Samurai

We had a good sail arriving at Samurai between 9-10pm. Michael doesn’t appear to have changed so we will take him across in the morning and get him checked out as he said he’s feeling a bit better.We went ashore at 8am the following morning to find out where the medical centre is we had to walk around the other side of the island which isn’t far as the island is only small. We went straight in which was amazing as other people were waiting to be seen. The doctor that looked over Michael said that he thinks he has malaria but there is no pathology so we could do no test to confirm it. He said that he sees it so often that he knows but he also said that he doesn’t see many rashes. So we decided to treat him for malaria just in case he does have it and the rash was from something else. The doctor gave us the medication as he said that some malaria strands are becoming resistant to Chlorquin which we have on board. So he has two lots of medication to take for malaria one lot he only takes on the third day. He also has antibiotics for the rash Amoxicillyn which I have on the boat. The doctor told us that there is no Dengue in PNG which is good. All up the charge for the consultation and malaria tablets was a whole 1kina which is about 50cents we don’t have a lot of money left about 30kina so we gave them 10kina as a donation I wish we had more but we have to buy bread and fruit for the trip back.

Michael with his rash on the legs a bit hard to see in the photo

We called into the market and bought rolls and passion fruit. Then it was time to clear customs as we know we have what looks to be a weather window to travel back to Australia we didn’t want to do this before we had Michael checked out in case he wasn’t up to travel and needed other treatment that we couldn’t do on the boat. As it turned out we didn’t need to thankfully. We plan on leaving later on in the early night.

The kids and I took the dingy over to Belesna where our stuff was stolen. As they asked us come back in case it was found. When we arrived Leone saw us and came running down. We left the dingy out the front of Lilly’s place rather than on the wharf where we couldn’t keep an eye on it. Leone was telling us that our things they thought were over in a village on the opposite side of the bay but they hadn’t been able to get it back. Lilly wasn’t at her house she was up at the garden so we talked to Lou Lou and Leone first. I took over everything that we had left to trade and gave them both some of the things but most of the things I took over for Lilly as I gave the other two a heap of stuff on our last trip there.

Lillys daughter came down and told us that Lilly wouldn’t be long in the garden. Then we went up to see her she was really surprised to see all the things we took them mainly clothes, rice and other odds and ends she was really excited about the cutlery. She gave us a big mat which she had made form pandanas grass she was in the process of making us one each but we got back before she could finish them. Her girls Christine and Helen had been making us shell necklaces which must have taken ages as the ends are filed down to make the hole for the fishing line to be thread through. Her son Moira had art work hanging on the wall and asked if we wanted them. I would have loved one but they looked great hanging on her wall. She told us that he really liked painting but had no paint anymore. I told her that if he wanted to visit us in the canoe that afternoon I would give him some more. We said Goodbye and headed back to the boat it was about 2.30pm before we headed back and we were getting hungry Ian was making spaggetti bolangaise for us he told us on the radio. Which was welcome when we got back.

We went ashore in Samarai after eating as the kids wanted to say goodbye to the friends they made and Kathleen and I took what was left of kids clothes and treats like balloons, tennis balls, hair clips and other things to give away. We had been told that the bigger shop there exchanged currency so we asked they would do it but it wasn’t worth us doing it as they weren’t giving a good rate so we did not to worry. We bought the bread we had talked about getting some T-shirts with Samarai on the front, the owner of the shop a really nice man gave us 3 shirts one each for Ian, Kathleen and myself they were 22kina each to buy so it was very generous of him. I had the bag of clothes and asked if either of them had small children the lady Hilda did so I gave her a heap of clothes then we went and found other kids to give stuff to. School was just about out so we had to wait of a little while for the kids friends, while we were waiting we sat under a big tree there were some other ladies with little kids there, one of which a little boy of about 2 screamed out Dim Dim’s and burst into tears we gave him a tennis ball then he settled down and ended up playing with Amy.

Back to the boat we had been watching for any canoe in case Moira came but hadn’t seen any. We could see a couple of dots in the distance when we got back to the boat it was getting dark and we would be leaving in the next hour or so but kept an eye in the dots which was getting closer. Lilly’s husband Seller and Christine came in a canoe by this time it was dark we invited them on they stayed for about 20mins before thy head off to get kerosene from the shore. We had a couple of bags ready for them one with art supplies paints and pads and another with food.
We pulled anchor and headed out into the big blue. The trip was starting off great then we hit some rain. I caught heaps then got out the wash bag and had a good scrub as we will have days on the boat ahead of us. Ian, Kathleen and Daniel ended up doing the same Michael was still not feeling right and Amy was asleep.The trip back was great. We had great sailing weather no one is sea sick wish we had a trip over like this.

Ian enjoying not being sea sick on th trip back.

The kids are watching movies and we are reading books. This is what sailing is supposed to be like even though we have had the motor going most of the time. We are doing around the 7 knots so we are making great time much quicker than the trip over. We even had a send off by a pod of dolphins which followed us for a while and were jumping out of the water. We also picked up a couple of hitch hikers a day out of Australia.

Kathleen busy talking to her friend while watching the hitch hikers.(2 birds that perched there for nearly a day)