As usual we woke up this day at about 5 am. My sleep was intermittent what with the pain I experience not sleeping on a cozy comfy mattress that I'm so used to. No big deal though. Still feeling rested enough to do what we need to do and be excited about it.
I no longer experience the complete dread as we set out to launch the boat. Not that we're impervious to any danger that can befall us. But I feel better and more confident in both the seaworthiness of my little craft and a little bit in our skills which we've been picking up little bits at a time along the way. Seems reflection on scary moments and things gone wrong has its benefits in learning!
We packed up our stuff in the dark. Nobody was awake yet except us. We took the opportunity to grab our sustenance for the day in a couple handfuls of trail mix and one piece each of spicy beef jerky. We snarfed it down quickly in the dark of the hut we were staying in, a teeny bit of blue light from the impending sunrise providing enough for the task (incognito, remember?).
By the time we started moving our gear out of the house two or three young men were there who offered to help us. With torches in hand we made our way down the short trail, to the beach where the boat was and began uncovering him and loading up our stuff. When we were finally ready there was enough of a small crowd (Minus Muni - where was he at anyway?) that it was an easy task to move Shan Skailyn out to the water and shove out into the glassy smooth water beginning to reflect the orange dawn light and broken only by small ripples. There was no wind this morning so we paddled for quite a ways. Here and there, a little bit of wind would pick up, we'd set the sail, move unsatisfactorily, and then add paddle power to create our own wind and achieve a more acceptable speed.
We continued like this for most of the morning, going back and forth between just paddling and trying to use the little bit of wind available to us. Not an unpleasant morning, but we do always prefer to be under sail power. It's certainly much cooler 5 degrees south of the equator when there's a good breeze blowing by you. When there's nothing, and you're doing the harder work of paddling... well it can get plain hot out there.
Eventually we made it out to a place I recognized from my reviews of the coast on google earth as Siroi. I'd also flown over it once or twice over the last couple years or so. Siroi, from the air had always looked like a safe haven, a place sheltered from the sea by a thin finger of land jutting out, in the shape of a bottle opener, creating a protected little bay area. From the air (and from google earth) I'd also seen that there was a dry dock there. We arrived at the entrance to this bay in a dead calm. No wind, no waves, still paddling with the sail brailed up. From closer up, Siroi was not the welcoming place it looked to be from the air. It was dead, unkempt, abused looking. It looked like possibly it was owned and used by a logging company or something similar. We weren't itching to feel solid ground anyway so we decided not to check it out. Instead we floated there, at the entrance to that safe little bay, trying to decide whether or not this might be a good place to try to cross Astrolabe Bay.
We didn't have a map, but Chad had his iphone and so called a buddy of his in the states, asked him to look up where we were at and give us the distance across if we were to cross there (yeah, we're cheaters!). Turns out it would be about 9 miles. Still the thought of crossing open water scared us. Call us wimps, but we weren't totally naive of what could happen out there. But the more we thought about it, the more attractive the thought of trying seemed. Plus we could see across so clearly; as clearly as we'd seen some pieces of land as we were trekking along the coastline. Granted some of those distant pieces of land took a really long time to reach. We also considered that the wind had been against us nearly the entire trip and that would likely not change here on a crossing. We prayed about the decision and still feeling it was the direction to go we started paddling. We figured that on calm water we could paddle about 3-4 miles per hour consistently. We gave ourselves about 3 hours to get across this bay. Shouldn't be a problem, right? We were about to find out otherwise. The answer to our prayer didn't come in the form we expected it... or when we expected it. The answer was that we were going to be stretched a bit!
After paddling maybe an hour or so out, the winds started picking up a bit. So we set the sail and made good use of it. But those winds, they were kind of shifty. We'd be tacking one way and then all of a sudden the sail would start luffing and I'd have to turn out away quite a bit in order to catch the wind again. My first thought when this happens, because of our lack of skill, is that something we're doing, like hiking out too much on a port tack for example, is creating too much drag from the excessive weight on the ama, thus turning us into the wind. But that wasn't the case here. I had learned to focus on a point in the distance which would give me a relatively good idea whether something was turning us off our tack. We remained pointed in the same direction. It was the wind changing on us. Anyway this shifty wind business kept us seeking for a decent tack, and we started to wonder if we were making any progress this way. We continued tacking, and after a while the wind seemed to become more consistent, though it was getting stronger. So were those waves. We pressed on, feeling committed to our course. Not worried, but definitely driven to get us to that other side as soon as possible. I had this voice in my head saying, "Move, move, move! We shouldn't dilly dally out here!"
The winds and waves continued to increase and before we knew it, we felt like we were way in over our heads! Amazingly, we didn't capsize, not even nearly so. We kept Shan Skailyn pointed up into the wind just enough to keep making progress, but it was getting hard to keep him under control. Shan Skailyn's bow found it's way under enough waves that I was concerned about how much water we'd taken in the front section. Faithful Shan Skailyn was always quick to bring his bow up quickly, never to get fully buried. One of the benefits of a bow which flares up toward the gunwale. Shan Skailyn's sail was also worrying me. I'd never seen it pulled so tight on all its seams and grommets. I thought for sure that something was going to give any moment... and that was with us pointed up into the wind. A wrong move would capsize us quicker than we could do anything about it.
At some point we decided together that this was way too much for us and that we should take the fastest point of sail (to get out of there quickly) and high tail it to solid ground. All of us were quite fearful at this point that things weren't going to turn out so good. Chad may not have been so concerned as Sesi and I, but all of us knew we needed to find safety. We turned quickly to a broad reach on a starboard tack, now taking us westward toward the shore we were trying to transverse. I told Chad to be ready with the sheet as we turned, that he was going to want to let it out quite a bit to reduce the strain of the wind. Still, with being sheeted out and Sesi and I hiked out quite a bit on the starboard side, Shan's ama was repeatedly being buried under the waves. It was hard to tell if it was a big-wave problem or a ballast problem, but we didn't like seeing the ama go that deep. We were moving pretty good and so when the ama did bury like that, we could feel the whole thing just dragging us down, turning the boat out from the wind, increasing the force on the sail. Chad was having to pay super close attention to the sheet to keep things under control. Meanwhile, at this speed (wish our gps had been working so I had some solid numbers) our rudder was acting up again, flaring way out and making small steering corrections difficult if not impossible without them turning to major corrections. So this too, Chad had to make up for on his sheet work. I was struggling just to get the rudder to settle at a middle point where it would not try to oversteer us either way. It was nearly impossible at the speed we were going.
The whole thing had me near panic! My mind kept projecting all the negative possibilities this could bring about. My mind was reeling in fear. I was able to settle in the fact that God was still not out of control of this small matter. There's a good and perfect reason we're being pressed like this. For now, all I need to focus on is doing what I can to keep Shan Skailyn moving to safety. Teeth unclenching. Continue pursuing that coast in the distance!
Amidst the wind and the splashes and the burying ama and the bendy rudder, the thought crossed my mind and I yelled to Chad, "If there's ever a time we want video of us moving, this is probably it... if you've got the stones to be distracted from the sheet a bit!" Wouldn't you know it, he managed to get the camera out and have some fun with the thing, getting some great footage and still keeping an eye on the sheet. He put the camera down by the water, hootin' and hollerin' as he filmed, catching the rudder in it's flimsy state, the water splashing and spraying off the bow of the ama... when it wasn't buried under the waves... and big splashes off the starboard side of the hull where the waves were coming at us. I was glad to have watched this video several times before the camera was stolen (read on for details). Sweet footage! While it was happening we were gritting our teeth... well maybe except for Chad who I wondered if he only sensed enjoyment from this kind of thrill... but in hindsight, having lived to tell about it, I'm glad we went through it.
We managed to get locked into a decent tack for a bit where I could bail some of the water that had come in while trying to maintain our course with the rudder. I looked at the sail again and saw that it was still stretched so tight that I could see little wrinkles fan out from each connection point. I also noticed we'd lost our upper tell-tale.
We continued like this on our mad racing starboard tack for what I initially guessed to be about an hour before we reached shore. While it was indeed a long time, later reflection has me thinking it couldn't have been that long. The math wouldn't quite work. So let's say a 1/2 hour or maybe a bit more before we were close enough to land that we could pick the spot we were going to head to. We were so thankful to see this little piece of land with it's people out there watching us. It meant we were nearly to safety. It was also about this time, maybe about a half kilometer off land that the wind finally tapered off just enough to be manageable, though still strong enough to keep us on our toes and our rudder flopping about making it hard to control the boat well.
The beach we were approaching was a nice, wide open, white sandy beach. The trees were thin where the huts were sprinkled along the length of the beach. A few motos were lay beached upside down, looking as if they'd been that way for a while, maybe out of commission. As we sought where the best place would be to land, we decided to go where the other canoes are at. Most likely that's the area best suited for bringing a craft up on the beach. We turned a bit to port, Chad letting the sheet out more, so that we now ran before the wind for a bit just to bring us in close enough to brail and paddle and do our little landing routine again. While still a ways out, we saw a great number of children, many of them wearing like themed shirts, obviously elementary school kids, pouring out of an area onto the beach. They'd come out to watch us bring our strange craft into their village. Our audience was huge. We hoped our landing wasn't going to make us look like fools. It didn't. All went well and the entire mass began to swarm in as we and a few others quickly hauled Shan Skailyn way up high on the beach.
We immediately launched into an explanation of what had just happened to us and that we had to run for safety and were brought to this beach and needed to rest a bit. Our adrenaline still racing, we exuded relief in our story. It was only about 12:30. We knew that if we played our cards right we could be in and out of there in 1/2 hour, which is what we wanted to do. But we were also a bit shaken and needed to collect our thoughts a bit. So the possibility of staying a bit longer before moving on wasn't too bad. Besides, these folks clearly appreciated our being there and it was a good place to hang out and story for a while. We continued telling stories about our journey over the last few days, working up against the Taleo Win from Wab. We told of the places we'd stopped along the way and the friends we'd made. These guys knew some of the folks we'd encountered. Especially the moto skipas like Gadib from Wab and David from Tookia seemed to be well known among the various places up and down the coast.
We spent a couple hours lounging on the beach there, answering questions about our boat, talking about their canoes and paddles and other stuff. We found out the name of this place was Lalok. We found one old man who said he'd made a canoe that he used to sail up to Madang. It didn't do much for working upwind. So he would paddle out at 3 or so in the morning, in the dark, and catch a little breeze that would blow him right on up to Madang in about 8 hours or so. He said he left the canoe at some other village where his brother lives up the way so unfortunately I had no chance to see it.
About the canoes we've seen up the coast, it's interesting how their design changes from place to place. Sometimes, depending on how many canoes are available to look at it's hard to discern between what differences are simply a matter of individual taste and what differences are typical differences seen between the cultures. Overall, the design is the same. Ama connections are all very similar forked attachments lashed on with heavy mono. Most don't actually have a forked branch, but several hard wood pieces tenoned into the ama to form a fork, crossing in an 'X' or otherwise a 'V' and then being lashed to the crossbeam. All the canoes were surprisingly heavy for their size, but masterfully maneuvered by their owners. One common design feature was a long upper lip on both the bow and stern, under which was a kind of scalloped shape carved in, maybe to disperse waves and keep them from breaking over either end. Paddle size, weight, shape were all things that varied from one locale to the next. Some carved, some narrow and long bladed, some extremely heavy, some extremely light. Of course each place had within it its own variances based on owners. One paddle I envied so much was an 8' long bladed paddle with an alligator carved at the point where the blade and handle meet, and then a woman carved at the top of the handle. It was a very nice paddle for which I contemplated a trade at one point. I never asked (and more importantly, neither did the owner) because it was 2' too short to be used as a steering oar for Shan Skailyn. But it was tremendously lightweight and strong. I also knew the owner used it for a paddle, not an oar, and that a trade for my 10' hardwood steering oar would be a definite downgrade for him. I left my envy to simple admiration. Turns out that the paddle was a gift to him from a friend of his from the Sepik. That would explain the surpassing skill of it's maker over the other pickings of the area. The Sepik folks are known for their skill in paddle making and carving. There were quite a number of other differences I noticed between areas (all following language borders), some subtle, some not so much. Unfortunately, they're differences that I'd prefer to show pictures of and not just try to write about.
We storied a while and were just starting to make some noise about needing to get going when food was brought out for us. Good thing. We were really hungry and didn't feel we could break out our own meager stash without obligation of finishing it off collectively. They'd also brought out some kulau earlier from which we were getting plenty of water. Not sure how many have had fresh kulau before. It's the coconut before it turns brown. There's still a thick green husk on it that has to be stripped off, then you lop the top off with a bush knife and drink. The water is cool, has an ever so slight effervescence to it and is full of nutrients. It's a most refreshing treat in the hot tropical sun. From this trip we've realized that it would have been easy to not bring water at all and just drink kulau and be perfectly fine. You don't have to treat it. It's just a ready made drink God has provided in abundance along the coastal places. Good stuff!
We ate our food with gusto, and as appropriately as possible made to get launching as quickly as possible. It was nearing 3:30 and daylight was running out. We really wanted to make sure we reached Erima if possible. Plenty of folks helped move the boat back out, count the waves and shove out. Once again, we had a large crowd watching as we departed. Once again they were treated to the oddity of this sailing craft going into the wind. It must be so mysterious to them! And once again, as had become our usual departure routine, once we were clearly under way, the people and the beach starting to shrink, we would call out and thank them in best PNG fashion and be on our way.
The weather was much more relaxing this time of day. Just enough to get the boat moving slow and steady. The waves were very manageable and we just enjoyed tacking up into the wind for the next hour or so. It was about this time though that we spotted the all telling ominous black smoke clouds upwind of us with the dark windswept rain underneath. No question by any one of us... we had about 20 minutes to find a landing place to avoid the heavy wind and waves that were about to come. This brought us to a nice black beach at Bom.
We approached slowly, looking for any signs of the best place to land. Again... look for the beached canoes and approach there. That's what we did and it brought us to the best place. Young children, all out of school for the day (we're closer to town now where developments such as schools are more normal) were playing and fishing and hanging out on the beach. We pulled up on the beach just a bit downwind from them, used the waves to hoist Shan Skailyn up higher, out of the reach of the waves. Then the strangest thing happened. Unlike any other place we'd been so far, the kids just stared at us, obviously not sure what to make of us. I smiled and walked over asking them where we were at and the name of the village... The kids RAN like I was going to eat them or something! I wasn't totally sure if they were just being goofy and playing or what, so I approached a little further, asking if there was a big man (village leader) we could talk to... They ran more! I mean every single one of them booked it out of there! They were genuinely afraid of me! What's so odd about it is that here, being closer to Madang town, has certainly had more exposure to outsiders than the other places we'd been. So it was counterintuitive that they'd be afraid because I was a stranger. I wasn't totally sure what frightened them, but I decided not to pursue too much for fear of their fear turning to action leading to my harm (ie. being shot with an arrow or something). I turned and went back to the boat where Sesi was laughing his butt off. He thought it was the funniest thing to see his fellow citizens running from me like that. Ha ha ha!
Just about the time I arrived at the boat we saw some of the adults walking up from another nearby hamlet. They greeted us, we complemented the beauty of their village and setting and explained that we were sailing up from Wab on our way to Madang and saw the storm clouds and headed for the nearest beach to avoid being out in the bad conditions. As I said this, we looked out over the water and could see that the wind and waves were indeed picking up fiercely. It would commence raining in about 10 minutes. During our wait we storied a bit, drank more kulau which they offered us and we waited for the rain. Our stop in Bom was very short, maybe 20 minutes in all. After the rain began to fall, the wind and the waves settled down. While it was still raining even, we hauled back out and began to find our way upwind again to Erima.
By now, it was about 5pm. I wasn't liking the idea of still being out on the water with only about an hour of good light left. We needed to make some serious movement and find where we were looking for. In hindsight, the last place we'd beached, there in Bom, would have been a fine place to stay the night. But we were in a persistent mood that afternoon. The wind was almost too light to work into it. We switched between paddling and sailing, even mixing the two, trying to make headway. We passed by the mouth of a small river, continued up a bit more and noticed some folks on the beach. Seeing as to how it was starting into dusk we decided to pull in and inquire. We were still in the area called Bom. I thought it was a village name, but apparently not. Bom makes up several places and we'd only managed to find another place within Bom. No village was near enough to consider staying the night. Doing so would require leaving the boat unattended... not something we were willing to do this close to town. We shoved back out again after just a few minutes. A few young men told us Erima was just 'right up there'. We could see where they pointed were some structures. So we made to go up there.
As we were shoving out, some of the young men offered to help us paddle up there. Having seen the difficulty of having more passengers, we decided it would be alright, but that we'd only take one. We communicated this but three of them hopped on as we were pushing off. I decided not to make a big deal of it since the seas were calm and we were only going that very short distance. The three men insisted on paddling. One of them took the steering oar and began flailing it around like it was a bent egg beater, making no useful work of it. He wouldn't let go and I had to rather forcefully gain it back from him. Odd behavior, I thought. After asking the guys a few questions, it was clear from their incoherent answers that something was wrong with them. They were on something and not totally right in their minds. This is guaranteed to translate to trouble. I communicated my concern to Sesi (in his tokples so as to not be understood by our guests) and Sesi affirmed that something definitely is wrong here. He warned me to keep a very close eye on EVERYTHING. These guys were going to try to take something or do something when the time was right.
We pulled up to Erima, beached the boat, hauled up with the help of our high friends and then the crowd ensued. It was clear from the get go that the Erima crowd knew these young men that arrived with us. They asked us if they were traveling with us and I said they just helped us from up the beach a ways. Erima's treatment of the young men was not overtly unwelcoming, but the subtle clues were there. I could tell they weren't welcome there. One of them stayed by the boat. I stayed right there by his side, imagining that he was looking for opportunity. After a little while he faded back into the crowd and disappeared. Now I felt I could participate in the unloading of the boat.
We unloaded our stuff, keeping it all in one spot under watchful eye as we talked to various people. After a bit one person came up obviously with more clout and offered to host us. It was later in the evening, just about dark, and I was feeling bad for pulling up on their beach at this time of day and bringing on what would be their expectation that they need to feed and host us. What a pain. We should have stayed back at Bom. They've probably already eaten here, and are winding down for the day and here we are pulling up to their village clearly expecting that we could sleep there. I apologized profusely saying we're probably messing things up for them coming in like this. Our host was very nice. He asked everyone to step back some so we could have space to straighten out things with the boat. We finished unloading everything. Then Sesi, our host and Chad began to take our stuff up to where we were going to sleep for the night. It was interesting, our host was putting us up in a church building. Given how church buildings here are generally looked at as very special places, this totally went outside our expectations. Made us wonder what the deal was... not that we thought it bad. Actually we're indifferent. It's just another building as far as we're concerned. But we know that typically putting someone in the church building may have connotations of defilement to their special place. But whatever. That's where he put us and our wonderment kind of stopped there.
At one point while we were preparing the boat for the night, Sesi brought Chad's personal bag which had my camera attached to it. He set it at my feet and said, "This is the last bag. YOU and nobody else, should carry it up. Watch it carefully." By this time, quite a bit of the crowd had dispersed. I set about getting the boat ready and our host came down and offered to take that last bag up. I agreed, seeing that he was going up alone, feeling like when it came to our host, we should be alright. I remember noting that the camera was attached to the bag, right there in plain sight. I was thankful it was being taken up to be put in the safety of our shelter. When I arrived up at the shelter a few minutes later, our host said we should check to be sure everything is there. First thing I looked for was my camera. It was gone! I thought 'surely not!' But the more I looked, the more the reality hit me that someone had taken it. Digging around more produced the little wrist strap that had fastened the camera to the bag. It had been cut with a knife. My camera, and all the pictures, and all the videos from our trip... all that stuff I was so excited to share with people... it all poofed away in my mind. I would not have it anymore! I was pissed; so much so in fact, I thought for sure I was going to do or say something stupid. I was seething and wanted to lash out and bowl everyone over, doing whatever it took to find the culprit. I don't remember the last time I was this upset! To make matters worse, I was exhausted, hungry and mentally spent from being on the water all day. I had barely a shred of care what I do with this anger.
I immediately backtracked my way to the boat, holding on to my tongue and on to some small hope that maybe the thing would be found in the bushes or nearby brush. A lot of times when someone steals something, they'll avoid being seen with the item by hiding or throwing it nearby in the bushes, waiting till the storm calms, or maybe till it's clear that the owner isn't going to notice for a while, and then coming back later to get it. I found nothing. My anger was seriously going to get me in trouble. It wasn't just directed toward toward a single, unknown, faceless individual who'd taken my camera. It was spilling out, in my thoughts at least, toward everyone there! Seriously! I was about to boil over! I reminded myself that nothing I do out of anger is going to fix this. An insane, angry white man wouldn't produce the culprit. If anything, it would just be entertainment! And it would upset a lot of people. I resolved to shut my mouth and just go back to where Chad and Sesi were. Just get there, sit down, and SHUT UP!
I needed to call Shannon here though first. She needed my evening phone call letting her know I was safe. I called, told her where we were at and what had happened. She could tell I was seriously upset and reminded me not to do anything stupid... does she know me or what!? It's just a camera and pictures, small blips in the whole scope of things. It was good to talk to her.
I got back and communicated to both Chad and Sesi how upset I was and that something's gotta give or I'm going to do something I'll regret. I decided to take some time to put my concerns before God. It was during this time, I found my only solace in the fact that justice will eventually be done to perfection. I know my camera being stolen is a small injustice relative to the many much more harsh abuses going on in the world. But this still hurt me bad. Justice, not just for a teensy tiny stolen camera, but for all wrong, will be done someday, whether it be through the culprit finding and trusting in Jesus' death that paid for it all, or through standing before the ultimate judge and paying the price himself, it will happen perfectly someday. This small event of my little camera being stolen just makes me re-realize my longing for that day when all will be made right again.
I was able to rest enough in this that I could reasonably set about notifying the youth of the village of a reward for whoever would find the camera and return it, and just carry on the rest of the evening, minus the freight train of vengeful thoughts that initially threatened to make an ass of not only me, but probably all three of us. I actually enjoyed the rest of the evening hanging out and talking with some of the folks and having dinner. Twice!
First, some women brought out a very large quantity of taro, bananas, yams, and greens with some beans. Then a little while later, they brought out some more of the same, but this time with a small whole fish in each of our plates. We were pretty excited to have fish, though it took a bit of muffled discussion between us to figure out how one goes about eating the meat from a whole fish. Didn't take long. We polished it all off. When later, they came to collect the dishes a bunch of people commented how they had all figured there was no way we would eat all the food they were bringing out. They were amazed that we'd polished it off. To be honest, I was amazed. I was stuffed to the hilt. It was too much, but I wanted my strength for tomorrow and we probably would not be eating breakfast before leaving.
I hung out with a young man later that evening, sitting in the grass outside the church building and enjoying a smoke (the all familiar tobacco leaf rolled in newspaper cigarette) over conversation. He mentioned in a way so much according to their culture (very unassuming, non-accusatory, face saving kind of way) that he wondered if our host hadn't taken the camera. He suspected either our host or the young stoned men with whom we'd arrived. He said he wouldn't put it past them to have pressured a younger kid to do the dirty work for them as our host carried the camera. It could be anyone though. Ugghh!
Later that evening as things were winding down, Chad decided he should go sleep out by the boat, both for security reasons, but also because the soft sand sounded nice to sleep in in his little mosquito netted cocoon. I think he slept more comfortably than any of us. Sesi slept on a hardwood raised floor where a preacher would normally stand and do his thing. I moved some hard wood (and I mean HARD WOOD) benches together and slept on those. I was so tired, that the discomfort barely phased me. My spirit rested enough that the thought of my stolen camera didn't keep me asleep. I remembered wondering as I lay there if there was any possibility that tomorrow we could end up arriving at our destination finally. I longed to be back with my family; my kids, my wife. As I drifted, I had those strange, vivid flashes of strange sea visions again. I wondered why that weird dreaming. Then I slept.
