Panesia

We were able to sail most of the way which makes a real change for us over recent times. We are normally beating into the wind. We arrived at Panasia and we found the entrance through the reef without any problems. The rock cliffs are quite spectacular, there are a couple of little beaches but most of it is sheer cliffs. There are some places where you can get to higher ground and there is supposed to be a skull cave somewhere on the island but we didn’t go looking. At the entrance there are a few bommies around and reef on either side. We dropped anchor and we ended up to close to a bommie for comfort so we pulled it up and tried again but without any success yet another bommie so up it came again. We dropped anchor again and this time it stayed there.

Panasia's rock cliffs.

We went over to check out the shore no one lives here so we decided that we would burn our rubbish. Daniel climbed up the rock face to what may have been an entrance to a cave but it wasn’t. He is a bit of a monkey so he could go where Ian couldn’t get up to. The boys and Ian gathered some firewood while Kathleen and I went back to the boat to make some bread dough to put on a stick and cook. We also got Amy some dry clothes and some peanuts and biscuits to eat and some water to drink. We put the dough onto the stick to thick so it didn’t cook properly so I ended up taking it off the stick and putting it on the some wood to finish cooking. We had golden syrup on the bread stuff it wasn’t as good as bread but it was edible. Then we burnt the rubbish and headed back to the boat.

Daniel in the cave Ian is just above the water.

While we were there we went to the beach there was a hut on the island that must be used by people attending to gardens or travelling on the sailing canoes as a stop over. We spent the afternoon on the boat and are heading back towards Samarai and get Michael looked at in the morning. I have been in contact with Alotau hospital every day for the last couple of days with the satellite phone. We are going to see how Michael feels as to the decision as to calling into Hummocky Island where people told us they were making things for us to pick up on the way back. Michael’s rash has got some bruising like a gravel rash effect we have been doing some reading and we are thinking that it could be Dengue fever as the rash is mainly on his limbs and he has some of the other symptoms as well like fever and headache. There is no rash with Malaria but we are taking no chances and are heading straight back to Samurai where there is a medical centre and we will be only 20 miles from the hospital in Alotau if we need it.