, at night when everyone asleep the men are allowed to go climbing up into house looking for women”. What?? “Do the parents know?” I ask. “No” he says with a cheeking smirk. “If parent find you, they may come at you with stick, or pole.” And bursts into laughter. I laugh with him of course more out of disbelief than anything else. Imagine that “custom” back home. Yikes!
We visited the local school on the main island the other day, where we met a couple of the teachers, one of whom Bennet, showed us around. The kids were of course excited and nervous to see us. I tried to break the ice a little bit and asked a group of them to teach me some of their language. Learning a new language, as a lot of you know, is not one of my strongest skills, so all I managed to do was look like an idiot. It gave them all a good laugh though, so it wasn’t all in vain. We signed the school’s guestbook, gifted a few books and stationary and said goodbye after a very nice visit.
Vanja spent the morning yesterday learning to weave with the old ladies in the village. She sat in a hut and between about 3 of them made this amazing straw hat, 3 bowls and a handbag. All perfectly done and similar to the ones you would buy at the shops for some exorbitant amount of money. It was incredible. When I rocked up to pick her up, she and Barbara, one of the elders were finishing off the hat while a group of about 8 women and girls sat around watching and shooting the breeze. It was a really nice insight into what goes on in one of these villages.
04/11/2019 En Route to Rabaul, Papua New Guinea
A couple of records fell today. First up was the highest wind speed recorded on Toc; 40.8kts. Second record was the boat speed; 16.3kts - that’s double the boat’s normal speed! Both happened at the same time, not surprisingly. This was caused by a squall that blew over us after 2 rather benign ones preceded it. Luckily the wind was coming from directly behind us, so all we had to do was roll up the headsail until our speed came under control. Easier said than done of course at 40kts, but with a bit of luck and ingenuity it was done. Afterwards, there was just a bed sheet on the front of the boat moving us along at 8kts. And a single bed sheet at that. It’s amazing how powerful the wind can be, the seas were about 2m and pretty rough before the squall, but during the height of the wind they went flat. Anyway, 10 minutes later it was over and I rolled the headsail out again.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. The wind stayed around 15-20kts all day and the waves grew to 2-3m in the afternoon. Everyone on board is doing well, though a little sleepy. Apart from the scary squall it’s been a really nice sail.
05/11/2019 Rabaul, New Britain, Papua New Guinea
We made it, barely. I’ll start with the positives:
- we now know what sustained gale force winds feel like
- the boat can survive some pretty heavy weather
- we can survive the weather
- I now know how to furl the genoa in 40kts of wind
- the kids can sleep through anything
And the negatives:
- gale force winds are terrifying!
At 1am this morning I was due to finish my shift and wake Vanja up before getting a blessed 3-4 hours of sleep. We had the radar going constantly so we can detect squalls before they hit us, and I could see something a little bit up ahead. I unrolled the rain covers and decided to pre-emptively roll in the headsail a bit, just in case. When the rain started it wasn’t too bad, but 10 minutes later the wind jumped to 30kts and changed direction from SE to SW. 5 minutes later Vanja woke up and came out wondering what all the noise was about. I told her it was just another squall and that I was going to wake her when it had passed. 16 hours later it was still blowing between 30 and 40kts. This was not a squall.
It wasn’t too bad to start with, we turned downwind as we thought it was a squall and would pass us by. This is the best thing to do to calm everything down, the wind instantly drops 5-8kts. After 30mins though we looked at each other and agreed that it wasn’t a squall. I could see my fear reflecting in Vanja’s eyes. This was probably the scariest moment, knowing that we would have to turn towards the wind. That is, unless we wanted to visit the Solomon’s.
Well, we rounded up towards the wind and sailed with the 35kt winds about 80° off our nose. It instantly became very loud with truckloads of water smashing over the deck. Vanja and I both tried to sleep, but it was virtually impossible with the noise and adrenalin. We are meant to go outside every 10-15 minutes to visually check for objects and boats to avoid, but it was pointless in the current conditions. The spray was travelling horizontally across the boat, and our navigation lights were lighting it up so we couldn’t see more than 10m in any direction. It was so scary going along like that, sort of like driving along a wide empty road with your eyes shut.
Anyway, the sun eventually came up bringing a whole new level of anxiety with it. The waves were at least 4m high with the big ones coming through at 5 or 6m. I surfed a lot during my younger years and these waves were truly gigantic. Thankfully they don’t really break like beach waves, but they do threaten to. And when that happens and the boat hits them, that is when we get knocked about like a bath toy.
Finally at 3:30pm, after 14 hours of pretty much hell, we round the corner into Rabaul harbour, and the wind dies to 3kts, the seas are non existent and the water is glassy. All the anxiety and fear instantly vanish and we motor the remaining couple of hours to our anchorage at the Rabaul Yacht Club. There is even another cruising boat there, SV La Grotty, who we briefly met in Budibudi. Kylie came over and gave us the lowdown on PNG clearance. It seems pretty involved, but she is going to call all the relevant people for us so should be smooth as silk tomorrow.
06/11/2019 Rabaul, New Britain, Papua New Guinea
After our 12 hours of sleep last night in a perfectly calm anchorage, the previous passage of hell almost didn’t exist. It’s amazing how quickly that horror is forgotten. It’s like the comments “We are never doing this again.”, and “What the hell were we thinking!” and “I’m flying the kids to the next port while you take the boat on your own.” were never even said. Thank goodness too, as I don’t know what we’d do if we wanted to give it up from here! There is an Australian guy Nick at the yacht club who came here for 3yrs, but stayed for 34yr, so I guess that is the answer.
Today was admin and cleanup day. We spent the day tidying up the boat while waiting for the various officials to come and clear us into the country. First I had to dinghy the handheld VHF to Rod, the foreign yacht arrival committee, on the dock so he could call me when they arrived. First was customs. Josephine was very nice and welcoming. After a brief chat and 1 form and no fee, we had stamps in the passports. Then quarantine, or at least half of quarantine rocked up. Johnson came on board to check everyone was healthy and after I signed a declaration of health and paid the $K120 fee we were officially allowed to get off the boat and step on land. Just as we were getting ready to go to the Rabaul Yacht Club (RYC) for a drink the rest of quarantine showed up. Francis from agriculture didn’t even bother coming aboard, he just filled out a form, took my $K61.60 and cleared us in. We could officially bring down the quarantine flag and put up our homemade Papua New Guinean flag, as soon as Vanja finishes making it.
The RYC is basically a shed with a high fence around it to keep out the local rascals. It houses a bar and darts board, a few benches and fans and apparently some wifi. We had a beer or two at $AU5 each with a couple of the members before calling it a night.
07/11/2019 Rabaul, New Britain, Papua New Guinea
We had a couple of things to do today, get some money and get the provisioning done for the rest of our trip through the islands up North of the country, that is, more trading goods. We have barely touched “our” provisions since leaving Cairns. The million cans of food, pasta bags, flour, etc are all still there overflowing the bilges. Over-provisioning is apparently a common mistake made by first time cruisers, and we were no exception. We got so much food through the Louisiades that we could’ve gotten away with a quarter of what we brought. Oh well.
So, to get to town from the RYC you walk to the road and wait for the 7A bus, cost: $K3 for the four of us. It came within 10 seconds of us getting there. Brilliant. It stopped and everyone said hello and off we went. The road was like a bombed out WW2 runway. This is of course due to the massive volcano eruption that happened here in 1994 after which the government moved the majority of the town to Kokopo and left Rabaul much to it’s own, meaning nothing much was really fixed, especially the roads. So they exist as volcanic soil roads carved out by the traffic that moves along them day after day.
Once we made it to town, and the market, we found a supermarket to do the majority of the shopping. We were told that most supermarkets do cash out if you spend over a certain amount and after checking with the manager, they said they would do it. So an hour later with probably 40KG worth of goods we went to the counter. 20mins of scanning later, the total came to $K359, about $AU180. Not too bad. We inserted the old money card and… REJECTED. We tried again, and again with another card and got the same result. Hmmm.
I ran over to the 1 bank in town and after waiting in the ATM line for 20mins watching about half the people in front of me need help from the attendant to use their card, it was my turn. I shoved the card in and… REJECTED. Great. I went back to the supermarket and told the girl behind the counter we’ll come back after we get money. We trudged over to the bank again not really certain they’ll be able to help us, but still worth a shot. We brought $AU150 in cash just in case, so at least we’d be able to exchange that if need be. The bank of course was full of people, maybe 100 waiting in line, but thankfully they make an allowance for dumb looking foreigners to jump the queue. We headed straight to a teller and he tells us that our card will not work here, even though it is a Visa card and there is a big sign behind him saying that Visa is accepted here. We exchange our money and go back to the supermarket and buy as much as the stuff that we can afford with the agreement that I’ll be back later in the day for the rest.
We took the loot back to the boat and had some lunch before I made the journey back into town alone to finish the task. This was done without incident. After returning however we then realised that we are in a bit of a pickle as we don’t think we brought enough cash to get us back to “civilisation”. And now Rod reckons that our cards won’t work in Indonesia either. What a pile of crap! He did say however that there is a Westpac (Aussie) bank in Kokopo. So that is the job for tomorrow. We’ll head into Kokopo, check it out, check out the status of a package we’re having delivered there and try and get more money. Should be fun.
08/11/2019 Rabaul, New Britain, Papua New Guinea
Today we visited Kokopo, the new capital city of East New Britain following the volcano eruption of 1994 that all but destroyed Rabaul. We caught the 7A bus into Rabaul, then switched to the 1A for Kokopo, waiting mere seconds between bus changes. I tell you, Sydney transport could learn a few things from Rabaul. The ride to Kokopo was fast, but bumpy, taking about an hour with a cost of $k12 for the four of us. When we reached town there were people everywhere. It was one of the busiest bus terminals we have ever rocked up to. I use the term bus terminal pretty loosely here as it is just the side of the road where all the buses stop. There are a couple of makeshift bus stops, but we couldn’t really figure out which one was for which bus.
Anyway, we jumped out and headed straight for the bank. Westpac is an Australian institution, it must work right? Thankfully it did. We got our cash and headed to the post office to see about our package. After a bit of to and fro they told us that the package has cleared customs in Port Moresby and would be here in the next week or so. We didn’t really want to hang out in Rabaul for that long so we organised for the package to be diverted to Kavieng instead. Done.
We then hit the chemist for some more antibiotics which they happily gave over the counter, then to the market for a bit of an explore. We found the smoked fish section and stocked up with a mackerel and yellow fin tuna. Delicious. The street food here is made up of rice balls, deep fried frankfurts and donuts, all delicious. So we stuffed our bellies full of those and caught the bus back to Rabaul. A very successful trip.
Friday nights are a special event at the RYC as they “put on a feed” for the members and guests. So, we were in luck. We met a few more of the members and had a very nice dinner of chicken and chips, pie and chips with an all you can eat salad. All in all it was very satisfying. We met a nice couple there who were thinking of sailing their new boat to PNG in a couple of years. They were pretty keen to hear all about our (mis)adventures, which is pretty fun for us to talk about.
Rod came over just when we were leaving and told us that the post office called him to tell him that our package had arrived. So after all that, we now have to go back to Kokopo to pick up the package. I guess communications between Port Moresby and Kokopo are a bit slow.
There was one downer to the evening when the treasurer of the club handed us a bill of $K200 for access to the club’s facilities for 1 year. Seems as we are only staying for a week max, and not really using any of their facilities I asked for a smaller rate. He rang around some other yacht clubs in PNG to find out what they do in this situation. He came back to me saying that ok, $K100 will be all we need to pay. I still don’t really understand what I am paying for. Yes, I am using the jetty to tie up the dinghy for access to land, so I suppose that might be worth paying for, but what else? We used some internet there tonight at dinner, but we also paid over $K120 for drinks and food. Normally internet is provided free for patrons of an establishment such as this, but then so is air conditioning, and walls for that matter. I kicked up a bit more of a stink, being the tightarse that I am, and he just said that there will be a bill at the end of our stay and that we should just make the most of the facilities. So, we’ll see what happens with that little bombshell.