Day 50 – December 11
After being the only sailboat in Rabaul for many days we were excited to see a sailboat with a Danish flag arrive. On board were 6 young Danes (2 guys and 4 girls). Since it was Monica’s last night in Rabaul we had been planning a BBQ on SEAWANHAKA but to accommodate the new arrivals we moved the party to the wharf and had an excellent time with great food and unlimited wine – a contribution from the Danes.
Day 51 – December 12
With a crew of 6 guys and Becky and myself, Rod headed back to the WWII Japanese Zero fighter plane wreck and we began the never-ending task of dredging. We were on a rotation where teams of 2 people would dive down to the wreck and hose off the silt from the plane with a hose similar to what firefighters use. Talk about horrible visibility - we were not even able to see our hands in front of our face. Each team spent about 40 minutes doing this before the next team of 2 would dive down to take over. We each completed 4 dives and decided to call it quits for the day (an 8 hour day). Even though we were exhausted and only managed to uncover a small portion of the plane we had such an amazing time.
Day 52 – December 13
Becky and I took the PMV into Kokopo to do some email and to buy a fish and some wine for another BBQ with the Danes tomorrow - which just so happens to be my 34th birthday! While sitting at the “classy” Kokopo Beach Bungalow Resort using the internet, a woman working at the resort made a point to come up to us in order to tell us that at first she thought we were men because of my muscles and Becky’s “sprinter-like” physique but then realized that we were in fact women. We weren’t quite sure how to respond to that comment.
Day 53 – December 14
I was woken up in the morning with a handmade birthday card from Becky. Inside was a cutout girl with big bicep muscles, covered in gray ash. It totally made me laugh!
We had another great BBQ on the wharf (with more shooting stars than I could count) and the Danes sang me their traditional birthday song and presented me with a birthday gift - a traditional Papua New Guinea “penis gourd” Again, not quite sure how to respond.
Day 54 – December 15
After filling the boat with water in preparation for our departure from Rabaul, we headed into Rabaul town to get cash from the ATM in order to fill us our propane tanks. There was a brown out in all of Rabaul which meant Bill had to head into Kokopo to use the banks there.
Since we had no propane on the boat, Becky and I brought food over to Rod’s boat and told him we would cook for him if he let us use his kitchen. Since he grew up having maids look after him and had no idea how to even make coffee, he was happy to have us in his kitchen.
Day 55 – December 16
We joined Rod again for breakfast and afterwards Becky and I spent most of the day catching up on journal writing and washing our clothes in salt water – waiting for Bill to return from Kokopo. Midday the catamaran “Baguette” sailed into the bay and the South African captain stopped over to say hello. When we arrived to Rabaul there was only us for so long and now there are 5 sailboats anchored in the bay. That’s more boats than we’ve seen in total since arriving to Papua New Guinea 7 weeks ago.
Day 56 – December 17
In the sailing world it is bad luck to begin a voyage on a Friday so we decided to stay in Rabaul one more night with plans to leave early Saturday morning. This gave us more time to provision the boat in Rabaul so we spent most of the day transferring over 150 liters of diesel and bag after bag of fresh produce from the market to the boat via the dinghy.
In the afternoon Becky and I walked to the local museum at the New Guinea Club along the dusty, ash-covered road that use to be Main Street before the volcano erupted in 1994. We took a tour of Admiral Yamamoto’s “bomb proof” bunker which had maps drawn on the ceilings of his plant o take over the South Pacific. Pretty interesting.
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