Saturday 6 September – going across the water to Kavieng town

We had a great sleep last night and feel restored after our overnight passage. After a late breakfast, we went into town to go and stretch our legs, and see what town is like, to check out the avocados! It is a bit like Buka with a thriving boat taxi rank heaving with people. We were able to tie JeldiJeldi up to a dock that nobody was using, clearly not allowed for taxis. The water front has an old colonial feel with a tree lined waterfront road. The market has spread onto the roadside there are so many traders. We saw loads of green veggies, more importantly loads of avocados. The one market shelter had loads of craft stalls, mainly shell jewellery and woven baskets. I couldn’t resist some necklaces made out of little shell discs from the Kina shell, this was currency before banks arrived, the notes are still called Kina today.

We headed further up into town away from the waterfront to the shops, we found an amazing hardware shop, this place is just like Buka, much more well off, and crawling with Toyota vehicles! Rowan was keen for some decent rum, to go with all our coconut juice, the stuff he got in Solomon’s is filthy. Booze is an issue here, clearly it is what fuels the raskals (pigeon spelling). We went to the big supermarket mentioned in the cruisers guide and it was significantly the best supermarket since leaving NZ. The last cruisers who visited here about 3 weeks ago were unfortunate enough to be in the same supermarket when is was raided by raskals. We hear the raskals were caught and no longer exist, according to all the locals, and the resort security guard. No court case nothing, just done away with! I guess what it does do is make the raskals think twice before misbehaving again. The resort and security tell us it is fine to walk around, just not at night. Independence celebrations happen next week, we will plan to be away from the town.

We got back, early afternoon and Rowan announced he had booked us into the resort for the night, for a treat. We packed our bags and headed over. It is a lovely resort, started by an Aussie couple 20 years ago, everything is made locally, no glass windows or modern walls, clever architecture for air flow, and all made from pandanus leaves. They have local carvings everywhere and local artwork, all very relaxed, with sand floors. Rowan was a little disappointed as they did not have a room over the water for us, but it was fine where we were as we could see PolePole

We took a walk into the island which has a little village and a craft market. Once you leave the resort you are straight back into jungle. We found the little market, which clearly doesn’t see a lot of custom, but once we arrived a number of ladies started putting out their wares. It really is incredibly cheap and I feel obliged to buy a little something from each stall, as I can’t think they do much trade in a week. There were loads of necklaces made out of the kina shell discs, sadly they all had pendants made from turtle shell, which I couldn’t bring myself to buy. But I did find one or two pieces without turtle shell. Some with shark vertebrae!

We headed back to the resort where Jen and Kary were joining us for drinks after a yoga session. Claudette joined too, and having initially all declining to join us for supper, they all stayed. There is only one other resort resident eating and she is a single Australian lady, who claims this is her secret resort where not even her husband knows where she is! We had a very good seafood platter and I had a hot pawpaw soup to start which was deliciously spicy. In the middle of dinner security found out that we were leaving the boat overnight which got them in a complete state, the resort security guy an ex copper got his son and nephew to sleep on board. This meant Rowan had to take them to the boat and switch off the alarms. He landed up feeling so sorry for the lads he let them inside to charge their phones (and their friend’ phoness) he also let them use the guest wifi, so I suspect they were dead chuffed. The cellular towers are all down in town, so stinky would provide them with loads of entertainment. It was pouring with rain most of the night. We did have one big squall during the night, which was a little worrying, but all was good. Rowan has a fancy anchor alarm, running from a phone we leave on the boat. So all was good.