Maiden Voyage Shaping Up

I've taken advantage of the time out in Madang town to ask around and try to ascertain what the weather/sea conditions will be like in March when we're scheduled to embark on Shan Skailyn's maiden voyage. I've asked locals and expats alike. I spoke to a guy named Makka at the Madang Game Fishing Club who said at that time frame the sea should be really nice. One down side is that the wind may be a bit on the weak side. I guess that's why I'm making paddles! Makka has lived and boated here for over 40 years and seems to know his stuff. He mentioned that the fishing should be pretty easy out there too.

My excitement about this trip is growing. I recently put together a fly through using googlearth and have been able to virtually fly over the whole length of the coast we intend to sail. Also, when we flew out recently we flew the entire length of the coast in the helicopter. Several things that stick out to me are that there doesn't seem to be anywhere that will be difficult to land the boat except for one mile long stretch right at the town of Madang where it's all rocky. But everywhere else, there are landing sites and villages pretty evenly dispersed. The total length of the trip is about 87 miles, revised from my original estimated 70. We figure conservatively that if we're averaging 4mph about 5 hours each day, that we can get from Wab (close to Saidor) to Madang in just under 5 days.

Note in the picture that this is a birds eye view of the location where we intend to fly Shan Skailyn down to in the helicopter. From there, we'll get it all rigged up and get moving.