November 2, 2007 Alotau, PNG
Last night was pretty nuts. We went to the Napatana for a while, and then went to this local bar in the back of this other hotel down the road. Here I affirmed my opinion that men in PNG can not handle their alcohol, as they are missing the necessary gene for drinking heavily. The place was pretty empty, but everyone was so wasted. Sloppy wasted. We ordered drinks at the bar and then we were just standing around, so I went to sit down at this picnic table nearby and chat with some locals. Well the guys came too, and we met some really nice men that weren’t too incredibly drunk (and could function). At one point in our conversation, this guy stumbles into the middle of us talking and another guy pulls him aside and straight up sucker punches him in the face, twice. It was crazy. Of course I was super sketched out. We left soon after and hitched a ride home with the local DJ and the main guy running the telephone company. Super nice guys, glad they were there to give us a ride, but it turns out that the taxis weren’t running that late on a Thursday night.
So back to today and what happened. Julia and her 3 sisters were dropped off at the boat by their dad at 7 am this morning. Good to see her? Not so sure, think she still has some beef with me. Her sisters were really nice though. We hitched a ride into town with them, from their mom. We’ve been hitching rides all the time, since the anchorage is a short drive to town. The girls said, “No no, it’s not safe to do that.” Oh well thanks for the hint, but how else would we get into town. When we got there today, we did some emailing, phone calls, had a bite to eat, and then headed down to the shore where the canoe festival was all set up and in full swing. Arriving just in time to see Michel make a complete fool of himself in an EPOI canoe (from Esala), as usual he was decked out in a grass skirt with his face painted. They were paddling in and kind of performing this skit in which they had to jump off the canoes at one point into shallow water. Well Michel jumps and loses his skirt, revealing everything to a huge crowd watching on the shore, even the guy on the PA system was laughing at him. The afternoon at the festival was ok though, I helped guard all the expensive camera equipment for a bit. Orla and I took a joy ride in one of the sailing canoes. It wasn’t windy enough when we went to get the outrigger out of the water and really heeling over, but before we went out lots of canoes were almost flipping. Exciting to watch, the whole crowd was into it. We did sail real fast on the canoe though. The guys on the canoe were 14, 16, and 18 and they really knew what they were doing. We did have an escort speed boat that stuck right with us all the time…I guess for safety?
The rest of the afternoon on the ship was lazy lounging around. For dinner it was just supposed to be the 4 of us on watch, but it turned out that a lot more people returned early from the festival. James was all set to make spaghetti bolognaise and then Gaie and Laser’s uber hippy friends from Australia come in the galley. They are super vegetarians and have some weird complicated diet (like they only eat sour dough bread for example) and they are kind of rude about it too. It’s really been annoying Zack, James, and I. We cook for them, and then they say…well I don’t think these eggs came from ‘happy chickens’ so we can’t eat them. Give me a break! We’re in freakin Papua New Guinea! No chicken is happy here! They’re just here for the festival, so that’s a relief. Oh so tonight we had couscous, spaghetti meat, and some steamed veggie mixture, and they kept raving how the meal was sooo good. Ya right! I could keep going on with the bizarre comments that came out of this woman’s mouth during the evening, but I’ll keep the crazy hippyness to a minimum. Tomorrow we’re on the ship, and tomorrow night we’re off.
November 3-8, 2007 Alotau, Papua New Guinea
Wow, I’m really skipping a few days here. When we’re in port I just get so wrapped up with getting off the ship, that I forget to keep up my journal. Well to recap some of the events over the last couple days….The canoe festival was pretty cool. I only went for a few hours on different days, but some of our crew were there the entire 4 days of the festival recording everything and nothing for their movies. The locals were able to attend the festival free of charge, so it was good to see everyone out and about at the festival grounds (unlike Gaua festival). I did go for a joyride in one of the sailing canoes. I tried to get them to bring the outrigger up out of the water, but there wasn’t enough wind. The war canoes with 18-20 people paddling were a sight to see too. There was a delay of the final race of the war canoes, and the paddlers got into a little scuffle and were throwing rocks at each other at one point. There was a group of paddlers from Hawaii that shipped their canoe over, and raced the EPOI canoes from Esala. The Hawaiian team was really nice, only 2 actual Hawaiian, 2 howlies, and 2 guys from Port Moresby, PNG. Oh one of the Hawaiians actually lived in Kanehoe, Oahu (where my Dad used to live, he didn’t know you Dad, sorry). Kitty actually spent 4 hours one day sewing them a new tarp sail, as something happened to theirs. Their canoe was a lot different than the others at the festival too, it was all carbon fiber white and shiny. They blew the bulky EPOI canoes out of the water in their race. Other than those highlights, there isn’t too much I have to say about the festival. Mostly during the week, I enjoyed my time off the ship and explored around the 2 streets of town. During a Sunday night dinner we had after the festival, everyone was expressing how much this event changed their life and they will remember it forever. B.S. That’s all I have to say about that. I gave a speech on how disturbed I am with the violence in PNG, and especially the violence to women around the country. They weren’t too pleased with my speech as you might imagine. Ha!
On yet another night out on the town in Alotau, we experienced quite a sketchy scene. James, Zack, and I ended up hanging out at Julia’s house with her younger sisters and brother. We were having a blast, sipping on wine, listening to music, they even cooked dinner for us. Around 9 we wanted to go out to the club, and Julia’s dad was coming to give us all a lift. Well, he arrived and walked in the back door and just started flipping out. It was really scary. We thought he was drunk at first, but he’s just crazy. He came down the back steps where I was, and it all happened so fast, I said, “Hi I’m Tanya from the Infinity, nice to meet you.” I went to shake his hand, and he just kept walking down the stairs yelling for everyone to get out of here. He went back up the stairs, slapped his daughter in the face that was just sitting there, and really started to yell loudly at Julia inside. We just got up quickly and started walking down the road. The girls had got me all done up to go to the club, so I was all made up and was wearing one of their tight slutty dresses walking down some random street at night in Alotau. We were all shocked at what had just happened. I held onto the two boys so tightly as we steadily walked away and could hear Julia screaming and crying in the distance. Pretty sad to be involved in a scene like that. He is a white guy, but has about 12 kids with most of them coming from different moms, so he has a lot of baggage to deal with all the time. And the kids in Alotau are hooligans too, running around just looking for trouble. Julia’s 14 year-old brother kept bragging how he went to jail for a week for having pot on him, but most people that get caught for that get 10 yrs in jail. We did finally get home that night. A nice couple picked us up and took us literally about 20 minutes home, which was totally out of their way. They probably felt bad as I was all dressed up in this slut dress in the industrial section of town, clutching these 2 guys. Well, a couple days later, we were scheduled to have Julia’s family on board for lunch after that whole incident. What an awkward lunch. Nothing was even mentioned about that night, as if stuff like that happens all the time with them. Real weird.
I’ve been offered by PCRF to do a study and give a presentation of the results at the International Coral Reef Symposium in July in Fort Lauderdale. The study involves the reef’s phenomenal regrowth after a volcano 20 yrs ago that wiped out everything. I am really excited to be presenting at such a big conference and to be helping to write a paper that will be published with my name on it. But here’s the catch. I’m done in February in the Solomon Islands, but the study is in Banda, Indonesia in April/May. Finances permitting, I think my plan is to go trek around New Zealand for a few months, come back for the study, and then go back home to Florida. I was really looking forward to going home in February, but this is really a great opportunity that I should take advantage of while I’m on this side of the world.
Other than that, I was able to get off the ship for a night and stay at the Naptana Lodge for the night, which was such a treat to have a hot shower and a TV. Max is back and three new crew members arrived. They are all vegetarian, bringing our veggie number on board to 4 people. Chris and John are 26 and used to work on a tall ship in California, and Nicole from Germany is 38 and travels around on live aboard boats as a dive instructor. Its only day 2 since they’ve been on board, but they are all enthusiastic and nice.
After a week in Alotau, which is entirely too much time for me in that town, we are headed out with a large crew of 15 to dive, dive, dive at several spots near the mouth of Milne Bay for a week. Then we will head back into Alotau to stock up and pick up some more crew.
November 9, 2007 Magic Spot, Milne Bay
We are anchored in an idyllic spot between these group of islands. James and I cooked 5 great pizzas and fresh raw tuna salad from a small tuna that we had caught that afternoon on our way to the anchorage. It was a hit.
I woke up, had lab this morning, had a great breakfast, helped out setting all the dive gear up, and then got all set to go on the first dive out. I was super excited to get back in the water diving after no having dove for so long, and I was going diving with all the guys (Zack, Arie, and James) so it was bound to be fun. Well when I went to put my tank on in the dinghy, I noticed a piece on the first stage of my regulator was missing. A little plastic cover, but it’s necessary as your regulator can free flow without it. In any way (that’s from Fred), I wasn’t able to dive so I was stuck in the sun (without sunscreen) tending with Max. When we got back to the boat (I was sufficiently sun burnt), I hunted everywhere for the missing piece, but with no avail. I’m still pissed about it. I did go dive on the next dive out though, with Gaie, Laser, Michel, and Orla. I used Gaie’s spare regulator, which was good, but I’m still more used to my equipment. We didn’t dive the sweet spot, but it was still a nice dive. I was really into checking out all the macro stuff on the patchy coral areas. It was an invertebrate lover’s paradise down there that’s for sure. So many vibrantly colored tunicates, soft corals, sea fans, sponges. Not so many fish, but tons of schools of purple and gold anthias (one of my newly acquired favorite fishes). Gaie, Laser, and I lost Michel and Orla underwater, but it was fine when we came up the boat was right there with them on it. Michel is just such a fast swimmer.
My afternoon was spent relaxing, napping, and just chilling out. I was scheduled to go out on another dive, but I had just woke up and we’re diving all weekend so there will be lots more chances to dive. Tonight is open table, but as you know, it’s never really truly an open table where we can say whatever we want. It really bothers us volunteers that we can’t really say what bothers us. Basically what gets said is what they want to hear. Grrrr!
November 10-12, 2007 Near Raven Channel, PNG
I’m not going to go through my past days step through step, I’m just going to give you some high points. I’ve been able to do 3 dives in the past 3 days. It’s great to be getting in the water and diving again. Even if its not my equipment. I’m still using Gaie’s regulator setup, and its so awkward for me. I’m going to have to rig something up where I can have all my hoses, including my computer that I just bought, on a different first stage since mine is not working at the moment. Anyways, I wanted to share a few memorable experiences I had underwater recently. My underwater camera housing is also leaking at the moment, so I haven’t been able to take any pics with it.
I watched a black feather star swim through the water with great ease. It was hugging onto a coral branch, and then all of a sudden without interruption from me, it was off, swimming along. Almost dancing right before my mask. I had no idea they could do that. There was another occasion where I felt like this pair of really unique spadefish, a species that I’ve never seen before, were doing a photo shoot for me…and there I was with no camera! They were black, white, and yellow positioned perfectly against a background of this bright green branching coral called Tubastrea. There was also a school of some little orange juvenile fish in the scene too. It was too perfect. On a different dive, there wasn’t so much to see and the coral was in pretty bad shape, but around every coral colony there was a large school of these small purple and gold fish called anthias. They were everywhere.
We’ve moved the boat to a better anchorage near an island now, and I had a chance to dive the reef here as well. Kitty and I went with the crew of boys (James, Arie, and Zack). It was a pretty annoying dive as we swam really hard to fight against the current at a pretty good clip the whole time. Zack’s regulator was leaking so he went up with James, and we were able to rest for a bit while we made sure they made it to the surface ok. I then spotted the cutest fish ever! Turns out it was a clown sweet lips. Pretty small in size, but a pale orange with white spots all over and fins everywhere like a lion fish. I thought it was a blind fish at first as it kept frantically running into the coral head first. It was actually nibbling off small chunks of algae from the coral. What a sight to see though, I felt like I was filming for one of those nature shows, and I had to sit there and watch it. I’ve seen tons of giant clams. They’re everywhere and still so magnificent and vibrantly colored. Other than that I’ve seen one nudibranch, a decent size lobster (sorry didn’t get it Dad), a stingray, and several large puffer fish. The diving hasn’t been spectacular, but as I’ve said before I’m really diving to focus in on the details lately.
We had a joint birthday party on board one night for Arie and Heather. There was dancing, drinks, and appetizers on the bow and the boys filled the yellow boat on deck with salty bubbly water and had a semi-jacuzzi setup. I made chix-in-a-biscuits with crabmeat instead of chicken and it was a hit. Michel made absolutely deliciously rich white chocolate cheesecake dribbled with dark chocolate bits that was to die for. Again another party night though, and I was asleep by 10:30. So lame as usual Tanya. The music is blaring and everyone is dancing, but I just get so tired out so early.
I still need to catch you up on the new guys. Nicole is nice, she’s from Germany and quite a lot older than me so it’s hard to find a lot in common with her. John and Kristina are both 26 and are a couple that used to work on a tall ship out of California before they came here. They really want to soak up the hippyness on board, so they fit right in. They both had the best speeches last Sunday night. They’re fun though. She’s pretty hippy, real talkative, and he’s a red head that burns easily and kind of follows her a bit. They do play cards though! So excited about that. I finally have card players now. I played rummy with them the other night, and tonight they taught James and I how to play bridge. It’s really complicated, but it has potential to be a fun game. I have loads of time to figure it out at least.
So with all those high points, life has been pretty good on the ship. It’s been almost like a vacation, not having crew days all the time. And I’m not even missing civilization too much yet. Civilization as in Alotau, which isn’t much anyways…but still.
November 13-15, 2007 Motored, drifted, and then back to Lighthouse, Raven Channel
The nice calm anchorage that we were anchored at from my last journal entry, turned out to not be so nice. We were only there one day, and at 5 in the morning everyone was up ready for the shit to hit the fan! It was a scary scene for sure. The weather had picked up and it was blowing about 40 knots, the dinghy was barely holding on to the side of the boat and the anchor was quickly dragging us onto the reef. Everyone was cool calm and collected, even ‘the Laser’ surprisingly. At one point we thought the anchor had slipped and we had lost it completely, but it was a false alarm and it was ok. Zack and Max drove the small boat (with heavy-duty lifejackets on) around to be raised, as the Infinity turned broadside into the waves so we could get the dinghy up. Everything came together ok, and we high tailed it out of there. We heard from another boat that there was a big low that had been building over Port Moresby and was going to be here for another 24 hours. Our weather fax hasn’t been picking up a signal to receive faxes.
So I think it’s weird that ‘we’ (the officers on the ship) would rather be at sea than at anchor, but they do. It must come with the hippy sea people moto…ha! But really, we tried 2 anchorages in the relentless downpour of rain. The first was facing exactly the wrong way with the wind and waves…duh, but we motored 4 hours to get to it and see it. Then there wasn’t time for any daylight to reach another anchorage, so like we love to do…we freakin motored the 15 miles to the new anchorage and drifted around on night watches until it got light. We had all these plans to dive at this really nice reef, and we woke up to more pouring down rain, and totally scratched that plan. So we motored for another 4 hours and finally made it back near the first dive site we were originally at (Magic Spot). We’re basically right outside Raven Channel near a dive spot called the Lighthouse (which is really just a marker).
Well we arrived to finally anchor after all that b.s., of course in the rain, and I was just so fed up with the last 24 hours I was fighting to hold my frustration in. Within a half hour of anchoring the boat was down and I was tending the first dive with my mask on and decked out head to toe in rain gear. I had a chance to dive the third dive out and it was unbelievable. It almost made the last day worth it….nah, still not worth it. It was a ridiculously awesome dive though. I saw a small white tip shark, 3 hawksbill sea turtles, a manta ray swimming overhead, an octopus, and huge bump-head parrotfish. Crazy dive, how much life we saw just hanging out around us. Everything was totally not bothered that we were there too, which was great. You could get really close. The reef wasn’t in bad shape either, big walls full of corals and especially some great soft corals.
The next day after all that, we’re still anchored here, and it’s finally sunny. I washed everything today, and baked the smell out in the sun; it was great. Zack and I were on the first dive of the day, working on identifying new corals. Well that was a bad idea, Zack and I together first of all…and with slates! We were ridiculous, you could seriously hear me laughing underwater, and then getting pissed as my mask filled up with water….grrr! It was hilarious though. We did work on our new corals a bit. I had ‘roger’ written on my slate, which we always make fun of the crew for saying after everything (quite unnecessarily really). I would point to the ‘roger’ after everything we discussed. Ha! It was great, reminded me of diving with Laura, where ya we’re underwater, but we’re completely in our own world. We did see 2 nudibranches, which I always get so excited about. After the dive, the rest of my day was spent doing laundry, filling dive tanks, washing windows, and cleaning up the deck. Really was a pretty stress free day, which I needed after that b.s. I had to put up with before we arrived at the ‘Lighthouse.’
November 16-18, 2007 Lighthouse- Alotau
So I was able to go on 3 memorable dives at the Lighthouse. Such a beautiful reef. Other than that, I’ve been writing parts to a scholarship application to the International Coral Reef Symposium in July. We had an acting class which was actually pretty fun. We grouped up and did skits using a small selection of emotions and words. Some of the words were What? How? This? That? I decided we should be playing baseball in our skit (you know…from that radio show ‘Who’s on first.’). It was real funny. I’ve also been deck sleeping the past couple nights as it hasn’t been raining and it’s so cool and calm at night. Today our time on the outer reefs of Milne Bay are done for a while. We are headed back down the long bay, back to Alotau to start into a few intense crew days and pick up more people. More people! We will be 18 at one point! Crazy! Its already tight up here in paradise with a full house. Arie will be leaving and there is a young French girl coming when he leaves. Gaie and Laser’s friends Gigi and Hugh will be coming to visit for 2 wks too. Not sure what they’re about really. As usual, I’m excited to get back to Alotau, make some phone calls, check emails, stock up on a few things, drink a cold beer.
November 19-20, 2007 Alotau, PNG
We actually moved the ship on a Sunday and it was still partly a ‘Sunday.’ Oh how the small things become so exciting on board this boat. There were no watches all day, and no wake up. And the day went fine! Everyone took their time at the helm or navigating us to anchorage or helped lowering the boat. It went a-ok and pretty relaxing day at that. Took about 6 hours to motor down Milne Bay, but we’re back now to the Nawae Construction compound in Stringer Bay.
Once we had anchored, the officers on board were exclaiming, “Ahh back home again.” Ummm…ya right! This sketchy place is so far away from a home to me. Anyways, we’re back though. I’m on the synestia crew doing expediting with Heather, Max, and Michel. Today I bought fresh food in the market with Max. Wow! I’m regretting being put on this crew team that’s for sure. He’s so spacey about everything. James and I were such a duo at the market the other week, wish he could have been on my crew. He’s doing ship work this week. Like painting shrouds and derusting….not so much fun. But ya back to Max. He complained the whole time, wouldn’t even carry the baskets of food around, and had a hard time concentrating on the simple task he had to write things down when I said them! Grrr! At one point he just sat down and had me bring everything back to him! Give me a break.
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