Day 15 – November 6
Our arrival to Alotau was perfectly timed with the 7th Annual Milne Bay Canoe & Kundu Festival. During this festival villages from around Milne Bay dress up in tribal costumes and participate in tribal dances, chanting, and in war canoe races. We noticed there were several “white” people carrying expensive cameras and video equipment, wearing VIP badges, and later found out they were with National Geographic.
Day 16 – November 7
After spending much of the day at the festival we headed to Alotau International Hotel to swim in their pool (our first chance at freshening up with water since arriving to Alotau) and charge our dead camera batteries. The bay here in Alotau is pretty dirty (oil, garbage, human waste) so no swimming and no bucket showers. We’ve even been subjected to washing out dishes with fresh water instead of the normal salt water.
Billy discovered that his camera was missing and we concluded that the local Papua New Guinea girls who had been on board the boat the night before had to be the culprits. We were all upset, especially since Billy had been the one taking most of the photos since all of our camera batteries were almost dead and were we not sure when we would have the opportunity to charge them again.
Day 17 – November 8
Our plan to depart Alotau today has been postponed for a few more days. Billy, our crew from Australia, who planned to come for 4 days but stayed for 17, booked a flight back to Australia in 2 days.
Since today was Monday and the banks were open, Becky and I went to exchange Australia Dollars for Papua New Guinea Kina. In what normally would have taken 10 minutes, we found ourselves at the bank for almost 1 hour.
Loaded up with Kina we went to Alotau International Hotel to use the only internet in town – even though it was painfully slow, very expensive, and super frustrating to be able to only send a few emails in 1 hour.
Day 18 – November 9
Tried my hand at making yogurt today. Take 1 ½ cups of powdered milk, add 1 liter of water, and 5 tablespoons of already made yogurt. Put it into a container, wrap it in a dark towel, set it in the sun, and 24 hours later you have homemade yogurt. When I went to grab the bag of powdered milk I realized that we had some sort of creature on board as the milk bag had been chewed to pieces. Collectively the crew decided that it must be a rat! We searched around town for rat traps but only found “rat glue” which we spread over a piece of plywood and put peanut butter in the middle as bait. We knew that mice love peanut butter – but do rats?
Day 19 – November 10
Disappointed that we did not catch a rat last night Andy set out determined to find a more functional rat trap. Becky rowed over to the local bakery to buy 10 pieces of our new favorite breakfast snack “Lamington Cake” while Billy packed his bags, ready for his flight over to Port Moresby, and then back to Australia. Meanwhile, I realized that my point and shoot digital camera was nowhere to be found. After an extensive search and finding out that Bill’s watch had also gone missing we came to the conclusion that someone must have come aboard SEAWANHAKA in the last few days and helped themselves to our things. Sad that they took my camera but happy that it was not my new (and expensive) DSLR camera. I got over it pretty fast.
After many hugs and parting words we said farewell to Billy and prepared to set sail – away from Alotau and away from what the local Papua New Guinean’s call “rascals” or thieves.
We anchored the night at Waga Waga and were thrilled to be able to swim off the boat again. Nearby was a WWII coal transport ship that in 1946 sprung a leak and sank. The bow of the boat stuck out of the water and proved to be an excellent snorkel spot.
That evening over a dinner of canned tuna and wine we heard Andy’s new and improved rat trap snap shut. We all jumped up and yelled “we caught a rat!” Our question was “can rats swim?” Sure enough, rats are amazingly fast swimmers. As soon as he hit the water he quickly swam back towards the boat and disappeared. After not being able to locate the rat in the water we were a little concerned that he might be able to find his way back onto the boat but to do that he would have to squeeze through some impossibly small pipes.
Day 20 – November 11
After a tasty breakfast of homemade yogurt, super sweet pineapple, and chopped cashew nuts we set sail for no place in particular, going where the wind took us. We anchored at a place called Kana Kopi at the entrance to Milne Bay. When asking the local villagers about crocodiles they said “we use to have one but we haven’t seen him lately and he only eats dogs.” For us that was warning enough and we enjoyed bucket showers tonight.
Day 21 – November 12
The rat is back!!! Bill found rat poop in his bathroom sink this morning and upon further inspection we found the rat has gotten into bags of pasta on the other side of the boat. This means war! And this time we plan to kill the rat once we catch him. Andy the rat master is on it!
We anchored the night at Nuakata Island and were immediately surrounded by at least 10 paddle canoes filled with village kids. They were so excited to see us and brought plenty of banana, coconut, papaya (or what they call pawpaw here), squash, limes and passion fruit to trade. We’ve been missing our daily drink of coconut water so we were thrilled! Sometimes when we are surrounded by all these canoes you can’t help but wonder if this is what animals in zoos feel like. Constantly being watched by outsiders who are interested in observing our ways.
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