We woke up in Badet about 5 am. Chad seems to sleep like a log on pretty much any surface. He didn't care to bring a ground pad. I brought my thermarest 3/4 body length mat which served me well in the backpacking days of my youth. It still serves me well 15 years older only in that it doesn't leak. But my body doesn't handle the rougher conditions and pretty much aches all night long. The floors we've slept on vary from place to place from split bamboo (definitely the softest to sleep on) and split palm. It all reminds me how soft we are as westerners with our select comforts and what-not. Makes us rather inflexible when it does come time to up and travel. So here I am aching all night long, sleeping in spurts until the burning pain in my shoulder and hips require me to roll over; a task eliciting even more pain. But then relief... for a bit. I must then do it again, the time between each turn over getting less and less as the night wears on. By this third night, I'm so tired and exhausted I no longer feel sorry for myself. It just is and I sleep as I can and feel good enough in the morning to carry on. Chad and Sesi... those stinkers just lump through it all! Sesi being used to sleeping on bamboo and split palm floors must be in heaven now since I brought a ground pad for him. Chad in his prime must not be suffering from the same softness that I've been enculturated with.
We woke up, grabbed a few handfuls of trail mix, cut into a pineapple, talked a bit about the plan for the day while looking over the map. I took a couple ibuprofen and we headed out. We got the boat uncovered, loaded up all our gear and were ready to go. By this time a few others had joined us on the beach ready to help us shove out, but most likely really wanting to see how this thing works. Shan Skailyn is an interesting contraption. It only loosely fits some of the categories that are the norm in their world. From a distance, they can see that it's an outrigger, but the fact that it's out on the big water throws things off. It doesn't fit what they know. Listening to people describe what they saw when we sailed by, they almost always mention the conundrum they face when determining what it was, asking themselves if we have a motor, or how we are moving so fast. They know what a sailboat is, but that too only has certain elements of meaning to them which Shan Skailyn's sails don't fit. "How in the world are they going upwind?" Their sails, in the rare case where someone ventures to make one, only work for going downwind. When they see Shan Skailyn going up wind, once again, it throws them... we must have a motor (pronounced 'MO-to'). High floatation 'samans' (amas) and the dynamics they bring also throw them. So really, only in shape and form is Shan Skailyn readily recognizable. But watching it move on the water is fascinating to them. And watching a bunch of know nothings try to work him on the water brings both the fascinating and the comical together into something not to be missed. So we usually have a crowd either watching us come or watching us go. This morning at 7 am our crowd was limited to just 3 or 4.
But then I forgot that yesterday I had noticed the collar on the steering oar, comprised of a super tight turk's head knot, had somehow begun to become undone. The collar was loose enough now that there was a real danger of losing the oar from the oarlock when things got rough. It really needed to be retied. So I set about doing that while Chad spent some time interviewing folks a bit, trying to acquire a bit of data about their language and place and situation. About 45 minutes later, the knot was done, worked super tight and made to not be able to slip again. Chad finished as well and we were ready to launch.
It was one of the easiest launches yet. The breakers were so small we hardly had to worry about them. Not really much needed to say about it. We only barely paddled into the bay before the breeze picked up and we were able to set the sail. As had been the norm the last few days, the Taleo Wind worked against us, so we tacked up into it and out of the bay in little time on small rippled water. Today we suspected might be slow because we were having to work our way up a section of coast to a point called Mindiri, a section of coast which veered out more northward bringing us more directly into the wind. The points seem to affect the wind, making it a bit more shifty and difficult to maintain tacks. Our strategy for these involved staying out away from the coast more to get more consistent wind. But today did prove to be difficult. While we were moving and tacking well, it took us 3 hard hours just to move 10 kilometers. Each point we pass like this is such a relief when it's done. We feel like we've accomplished something and are ready to mark out the next goal. For some reason though it seems whenever we round the point like that the winds start picking up and seas get nastier. Today was going to be no exception.
Mindiri is actually the name of a small town developed on the tip of the middle peninsula of three small parallel peninsulas that jut out north from the coastline. Each of these is lined with rock. We understand there are some smallish 'basis' through which we could land, but we also understand the place to be riddled with crime, being developed and abused by the Ramu Nickel mining company that finds it's home nearby in Basamuk. We'd wanted to avoid this area altogether if we could. As it turns out, God had other plans for us.
On our way there, we passed the mouth of a bigger river called Yaganon. From here on out, the rivers we'd pass would grow increasingly large. There are hundreds of them along this coast, among which are a good handful of larger rivers. Their presence is clearly announced by sharp contrasting brackish water, much more green in hue than the surrounding rich blue water of Astrolabe bay. There is no transition between these waters. Strangely you simply move over the point where the two waters meet, seeing a sharp line dividing blue and green. This line has lots of trash that seems attracted to it almost as if magnetically. When the light is right, this green water can almost appear to luminesce, giving off a surreal feeling as the glowing green water contrasts against the darker blue sky on the horizon. This surreal place is where we found ourselves at one point on our way to Mindiri.
Just before rounding Mindiri the winds began picking up. Not unmanageable yet, but keeping us on our toes. I began to notice that Shan Skailyn's rudder was acting funny when we were under greater speed. The pivot mount was flexing much beyond what I was comfortable with, making rudder response slow and exaggerated. It was hard to just make little corrections in helm without the rudder flexing one way or the other to what I guessed was a good 30-35 degrees. I mentioned it to Chad and Sesi, we talked about it a bit and decided we needed to land somewhere to check it out. The wind was picking up quite a bit anyway and the faster speeds were making Shan Skailyn unmanageable. Whitecaps were now all around us. Afraid the rudder attachment point (see Gary Dierking's Ulua kickup rudder design) was going to snap off, we did what we could to keep the speed down and get around the last and smallest of the three little peninsulas into a bay to land at a place known as Basamuk, right across from the mining company. Sesi had been there years ago and said there was a good beach to land on. We pussy-footed our way into the bay, found the beach and headed there only to find it strewn with massive logs which we later found out came from a major flash flood on the Gowar River. Apparently a landslide dammed up a huge section, then massive rains broke the dam, taking countless trees and who knows what other stuff (houses and people included) and spewed it all into the ocean. A small piece of the aftermath lay before us on the beach and made us think twice about landing there. But our rudder called our attention again and we decided on the necessity of landing so we could assess the situation.
We pulled up to the beach which had big steep breakers. We were going to have to approach, get out and brake the boat and hold it there until we could elicit some help. Thankfully there were people there who were happy to offer their assistance. The waves threatened to push Shan Skailyn's bow up into the huge logs, but we all worked to lift the boat up, carry it up over all the logs, which took some acrobatics, and then set it down out of the water's reach. By now the wind was blowing strong and steady. There was no storm, just strong wind and big ocean. Had the rudder not gotten spongy, perhaps we could have carried on around and beyond the mining company. But here we were.
We talked a little bit with folks about what brought us in, took a look at the rudder, saw that there were no cracks or anything looking like it was going to break. But the washer where the bolt tightens for the whole kick up assembly was obviously making it's way mashing deeper into the plywood. By the way, lesson learned, plywood is not the material to use for Gary's kick up rudder. The design is good, but I used a plywood material that was too soft. We removed the rudder and went and sat down on some concrete drainage tubes that were retired and serving duty as benches under the shade of a large tree now. Others filtered in and out through the day, waiting for a Public Motor Vehicle (PMV) to pick them up or otherwise being dropped off. This was the local bus stop for both land and water craft.
We were at a loss for what to do with this rudder. So we just sat there for a good hour or so thinking about it and occasionally sharing thoughts about the situation. To be honest, I was experiencing a bit of relief at this point. I was seriously starting to think this rudder thing was the end of our trip and part of me was glad because I was tired of the stress and the storms and the wondering if we were going to make it to safety. Who knows what we'd do with the boat though. Would we hire a motor dinghy to tow us? Maybe we could disassemble Shan Skailyn and load it in a larger dinghy to take us back to Madang? There are no PMV's out here that run all the way to Madang. All the long distance roads are out right now what with rainy season and the constant flooding. I thought, "You know, I really need to make sure I put my all into trying to find a solution for this rudder." So I asked myself what would help. As far fetched as finding it out here would be, what is it that's needed? I told Chad that if we had some larger piece of steel or aluminum or even a much larger washer that could be placed under the current washer to help distribute the load on that pivot point, I think it would get us by. We talked about me walking over to the mining company to ask if they have a machine shop where I could pay someone for a real quick little piece of work. But that idea was shot down by the locals. They said that they wouldn't take kindly to me going over there. With that I'll take you on a rabbit trail.
Within 10 minutes of our arrival, an employed local came by in an 'emergency response team' vehicle, snapped some pictures of us and the boat and left without saying a word to us. We were told by those sitting around us that the mining company is uneasy with our presence there and that the guy taking the photographs was standard when lighter skinned strangers show up out of nowhere. A couple hours later two police officers showed up, still not talking to us, but talking to others in the area about us. Apparently the mining company had them come out to investigate what we were doing there. It made us really uncomfortable being there. Even more so to consider the prospect of staying the night.
So back to the rudder. We needed something to spread the load. My idea of going to mining company was shot down. The guys were unanimous that the company employees would be upset if I went anywhere near there. I told them what we were hoping to find and one chimed in saying that there's a trash disposal place where the mining company throws a bunch of scrap stuff, including large washers, where they tell all the locals to take it away and make use of it for whatever they can think of. I thought that there's no way there's going to be what we need there. Again the idea of my accompanying him was poo-pooed because it would involve me going into mining company territory. This was very serious to them. So he took my bolt, took Sesi and they went off, coming back about a half hour later with a huge wire string of about 50 different large washers! Inspecting each one, we saw none of the large diameter washers had the right diameter hole for the bolt. It needed to stay nicely centered around a 1/2" bolt. However the biggest washers (about 2.5" dia) had slightly tapered holes. I found another washer that was just a touch larger than the hole on the larger bolt and then ground it down, rubbing the edge of it back and forth on the cement 'benches' we were sitting on. We got it fitting in that tapered hole just perfectly! I installed the rudder again and it was stiffer than ever! Unbelievable that we were able to get what was needed to make that happen! Seriously! Rudder problem solved! Now we just needed to wait for the wind.
All this time we'd been talking and storying with the locals who were hanging around. We'd met quite a few already when an older gentleman (the one who found the washers for us actually) said he needed to go. He said if we were unable to make it out of there by that evening, we could pull our canoe up further into the center of the little hamlet right there where it might be a little safer, and then we could walk over a ways to Mindiri where his house was and stay there the night. He said he'd be happy to host us there and that he'd come back around 3pm to see if we'd been able to take off or not.
We continued to watch the wind and waves out there. Still whitecaps all around and a very stiff breeze. There was a stand of bamboo near us and we noticed all the ends were blown nearly horizontal. That became our point of comparison as we waited the afternoon out there. At one point, some folks came around with a great deal of produce that they clearly intended to sell and some market. The manager, who we overheard talking to the people around him was clearly a rougher kind of fella, throwing around English profanities in a way that indicated their meaning to him was slightly different than they are to us. He seemed to spew them out almost as if he knew people were entertained by the persona. Watching him, I actually was entertained! I approached him and asked if he'd mind selling one of the hands of bananas to me even though he wasn't at the market. He quickly said no, to which the many people around him started telling him something in tokples. After a good number of comments, some of them kind of harsh sounding, he then grabbed a hand of bananas and walked up to me smiling and offered them for free! I thanked him profusely and took my loot and we each snarfed down a few of those potassium rich perfect snacks. A little while later, the local PMV driver, who'd been coming and going since we'd arrived, stopped and said he wanted us to know that if we stayed in Mindiri that he'd be happy to take us there later at no cost. It was a ways away so we were grateful for the offer. Then on his next round he brought by a large fresh papaya and 3 loaves of some of the freshest bread I'd ever had here in PNG! How great was that?! We cut the papaya up into long wedges and shared some with our friends who'd been sitting around there with us. We also munched on some pieces of bread. A young teen brought us some kulau to wash it all down! Sweet! We continued to lounge around laying on the cement benches between conversations, as we watched the afternoon blow by in the wind.
Sometime around 4pm, we saw that the wind had died down a bit and there weren't nearly as many whitecaps out there. This place was far from ideal to leave the boat overnight so even though we only had a couple hours of light left, we decided we should shove out. Even if all we could do is get out of the bay, round the point and make it up to the next village, it would likely be a better place. We'd been treated so well here, but you We elicited help to perform the needed acrobatics again to get the boat over all those logs and into the water. The breakers were big so we took on a bit of water in the process, but otherwise not too difficult a launch. The water was shallow enough that Chad and I stayed in and manually turned the boat around before paddling out. The wind was still pretty stiff, also a bit gusty, and as it had been up to this point, still blowing against us. So we tacked our way out of the little bay into the open water and headed out around the point with no problem. The waves were still big, but easy rolling and so we were constantly feeling the slowing as we climbed one wave and the rapid increase in speed as we surfed down the other side, then slowing again, then speeding again. We did this for a while being able to maintain mostly a starboard tack up a once again rocky coastline.
It didn't take long for the winds to slow. Those big rolling waves became smaller, but more of a nuisance. They were now consistently slapping up over the starboard gunwale. The wind was calm enough... almost too much, in fact, that it was easy enough to take the time bailing. Once the wind shifted a bit more southward though we were able to turn up into the waves a bit more, putting an end to the waves over the gunwale thing.
After those winds slowed down so much, we found it difficult to make much progress. Around 5:45 we figured we should settle on a place to land so that we didn't get caught out in the dark. We saw a motor dinghy approach a place in the bay we were just about to cross so we decided that if a 'moto' could make it in there then it would be good enough for us. As we approached we saw that there was a steep black beach next to the mouth of a small river. We approached slowly, looking for the best place to land. A crowd was already starting to gather to watch us come in. They pointed over to an area on the beach so we pointed there and made our way for it. Sail brailed, we approached and did our typical landing routine without incident. We had plenty of help to carry the boat up to where the steep beach leveled out and was bedded completely with some kind of low crawling plant growing in the sand. Once over the top, we saw that the river that flowed out ran parallel to the beach just on the other side for just a bit before winding up ward into the jungle.
The name of the place was Tookia. It sits across from, nearly facing another larger place in the same bay called Ganglau. Tookia was a beautiful village perched on a slightly raised rocky buttress with a slow clear river flowing behind it before turning up, going around the villaged buttress and spilling into the sea.
Once we'd made introductions and talked a bit about our being there, and having been offered a place to stay the night it was decided that Shan Skailyn should 'sleep' with all the other boats in the normal place, not here on the open beach. We agreed and moved him down into the fresh water just on the other side of the beach. We then slowly paddled him up the river a few minutes to a little beach outcropping where a number of other canoes and also some 'moto' dinghies were placed for the night. Shan Skailyn was hauled way up and tied off. They said it was going to rain tonight and we didn't want him down by the water if a flash flood came ripping through.
Our host, David came down to meet us. He was a 'skipa' of a moto dinghy and came across as pleased as could be to host us in his house. His wasn't located in the main village of Tookia, but up the way a bit. Turns out he's not 'as ples', but rather came from the islands region and bought a parcel of land here to build his home and raise his family. I assume (because I can't remember from our conversation) that he married into this language group and made the slightly out of the norm decision to move to her home, rather than the other way around. We walked for about 10 or 15 minutes, up a dirt road that paralleled the coast and then up a short steep hill to David's house. David had a wonderful family, kids that seemed to respect him and others, a wife that seemed happy and content. David himself was an exceedingly gentle man which you could see in how he interacted with others. He was always calm and smiling, his voice and tone at ease all the time. This kind of trait stood out to all of us as we stayed up late talking with him and his family.
This night, instead of bathing in a river as we'd been doing, we washed using a bucket behind David's house, the only thing veiling us from sight being the darkness of the corner of his house. It was something I looked forward to after our travels each day; getting out of my salty clothes, washing myself and my clothes and putting on a clean shirt and shorts. Ahhh nice!
Regarding David's house, this was the only house we'd seen on the entire trip that wasn't a hut. David, apparently of some relative wealth, had built a house in the same style as those we see closer to town. Kopa (corrugated iron) roof, cement board siding, screened and glass louvered windows, steel posts, a small veranda with stairs leading up to it... all these made up this house rather than the standard local bush materials, grass roofs and bamboo. It stood out sharply among the rest there in Tookia. Inside, rather than bamboo or split palm floors was either plywood or tongue and groove flooring covered with linoleum. The house was completely unfurnished. The only thing breaking the empty and monotonous sky blue interior were some religious pictures hung on the wall. A lone LED lantern on the floor provided the light. We were shown the room where we would sleep where we saw there were some thin foam mattresses that had been prepared for us with sheets. Wow! What a treat! We took our stuff inside and then spent the rest of the evening sitting out under a massive tarp that had been affixed as a permanent tent just outside his house. Some old pallets made the centerpiece around which we sat in plastic chairs and did our storying for the night.
Chad, being a super smooth pidgin speaker ended up storying quite a bit about his own experiences in the sea, traveling around the islands region, as well as other stories he'd heard. Chad had been adrift for a night at sea with a small number of other people after the motor dinghy he was on sunk. He has quite the story to tell. David's family sat entranced as they listened to this survival story, a genre all too familiar but never less fascinating to David the Skipa. He's heard many such stories not ending so happily as Chad's.
We were given a massive amount of food that evening, plus tea with copious amounts of sugar. And then when we just couldn't possibly fit any more food in our bellies, nor stay awake anymore, an aged mama brought out more food! This time, there was chicken!
After eating and drinking, bellies aching with fullness, we sat around a bit more. Our tiredness was beginning to show and our host mentioned that we should go to bed, which is just what we did.
Tomorrow we were once again hoping to arise early and make some good progress. I missed my family. I wondered how my posterior would handle another day spent hiking out, shifting around on our narrow canoe. Since day 2 I'd begun developing a sore right around my tailbone area. That sore was getting more and more painful each day. Now it was so bad that sitting or sleeping on my back were very difficult, if not impossible at times. I turned on my side and fell asleep.
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