Papua New Guinea
Dec 2018
We arrive in Kavieng, New Ireland in the North East most corner of PNG mid morning after a beautiful calm passage. We received a sat phone text mid journey from our friends on Sailing Nahoa. They were already in Kavieng, and told us that the boat next to them in the anchorage (the same one we were going to) had had a violent boarding the night before. A local man with a large knife climbed into bed with the sleeping couple and attacked them!!
This was devastating news to us, we were going to Kavieng specifically because we had been informed that this was one of the safest places in PNG. No boats had ever had any trouble.
What to do now?
Adventure 60 – Violent Papua New Guinea
Well, mid passage we contacted the resort directly adjacent to the anchorage and asked whether they would be able to hire us a guard to sleep on our boat for each night we were there. We were not taking any chances. Unlike Nahoa, we couldn’t check in and out on the same day, we were waiting for our other friends Anneliese, Chae and the kids on SV Waterhorse as we had agreed to do the looooong (10day) passage to Indonesia with them.
As it turned out, Kavieng was actually a lovely town to visit and the check in process was easy. Timon, our night guard was one of the security officers for the resort, and happily sat on our boat each night as we slept (for the princely sum of $20 AUD). Money well spent I say.
Adventure 61 – Security in Papua New Guinea
We organised to do a few dives with the local dive shop, and while they were nice dives and the water clarity was okay, they weren’t anything spectacular and we were a little disappointed that the water clarity and marine life weren’t great. I mean we were sooo far north and so isolated that I had expected spectacular.
We spent a few days in Kavieng, the locals were friendly, but frequently warned us no to go onto the main island at night. We reprovisioned in the local markets, got a LOT more fuel. We are now literally a floating fuel dock, and checked out after 5 days.
Off to Indonesia with Waterhorse.
Adventure 61 – Rough Passage to Indonesia
For more about our passage to Indonesia check out this blog