The day started with an early and excited rising in anticipation of the helicopter's arrival. The weather was not looking good. I wondered if the pilot would be able to make it in at all. Clouds looked as if they may be thick enough to block passage for the heli. I emailed the weather report with a hesitant "come on in" knowing that I was taking a chance because if the heli comes out and can't make it in, I still pay for it. But today was the day. It had to happen.
The heli arrived and we began getting Shan Skailyn prepared for slinging. The day before, I had filled him with various Mibu goods to take down to the coast both to help feed the Mibu children in school there and also their host families. We also included some food for 'amamas' which is simply to grease the wheels with the landowners for letting us land on their ground. That kind of stuff is a big deal in PNG. You show your appreciation by providing a benefit. But just as important with Shan Skailyn is that its weight for slinging needed to be about 300 kgs.
It took two tries and fine tuning the total weight on the helicopter to finally get Shan Skailyn off the ground in a way that felt safe to the pilot. Turns out 300 kgs was a bit much. The ride to the coast was a SLOW and thus expensive one. Ughhh! The canoe, all bundled up for flight, just would not point forward. Rather it caught the wind in random fashion, swinging around under the helicopter. That was the scariest helicopter ride in my life! It felt very strange to have that thing tugging around different directions slung under the chopper. The pilot clearly had to have all his concentration to make this squirly thing work. We could feel it pulling the helicopter forward, back, and side to side. Looking underneath I could see it swinging around in the wind. Not a safe way to sling things. I tried to prepare my mind and heart for the real possibility that Ray, our pilot may have to drop the whole load to be shattered and lost in the bush below. Ray persevered and we were finally able to land in Wab on a black sandy beach.
Many people awaited us. We'd arranged ahead of time with the landowners to land there and they were very excited about it. In their excitement they did something apparently small, but probably a big deal to them, and that was to put a couple smears of some red stuff on the bow and stern of the boat as well as a couple other places. Being too busy putting it altogether I didn't get a chance to ask what it was for, but I imagine it probably was some kind of ritual 'blessing' they do on their own boats before first launch. Someone told me that they were planning on painting us up a bit as well. I agreed, but was glad that for whatever reason, they ended up not doing it.
The boat was assembled and ready to go at around 10am. Chad, Sesi, and myself talked a bit with some folks just about what they think of the conditions right now. Some said it was alright. Some said that it was too rough. It was hard to discern which was right. The wind was kicking up a bit, the waves quite a bit bigger than when we first arrived, but it didn't look too bad. What did we know?! They wouldn't take their canoes out in that, but they are much smaller, have no sail, and have near neutral buoyancy amas, called 'saman' in the pidgin trade language. The dynamics are different. We made a decision to go ahead with things.
"Is this really happening?" I remember thinking. We had some folks help us carry Shan Skailyn to approach the waves. We set it down and waited for their go ahead as they timed the waves. My heart was racing, my heart pounding in my chest, and my mouth ran dry. I was extremely nervous about this as the idea that we actually have no clue what we're doing finally congealed as the reality of that big dark ocean lay before us. "We have no business being here, doing this!" I thought, but quickly remembered that at this point there was no other choice. The helicopter was gone, there are no roads out here and no other way to get this thing to Madang. Though I was already ready to tuck tail and run, it simply wasn't an option. My fear was interrupted by people shouting 'NOW' and the boat beginning it's very first plunge into the ocean. I remember the flitting thought of how I've never even tested it in water to see that it floats and here we are just jumping in.
A wave broke over the bow spilling into the open compartment, something we would encounter somewhat frequently in the coming days depending on how we shoved out. We jumped in, all of us at once and started paddling like mad. Guessing the breakers were about 4' high so we had to work fast to get past them. We had the mast raised with brailed sail when we set out. After paddling well past the breakers, a strong gust over the port side blew hard on the brailed sail and almost capsized us. Brailed or not, we learned it doesn't take much to knock that thing over if you're not paying attention. We could hear our large audience yelling their excitement from the beach. They probably thought we were crazy. I would have totally agreed.
In the gusty wind we tried to set the sail. I had too much adrenaline pumping to think clearly. The luff was clearly too loose with large folds/wrinkles and so I set about all fumble fingers, almost panicked, trying to right the situation. Harder to do on the water than I imagined. We ended up mastering this after a few more days when it needed to be done, but this time, it was enough and we started moving. Starboard tack? Port tack? I honestly can't remember what we started on, but I do remember the gps said we were moving 0.6-1.0 mph. The wind was strong and gusty and the waves were getting bigger and more threatening. We pushed on for about an hour, the bow frequently up in the air over the tops of waves and then slapping back down or otherwise diving into the next wave. After a while we looked back to see that we'd hardly made any progress. We were barely on the outskirts of Wab bay after all that time. Meanwhile, we were getting tired and feeling like these kinds of conditions were getting unsafe for this virgin crew. We turned, defeated, and cruised the short distance back to the beach where our audience still was. How humiliating. We must look like idiots. So discouraged! Was the whole trip going to be like this? Did we make a mistake in setting out to do this? Very clearly we have no clue what we're doing. These feelings and more set in as the afternoon wore on.
It was arranged for us to stay the night at Gadip's house there in Wab. Gadip is a big haired 'skipa' of a motor dinghy that makes runs back and forth during the week between Wab and Madang. His hair the epitome of Papuan coastals, big, classic... I love it. Gadip was happy to offer his services should we find ourselves in a bind a few days out. I think he was sure that we wouldn't make it. He said he'd be happy to tow us to Madang. It was more than once that the thought of calling him on his digicel and taking him up on his offer crossed my mind as the days unfolded. We were fed a good meal of taro root, sweet potato, cooking bananas and greens with some beans too. After resting a bit, I peeked out of the house and saw that the sea had a nice afternoon calm. I mentioned to the guys that with the weather like this, right now might be a good time to get some sailing experience under our belts. We could just tool around the little bay there and get a feel for unpanicked sailing. We were so glad we did! There was a light breeze and smooth rolling waters. We took Shan Skailyn out again with an audience on the beach, set the sail again and started moving. We were elated to see things working! We may have only been moving a few miles per hour in those light winds, but we felt like we were on top of the world, riding in a wind powered speed boat. We hooted and hollered our excitement out in the bay. Each of us took turns sailing. After a couple hours we'd tried all the different points of sail and felt very satisfied that we'd had at least this little bit of positive experience before we were to head out for the real thing in the morning.
Gadip was full of information about the coast and the weather. Turns out that right now is the season they call 'taleo win' which we heard all along the coast. Taleo is a predominantly south west wind, blowing down the coast... the opposite of where we were going. We were going to be fighting up wind the whole time. Had it been the 'rai win' due in a couple months, things would be better for us, they'd repeatedly remind us. Gadip assured us that early morning is usually very calm and easy and that the winds start to 'kirap' about 9 or 10 in the morning often getting stronger in the afternoon.
We went to bed, encouraged and excited with a bit of raised confidence that we could make this work.
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