It's Time!

After two years of planning, building, and waiting, the time has finally arrived! It's time to put Shan Skailyn (and it's crew) to the test!

Early tomorrow morning (Friday, March 1) the helicopter, the only transportation in or out of our remote location, is scheduled to arrive. After it slings Shan Skailyn and it's crew down to the coast, my wife and four kids will head out to Madang about 90 miles up the coast where we plan to meet them after hopefully not more than 5 days.

This is Shan Skailyn's maiden voyage. It is also this virgin sailor's first chance to try to put all the pieces together into actual experience! Excitement level is high! Having done the best I can to think through and prepare for possible reasonable contingencies, it's time to dial down the 'what-ifs' and jump in. Will it be smooth sailing, good fishing, enough to eat, making our destination in good time with minimal problems? Or will the all too well attested reputation of Papua New Guinea as 'the land of the unexpected' hold true for these northern coastal waters as well? We shall soon see! Only God himself knows what is laid out before us in the next few days.

One thing I'm sure of though is that it will be an adventure! There won't be any internet on this little voyage, but may be some intermittent cell phone coverage. So I'm not sure what I'll be able to post during the actual trip... may end up being a few low quality pictures and descriptions via my half-wit phone if anything. Once in Madang I'll share lots more pictures and narrative impressions. While I'm aware this is a comparatively small venture for many, it's a big deal for me to be doing this. You'll just have to forgive that I don't let relative smallness of scale mitigate my own excitement!

For now, feast your eyes on Shan Skailyn all bundled up in aerodynamic efficiency for its maiden flight 12 miles out, from our cool 5000 feet to the coastal hot of zero. I spent today trying to get everything set up so it can be slung under the belly of a helicopter safely, without swinging and tossing about, or dropping anything into someone's hut or garden below. "I! Dispela hap diwai kam pundaun long we!? We'll save that kind of excitement for the sea. Yeah, that's a fin on the canoe, affixed to keep it pointing forward in flight. Hey, how many outrigger canoes have 'flight' as part of their repertoire?

Countdown is on!

The 90 mile Maiden Voyage of Shan Skailyn up the Rai Coast to Madang is nearing quickly! Just three weeks away! By way of reminder, we live in a location only accessible by helicopter. So the heli is going to sling the boat down to the coast, drop us and the boat off and then go on to take the rest of my family to Madang. We're going to sail/paddle the boat 90 miles up the coast over several days and meet the family in Madang.

The boat is complete, and the only things left are little packing details and logistics. My buddy Kyle has had to drop out at the last minute which had me scrambling for another sailing buddy. The person who will be taking Kyle's place, Chad, actually has sailing experience so that gives me a little more peace of mind regarding my inexperience. I have to confess though that while I'm very excited, I'm also quite nervous about this trip. The ocean scares me. All that big expanse of water with capacity for extremes... My lack of sailing experience... Knowing there's no turning back once we hit that beach... Knowing that I don't really know what to expect out there... So much out of my control; A test of my faith that God only ever intends the best for me and that no matter what happens, none of it is outside his control. Not that that gives me license for stupidity. He also gave me a brain and I'm accountable to use it! We're going to do what it takes to get this boat up the coast safely... and we're going to try to have some fun while doing it!

So the crew now consists of --- Sesi (a close buddy of mine from here in Mibu), Chad (a fellow expat missionary whom I've never met but who has sailing experience), and myself.

Oh, a couple small details I neglected to post: I finally made the tiller extension. Not a big deal, but it did turn out nice. I don't have the hardware for snapping the extension in place when not in use and I didn't like the prospect of shaping my own simply because all the solutions leave either a potential body gasher, should one ever fall or slip or whatever and land on top of it, or they take too much time and effort to lash, clip, bolt, or otherwise attach in place on the fly. So I dug out one of my old hard drive magnets, recessed it in the tiller, recessed a washer in the extension handle, filled both over with epoxy, and got myself a sweet setup for keeping the extension in place. Those hard drive magnets (rare earth magnets) are super strong so I imagine it'll hold through most any rough handling that comes about.

And then even though I was going to just settle for the three curved shaft paddles I'd made, I decided it would be best to have a fourth, in case one or two of them get lost or broken. This one is based off of Tim Anderson's quick paddle, cut out of plywood, glued and lashed to the handle. Though the way I made it turned it into not-such-a-quick-paddle. It's straight handled. But I didn't have a single piece of timber I thought was stiff enough for the job so I had to laminate three pieces. Then I didn't have a thinner piece of plywood for the blade, so I used a 12mm thick piece and had to round the backside (hence the interesting looking dark lines that you see). I also decided I wanted a tapered handle. All that took up time, making it take almost as long as my nicer (in my opinion) curved shaft paddles. Oh well... I have 4 paddles between the three of us. It's done. By the way, that little nick in the lower edge of the blade is a knot in one of the layers of the plywood. It's on the back edge of of the blade so shouldn't mess things up... hopefully.

And then one of the more mundane details, but it's almost comical so I deemed it worth posting... at least the picture. This is the supposedly waterproof bag I bought over a year ago for this trip. It's obviously well used, and when I tested for leaks, I found them everywhere. Now I know why it was being sold for only 5 bucks! So I've set about patching it using shoe goo and innertube rubber on the outside, then I found some old seam sealer I still had from way back when in my backpacking days. I had enough to coat the inside of the bag. Now the bag resembles a blue leopard, but should keep water out at least for this trip, which is all I need it for.

Probably not a whole lot more to post about until right before we head out the first week of March.