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Updated 21 June 2010
25/5/2010 Well we finally did it we left Australia. We are officially out
of Australian waters and in the middle of the Coral Sea on route to the Louisiades SE of Papua New Guinea. We have been sailing
for just over 55 hours and are about half way there. It is a bit rolly (and we are not really capable of doing a whole lot)
but other than that the trip has been a lot easier than I thought an ocean crossing was going to be. There is nothing to see
out here except lots of water. We had a school of fish swimming with the boat that wouldn't take a lure even though we
were practically donging them on the head with it, a bird flew into our wind generator (not sure if it is ok?), and we have
seen one other lonely yacht in the distance.
We are sleeping a lot and taking turns to keep watch. Darien is entertaining herself with a bundle of DVD's we got on Ebay before we left Cairns. She announced yesterday that sailing is boring! - I only hope she likes the places we see in between.  26/5/2010
11'16.258S 152'23.222E Kokoluba Is of the Duchateau Islands We arrived in the most pristine and picturesque anchorage at around 9.30 pm. With a full moon in the sky the visibility was great and the water so clear you could see to the bottom in the evening light. Two other boats travelling from Cairns had arrived ahead of us and kindly gave us GPS coordinates in which was great. We travelled a total of 541 nautical miles fortunately having good wind for most of this. Only on the last day did the wind drop (we had to motor the whole day)but apart from that it was great sailing. We have been here for two days now and have not seen a local as there is no one living on the island. Probably a good thing as the Aussies have taken over. There are now four yachts here from Cairns with four children between us all and another yacht with more kids due to arrive today or tomorrow. One of the yachts saw a local boat sail by which was a dug out canoe with a makeshift sail and a father, mother and small child on board getting fish for the day. They went over and said hello and they were very friendly speaking a little broken English. This absolutely untouched Island really makes our flash boats seem a little over the top. We had a birthday party for one of the little girls last night which was lots of fun. We have had one of the little girls over to play this morning and will be exploring with everyone this afternoon. This place is just amazing and we will move to another island Sunday. We have been able to keep in touch with all the yachts here and in Cairns through sailmail and our HF radio - both proving to be fantastic.
29/5/2010. Deaucateau Is to Motorina Islansd. We pulled up anchor early Saturday morning leaving this beautiful uninhabited Island. We are keen to meet the people of the Louisiades so headed to Motorina Island 16nm to the east. Motorina has a population of around 400 people (nobody is quite sure exactely how many) but as we were to find out the majority of them are chrildren, some adults and very few old people. It is also one of the few islands with a school (primary and elementary). We had been constantly reminded about how little these people have and how they love to trade for simple commodities like rice, sugar, fishing hooks, clothing, pens, pencils and copy books. We were well prepared with lockers full of rice and kilos of sugar which we broke down into smaller tradeable sizes. Turning Byamee into the anchorage at Motorina was like stepping back in time. The small village was was picture perfect . We dropped the anchor in 15 metres of water, there were chrildren everywhere paddling around in dugout canoes with little outriggers. Shouts and screams followed - the Dim Dims are here! (the people of P.N.G. call us white folk Dim Dims no idea were it originated). The people are just delightful and so welcoming. We were invited to walk around the Island as we pleased, shown through the school and attended a church service. They have no electicity, so all cooking is done over fire. They have a well for water to bathe and wash clothes (too salty to drink), use tank water for drinking water (resorting to coconut juice when this runs out). They have livestock and gardens producing beautiful fruit and vegetables to trade. The livestock is really only pigs and chickens and on special religious events a pig is killed and there is a huge The neighbouring village on the same Island (where the school and church are) is currently building an amazing boat (approximately 40ft). They have made the frame and are waiting for more materials to continue work. They have the wood, skills and tools just not the nuts and bolts to put it together. The purpose of the boat is to be able to get to and from Alutau for supplies which is too far to get to in their dug outs. They do have some boats with outboards but just don't have any fuel for them. Regardless of what they don't have they are so happy and live such a culturally full life. When things run out they just wait for the next opportunity to get more - it really doesn't seem to bother them. It is so amazing that they have school, church and a whole community functioning perfectly without any of the things we think are essential. Their land and water is pristine and they don't have a garbage problem because everything they have is grown and totally biodegradeable. Their houses are clean and free of clutter because there is nothing to clutter them with. They sing and cook by the fire in the evenings and everyone helps with the work during the day. The kids have to do quite a bit of the work too. The only trouble is that there is no way to earn money and money is needed to send the children to school. If they don't have the money the children just don't go to school. Having arrived at Motorina Is early on Saturday and spending Sunday there we were inundated with kids in dugout canoes wanting to trade. I think the kids get sent out because they are so adoreable that you just can't say no to them. By Sunday afternoon it was getting a little overwhelming, there were so many boats around ours we could not even go for a swim. I tried to have a lie down only to have little faces appear in the portholes. We had the same problem in the toilet too. They are very polite and do go if you ask them to but it just so hard to send away people who so desperately want just a little rice or clothes for their kids. We traded so many things and all the excitement was because of how much these things meant to them. We realised later that it was also so full on because we were the first yachts to arrive this year and being the weekend the kids were not in school. We decided that we had to leave if we wanted to have anything left to trade at the other islands. We did have a great time with the trading and it was quite a learning experience. We offered the kids lollies to start with which they were so excited about one boat tipped right over filling completely with water. They managed to get up the right way, bail the water and scoff down the lollies. Then they returned with fresh produce and had obviouly been asked to return with something of value by mum and dad. The requests went from rice and sugar, to hooks and fishing line, pencils and notebooks for school, then clothes. If they did not yet have enough to show for the produce they brought over they would just stay until you gave them a little more. If you came out with more than they were expecting they could not wait to throw all the produce your way and race back with the goodies. We just said yes to whatever they had on offer and did our best to give them what they really wanted. I did make the mistake of trying to make conversation with a couple of little girls about their pigs and chickens only to have them look at eachother in horror - I realised that they thought I wanted a pig or chicken so I quickly let them know I didn't. With more fresh fruit and vegetables than we know what to do with and some beautiful shells we headed for the Blue Lagoon.
The Blue Lagoon
11'08.120S 152'45.912S The Blue Lagoon is a beautiful area surrounded by three Islands and reef in between. We have only met two people here as two of the Islands are uninhabited and one has a family of 10 living there. A 17 year old boy from that Island came to trade and we invited him onboard for a Coke. They love anything to do with soccer and cigarettes here too - unfortunately we had neither but found some tee shirts he liked. When he finished his coke he tossed the can in the water - I nearly died! They are so used to fresh fish, fruit or vegies that you can throw overboard he had no idea not to throw the can overboard. We are having a great time here. Paul has been doing some fishing and spear fishing. Darien and I have been playing in the sand and swimming. We promised a man that we would come by the next Island to trade so will head there the day after tomorrow. There is a school there too so it will probably be quite busy. 2/6/2010. 15th June 2010
From Kamatal Island we have Island hopped toward the main land. Having some great experiences both with the yachts we are cruising with and on our own. It has worked out to be a great bunch of odd bods - On Antaia there are a couple with a little girl Louise, Latchen and Siara who is one year younger than Darien. Louise and Latchen come from a boating background, he is an engineer and she a master class 4. They are very thorough and prepared sailors. On Spiders Web there is the pommie John who has taken on board two back packers, Aimee (an Aussie girl who happens to be a child care worker) and Alohn (an Israle American making his way back to Israel). John sleeps late and is very relaxed taking the attitude if it ain't broke don't touch it. He is very witty and they locals really to take to him. Then on Unicorn, the big cat there are Dion, Yui and their two little ones Ryan and Louana and Dion's brother Troy. Ryan and Louana are two and three. Yui can cook up a storm so most get togethers are on their boat. Dion and his brother are obsessed with catching crayfish and zooming around in their dingy consequently they keep running out of fuel. Oh that and the fact that they run every appliance you would have in a luxury appartment - washing mashine, freezer, dvd players, air con, huge water maker, bread machine, rice cooker and the list goes on. We did trade them some petrol for 250 litres of fresh water - showers for everyone and got to wash some clothes (very nice)! Either some of us or all of us catch up every day or two as we all sail at different speeds and want to stop at different islands. The kids do love it when we catch up so the day is usually about getting the kids together and we get to know the locals a little better on the days we are alone. Maxea is proving to be only relatively accurate and there are a lot of reefs to navigate. Dion lent us a card for our chartplotter and that is accurate, spot on really. Regarless it has really been a case of having someone on the bow when we are approaching any reefs. They do come out of nowwhere though. Just a few minutes ago Paul went up the front of the boat to have a look around. I looked up form the computer to see him coming running back waving his arms in the air - we just went over a reef with 7m of water. The drop offs from some of these reefs are amazing 30-40m to 7m in a second then to 200m. We anchored off one island where we were in 10 meters of water and 30m behind us it dropped off to 100m. Luckily we didn't drag anchor but one of our friends did and drifted into 100m of water at 2am with their anchor and all their chain hanging straight down from the bow. With our super strong spots light they managed to reanchor safely for the night. Island after island we meet absolutely lovely people. Yesterday at Hemoe Bay the locals took us for a long walk through the forest to a fresh water creek where we swam then back through beetle nut plantations, gardens and different properties. Parts of the island flood during big tides so much of the track was soft mud with trees placed as walkways (some quite thin) it was a bit tricky. The forest is lush and dense and all the food they pointed out on the way just amazing. All the islands seem to specialise in some type of food production, be it smoked fish, yams, bananas, sago which they take to Alotau and trade at the markets either for other food or Kena. There they buy clothes, rice, school books etc. Hemoe Bay have a couple of large beetlenut plantations which is huge over here. They chew it with the fruit from the mustard plant dipped in lime (which is ground coral). It makes a mess of their teeth and seems to get them stoned! Even the kids are allowed to chew it. One of the young girls here had a terrible sore on her foot. It was like a crater we offered to dress it and treat it with antiseptic so she and all her family came over to the boat and sat on deck snacking on crackers until it got dark. Two of the men stayed on to read magazines until our power started to run low and we had to switch some lights off. This was a great spot and we traded for lobster and the biggest mud crabs I have ever seen. One so big I had to cook one half and then the other as it would not fit in my biggest pot! The locals have given us lots of great info on which places to avoid and how to cook their fresh produce. So far we have only felt worried for our saftey in one anchorage where there were no locals living and some people camped on the island fishing for clams. There were a lot of young men with macheties a few women and no children. When Paul went ashore they were not like the other people we had met certainly not friendly and they asked some odd questions about how many people were on board. We locked ourselves in that night and had a wallet ready to give them if they wanted to rob us. Nothing eventuated but we didn't get much sleep. All the other places have been are bursting with kids and welcoming adults.
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