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More raving about PNG

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I am starting to write this sitting in an anchorage in the Duke of York islands near Rabaul in a small bay surrounded by villages. There are a few canoes of kids hanging around the boat and the morning has been the usual stream of trading – today for oranges, cooking bananas, shells, coconuts, papaya and green beans. 
Scott and Finn went off in a local boat to see some Japanese bombs left over from WWII. This whole region is full of sunken wrecks and jungle-hidden relics from the last two wars. Poor Papua New Guinea was really hit hard. On this island, the locals had to go and hide out the years of WWII in caves, hiding their babies and disguising the smoke from their fires as best they could. If the Japanese saw the smoke, they would throw a grenade. It seems that when the Japanese eventually beat a retreat they jettisoned their planes and tanks and left them to become new reefs and for people like us to snorkel on. This week alone we have dived on two tanks, several boats and a plan…
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The full story on Ninigo

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A few weeks since we were last able to get internet access but here we are in lovely Kavieng, a town on the tip of New Ireland in PNG. More of that later – first, we must tell you that we have found our favourite place on earth – Ninigo! We went to the Ninigo island group straight from Jayapura, sailing 225 miles North East. Red Boomer were already there and came out at dawn to guide us over the reef into the lagoon. The water was crystal clear and turquoise, but that was only the start of Ninigo's charms. We anchored off the island of Mal and were greeted a while later by a gentleman named Thomas and his son Richard, who brought us fresh coconuts and the offer of any assistance we might need. Over the coming days, we spent a great deal of time with Thomas and his family and through him were introduced to the rest of the island. Mal was 'owned' by the Germans between the wars and was a coconut plantation. Coconuts still provide a source of income and food for the islanders…
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Plodding through Papua

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A brief internet interlude in the town of Manokwari, at the top of the Cenderawasih Bay in Papua, before we are out of range again - so a quick hello to all our blog friends. Hmm, what to say about Papua? Well, it is not the kind of cruising ground that makes you want to buy a boat and head off into the blue. Coming here as a land-based tourist would probably be quite different, with the few people that come here mainly taking dive tours with everything organised for them. Coming here on our own boat brings some administrative challenges and we haven't felt comfortable to leave the boat unattended so that limits how much we are able to see. Papua certainly has a wealth of beautiful islands and the interior sounds fantastic and untouched by the Western world, but if it doesn't come with a good anchorage, we can't see it! We are still heading East and are optomistic that PNG should be far more fun than Moluku and Papua have thus far been. 

Papua, as you will know, has seen it…
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