New Ireland PNG December 2009 to February 2010

The last 6 weeks in the Kavieng area has enabled us to relax and recharge and prepare for the next phase of our slow journey home.
Our time here consists of sailing around the local islands of New Hanover/ New Ireland enjoying copious amounts of mudcrab and wonderful fresh fruit and salads. The anchorages have usually included some good snorkelling and diving as well as meeting the locals. The New Ireland people seem not be as enterprising as the Ninigos or Hermits, but this maybe because they are within 20kms of a town, while the other islands are 100's of kms away from towns.
Xmas was great fun, despite Blue Moon running out of gas and us being low as well. We did pork,chicken and all the trimmings, on the back of Pura Vida. Finished with more red wine and a game of 500.
New Year was a lobster feast on Blue Moon with their friend Gaynor from Sydney. She brought all kinds of goodies over from Oz. The most sought after were the Australian and SMH weekend papers.
These sojourns has been interspersed with time back in Kavieng to do the usual list of jobs and shop at the markets. We met another kid yacht, Twin Image. Lots of tales and booze has flowed with them, including a great day out on their huge catamaran on Australia Day.
It has been a time of Losses and Gains and Mysteries on Pura Vida.
The Captain has lost 2 inches around the waist as well as 3 food scrap bowls overboard. He also lost all our 3 expensive rapalla fishing lures to very large fish and a coral reef. He did gain a big coral trout though, which he speared and it fed 6 of us. A real treat, fish and chips, all done by the Captain - chef extraordinaire- he says!
The yacht lost a red head and gained a blonde. When V decided to have a haircut and colour brightening in Jayapura to get rid of the sunbleached ends on her head, the Indonesian "hairstylist" misunderstood. And instead of darkening the hair, he made it the same colour as the sunbleached ends. Hence V is a blonde. Not a good look!!
The PuraVida mysteries continued.
Where did the 4 rats come from? They have gone now and so have any stray cockroaches.
The continual saga of water in the port fuel tank, which stops the engine at inopportune moments, close to reefs in big seas and causes much swearing and cursing and the engineer to don the overalls and clean fuel fiters at lightening speed.
The mystery was solved when the AB found one wine box completely soaked, and rust around the hotwater heater that sits above the fuel tank. She spends half her time looking at or soaking up wine. Wine is OK, heater not OK.
It had rusted out on the bottom rim and made holes though the steel into the fueltank. Hence the water.
The Rheem 50 litreheater was installed in 1982, not a bad innings. So Captain became the painter and decorator and filled the rust spots in lots of internal areas including the bathroom . More cursing and wet epoxy paint for ages! Naked showers on deck -yeh. Not quite the same as watching the girls on a boat from Brazil shower which was anchored nearby. The captain always had a job to do topside when the "event" occurred.
So we have lost the use of hotwater (no warm showers), lost some weight on the port side and gained a list to starboard.
A more dangerous mystery was the small explosion in the stove. On investigation, the gas lighter was found inside the oven. Just as well it only had a small amount of gas left. But how did it get there. Of course the Unable seaman was blamed!!
The one remaining mystery that gets right up the AB is the delay of 10-20 seconds for the freshwater pump to deliver water to the tap. Captain says, "tell someone who cares". He also says its a pink job.
The one major gain has been getting Radio Australia so clearly on the HF radio from 8am to 12.30am. Not so great is some the news, especially the ongoing aussie political jibberjab but the captain's morale has improved as he has been able to listen to the cricket..
So we pick up our creditcards from Westpac on Monday ..( only taken 6 weeks to get here, but thats another story) and start the voyage to the Solomon Islands with Blue Moon. Mostly day sailing along the New Ireland coast and a 2 day passage past Bougainville Island to the Shortland Islands in the northern part of the Solomon Islands. Should take about 2 weeks.