4) 26th April 2011 PNG.

Crossing the Equator.

 

We left Palau on the 20th April 2011 and as we neared the Equator the winds were decreasing fast. We were not totally becalmed but we had to motor sail or it would take forever to get to PNG. We finally crossed the Equator and were in the Southern Hemisphere at 0730 hours on the 25 April, 26 days since leaving Hong Kong.

Manus Island, PNG.

We arrived at Manus Island very late on the 26th April 2011. We only stopped here to refuel and reprovision the fresh fruit and vegetables stores. Our insurance company prohibited our boat entering any PNG mainland towns but did allow the islands - Manus and New Britain. These were considered 'safe' from the insurance company's point of view. Getting into the lagoon at midnight proved rather difficult and nerve racking. It was very windy and raining heavily, further decreasing our visibility to almost nil. To make matters worse there was only a few beacons marking the channel, with only one working properly. It was all hands on deck as we picked our way through slowly and very carefully.








The Manus Island lagoon where we anchored was quite shallow with reefs all over the place, and yet there were no tourist operations there. After calling Immigration/Customs on the radio and getting no reply we went into town to get money at the only ATM. Then we went and brought fuel and were getting prepared to carry it back to the boat, when we were offered a lift from a friendly local. This process was repeated several times until the tank and jerry cans were full.


 






The people were also very friendly and we attracted a lot of attention from the locals, coming from miles around to check us out. They went to great extremes to explain that there no 'rascals' on these islands and hence we were safe. Rascals were defined as tribal highland individuals that were the cause of all the mainland criminal activity.

On the last trip back to the boat the Immigration and Customs officer found us. We were about to leave for Cairns as soon as we got back to the boat but on orders we had to delay our departure to the following morning so he could clear us in and then clear us out.