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Oceania » Papua New Guinea » Milne Bay » Logia Island
December 30th 2013
Published: January 5th 2014
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Deka Deka islandDeka Deka islandDeka Deka island

White sand and amazingly blue water.
Well readers when we left off Shelagh and Heather were “stranded” at their resort in Tufi after their plane to Port Moresby didn’t arrive. Let’s tune back in too see what happened…

The plane to Port Moresby was scheduled to arrive in Tufi at 7:45am and depart again at 8:15am. When we asked the Air PNG rep at the hotel what time we needed to have our bags ready in the morning he did some careful calculations and informed us that we should have our bags ready at 5:45 am. Let me remind you that the airstrip is a 2 minute drive from the hotel and there is literally no building, luggage cart, airport infrastructure of any sort (oh, that’s a lie, there’s a wind sock) at the airport. Really, we need to check in and have our bags ready 2.5 hours before departure. We said ok and then asked the hotel manager who said 7 am. The plane arrived on schedule-ish and we, along with everyone in the area, went down to the airstrip to see the plane land. We boarded and said a fond farewell to Tufi, a beautiful place.



We arrived in Moresby with
Bathroom in Alatou airportBathroom in Alatou airportBathroom in Alatou airport

Who needs sinks anyway?
about an hour to make our connection to Alotau which we were informed might be too tight as we needed to get our bags and re-check-in (probably not a word). To the credit of the Port Moresby airport staff bags appear quite quickly. We grabbed our bags and headed into the terminal to encounter the same massive lineups we had seen the last time. I decided to do what I thought I had seen locals doing last time and walked directly up to an AirPNG check in counter (bypassing an epic queue) to see if we had time to stand in line or if we needed to be checked in urgently. She looked at me funny for a minute and then said she would check me in right there. So, with that part of the process handled so swiftly we in fact had about an hour to wait for our flight. Or, I should say, an hour until our flight was supposed to leave. As we sat in the departure lounge we chatted briefly with the two men who sat down across from us. Turns out the younger man is a Baptist pastor in Alotau and the other man is
Our view view of Nuli Sapi and our bungalowOur view view of Nuli Sapi and our bungalowOur view view of Nuli Sapi and our bungalow

Our bungalow was the one on the far right.
a Catholic bishop who has been in PNG for 50 years. 50 years! Literature generally supports that it was only about 50-60 years ago that cannibalism really stopped in PNG (if in fact it has really stopped – some locals suggest otherwise!). The stuff this guy must have seen in his 50 years here. As we waited flights got called and boarded and left. Ours was on the board but didn’t get called. It didn’t disappear from the board nor was it labeled delayed or cancelled, it just sat there with a departure time steadily moving further into the past. About an hour after the fact all of a sudden people began to line up for our flight (again, we don’t think it was ever called) and so we joined them, boarded and took off. Plane Go!

Alotau is one of the major cities in PNG and is located in Milne Bay where the pacific really begins with its string of volcanic islands. We knew we had a boat journey of indeterminate length ahead of us so we made sure to use the washroom in the airport. I think the picture speaks for itself. I don’t think they had one of those signs on the back of the door recording who last checked the washroom for toilet paper, cleanliness, whether the sinks are attached to the wall and plumbed in, you know the usual.

We jumped in a taxi and headed to Sanderson Bay where all the boats to the islands leave from. We had arranged transport to our hotel and the instructions were to “look for the dinghy with two motors and ask around for the boat to Nuli Sapi”. Well we wandered along the massive string of dinghies until I saw the only one with two motors but there was no one in it. I asked a couple of people nearby and they looked a bit confused but suddenly a man appeared and said “Nuli Sapi”. Turns out that our boat skipper is in fact the land owner of the hotel and along with his cousin built the four cabins and restaurant with their bare hands. Before we jumped in the boat Shelagh ran over to the supermarket across the road to look for some bug spray. Lets just say that the mosquitos here in PNG are feasting daily on a healthy dose of Coutts blood. They didn’t have any bug spray (just the kind that you use to spray/kill an infestation of bugs so she didn’t buy it… *foreshadowing*) so a sad Shelagh returned. The water was a bit rough and some light rain had set in so the first part of our journey was kind of exciting. Our skipper apologized every time we hit a wave and some water sprayed in. Eventually I told him it was ok and not to worry about it. The people here are incredibly concerned that tourists have a good experience and don’t want anything to go wrong. At least I think that’s it, maybe they think I’m so “soft” I can’t handle getting wet. I’m going to believe it’s the first.

The resort Nuli Sapi is four bungalows built in the traditional style using traditional materials and positioned on stilts over the water. It is just a couple years old and is really lovely and sits in a beautiful setting on Logia Island on the China Strait. As I write this I’m looking out over an almost glass calm ocean watching a container ship sail by against a backdrop of a lush, volcanic mountain. Two local cousins who are the owners of the land here partnered with an Australian (really he’s from Louisiana and she’s from New Zealand, grew up in PNG and then moved to Australia, but sure, lets call them Australian for simplicity) couple to build and run the resort. I think I mentioned before that all the land (and apparently the water) in PNG is owned by someone. Any time you want to go to an island, a beach, a dive site etc. you need to pay a land use fee. These guys and their families are really looking to create economic development in the area and want to partner with people who can help them create new opportunities. Anyway, we spent a nice afternoon chatting with our hosts, drinking a few SP beers and admiring the view from our bungalow.

Lets be clear about “traditional style and traditional materials”, there was no air conditioning or fans, nor were there screens back in the day. And its hot here - definitely over 30C each day plus very high humidity. When the windows are open (and they always are), they are open – to the beautiful view, to the sea breeze, to the creatures
Skull caveSkull caveSkull cave

Combination of skulls from natural deaths and from cannibalism...
of the tropics... The air is actually so still here that there is little breeze to blow through and cool down the bungalow or to blow the bugs away. We have spent a few hot nights here – I wish I meant that in the racy way. But what I mean is that its bloody freaking hot and we either pull the mosquito net down to combat the bugs but increase the temperature by 5C, or we don’t pull the mosquito net down to stay cooler but deal with the obvious impacts of a completely open cabin and no mosquito net (to allay any medical concerns, yes we are taking anti-malarials).

The first morning here we headed to the mainland to visit a river absolutely thick with giant mangroves. It was one of the most remarkable things we have ever seen. I just asked Shelagh what she wanted to say about the mangroves and she answered “big….tall… spiritual”.

Ok, lets talk about pineapple. I do believe that I have now eaten the best fruit I will ever eat. The pineapple here is ridiculous. It is picked at the perfect time and is so ripe that it is pouring juice down your face and arm as you try to eat it. The other fruit – mango, passionfruit, etc – is pretty good too but the pineapple has to be eaten to be believed.

That afternoon a local man took us on a walk to one of the (many) skull caves on Logia island. On a brief, and likely inappropriate note, we did observe that some of our friends and family with more appreciation for the male form should have been with us this day. As we met this guy he was just pulling on his shirt. Apparently a bit of gardening and some paddling do wonderful things for a mans stomach and chest. Anyhoo… Traditionally, when people in this area died they were buried upright with their heads sticking out of the ground. A claypot was put over their head. A while later the heads are no longer connected to the body and the skull was moved to a cave. There were probably 50 visible skulls in this one cave and there are many on this island. Apparently this was done to the people who died of all causes on the island…including the ones who had been captured on raids and brought back and eaten. Shelagh, tell the people about the brain disease! For some reason Heather now wants me to talk about Kuru. Ask any neurologist about PNG and they will get excited and start talking about prion diseases (mad cow is the most recently famous member of this family of diseases). What is different about this family of diseases is that they are transmitted by an infective protein. In the 1950s they found a tribe in the middle of PNG where people (women and children particularly) were dying of a very weird degenerative neurological disease where people became rapidly demented and died within a year of first symptoms. It turns out that this disease was transmitted via eating the dead brains of infected family members. After some education (stop eating brains…) the disease gradually was eradicated and they haven’t seen a case since 2004.

We wandered along the beach on the way back and had our aforementioned guide running frantically behind us telling us to be careful of the coconuts. Head injuries from falling coconuts seems to be a reasonable fear!

The next day we headed to snorkel at the Giant Manta Ray cleaning station. This is where the giant manta rays come to eat fish and get cleaned by little fish. We had to get up before sunrise to catch the tide. The Manta rays come with the strong currents and so to see them you need to get there for the correct tide. We took a small boat over there and tried to find the Manta Rays. We sat on the beach for a bit waiting for the current to change. Somehow our guide saw one from the beach so we jumped back in the boat and jumped in the water. Then suddenly one appeared and we realized just how massive these things are. They have a wingspan of about 5 feet and gracefully move through the ocean. Over the next 45 minutes we saw 3 of these animals sitting over the cleaning station. It was a pretty good morning. We tried to take a video with my gopro, but with the wide angled lens and the lens bevel it doesn’t do these creatures any justice at all.

On another day we headed over to Kwato island which is just a few minutes boat ride away. Kwato is a really beautiful
Crab trying to escape before lunchCrab trying to escape before lunchCrab trying to escape before lunch

Before he pinched the puppies nose...
little island that still has one of the first churches in the area standing on it. The legend goes that the materials for the church were brought all the way from Scotland in the early 1900s. However, the locals here laugh at that and say that no, the stone was quarried at one of the nearby islands. We were expecting a church totally not suited to its surroundings but were pleasantly surprised. It’s quite a beautiful spot. At some point in history the island also has a reasonably vibrant ship building industry.

There are almost no light population here. Most of the locals can't afford solar powered lights so use very expensive diesel powered generators - which essentially means there is very little lights at night. What this meant was that we had a view of the stars unlike any that we had seen before. It was amazing - there were so many stars in all directions. So beautiful and peaceful. I didn't have a tripod with me so couldn't get any photo's, but the image is stuck in my brain.

So, the tropics…there’s bugs in the tropics.

When packing for the trip I knew there might
Coral beachCoral beachCoral beach

Pretty, but not so easy on the feet!
be some times on flights etc where I might not get fed for a while, and that can be bad. So, I was proactive and brought a bunch of granola bars, a bag of nuts and a bag of biscuits. This proved to be a good idea and saved me (and others) from several “hangry” moments. However, one has to keep those things somewhere, so I kept them in my bag. Normally I kept my bag zipped up in the hotel room but one day I hadn’t and when I reached in my bag…cockroach! Then, another cockroach! Then another cockroach! Yuck. I had to pull everything out and shake it out. Meanwhile Shelagh had also found one between the mattress and frame of the bed. We got bug spray…the kind you kill bugs with (ah, see how its all coming full circle) and deployed enough spray to kill every bug in Canada. That seemed to last for the night. We also got rid of the open (but enclosed in another plastic bag) nuts and biscuits. The next day Shelagh forgot to close her bag and had the same thing happen. We were not happy campers. We had seen plenty of cockroaches before this, but not an infestation like this. We developed a nightly spraying ritual for as long as our little can of spray lasted and clearly have survived the ordeal, but it does confirm the fact that neither of us are really meant to live in the tropics.

Shelagh in particular struggled with some elements of tropical living. First of all she has inherited, from her father, an inability to cope with the heat. To be clear, it was fucking hot (sorry, mom) the whole time we were in PNG but sitting stationary in the shade I could survive and after a shower I would stay reasonably clean and dry-ish for a couple hours. Shelagh on the other time poured sweat constantly. She literally looked like she had just splashed water on her face all the time. In addition, she had a little wound on her toe which got infected and her toe swelled up big and red. Luckily she had a significant bag of pharmaceuticals with us and had a “tropical infection in your toe” antibiotic handy. Also, on our first night here Shelagh woke up in the middle of the night screaming from something biting her ankle. She grabbed at it and claims she “pulled off some massive bug that still had his teeth in her leg”. She forgot this night time horror until the next day when we were sitting in the boat and she looked at her ankle. There was a big red mark and a bubbled out blister on her ankle. There was much discussion over the next couple days as to exactly what creature might have bit her. Everyone had an opinion and the contenders are cockroach, giant ant, and some kind of killer cricket. The blister wouldn’t go away so I helpfully suggested that it was probably a giant spider and it laid eggs in her leg and one day back home the eggs would hatch and spiders would crawl out of her leg. (spoiler alert – it seems to have healed so my scenario is unlikely).

Samarai island is the original capital city in this area and was the site of the Australian administration up until 1975. At that point it was just kind of abandoned. Local people still live there of course but all of the infrastructure has disintegrated. It’s quite sad as the locals talk about what a beautiful and thriving community it used to be and now its falling apart, quite literally. We visited the market there with our host and got to see the range of sweet potatoes, pineapples, mangos, coconuts, etc available. Most stalls also sold the ever-important betelnut. Just like in many Asian countries, the locals here chew betelnut. They mix the nut with mustard plant and “lime”. Now, by lime I don’t mean the delicious little fruit that frequently adorns my (malaria preventing) Gin and Tonic. I mean coral that has been crushed up. Unfortunately to get the coral they sometimes harvest large amounts of fresh coral severely damaging local reefs. Some parts of PNG are banning betelnut chewing in an attempt to prevent the constant spitting of staining red juice onto the pavement. The market also provided a “very fresh” squid that had been caught just a few hours before and some mud crabs. This was all to be part of our Christmas feast the next day.

We took a tour of the island with a local guide who was yet another family member of the people who own our hotel. He was a young guy who was very knowledgeable
Christmas day snorkellingChristmas day snorkellingChristmas day snorkelling

Not quite traditional, but fun!
about the past and present status of buildings and life on the island. He is also very passionate about the current, sad, state of the island. There is a pearling business run from the island. They grow some sort of shelled thing (we never did get a clear answer on whether it was an oyster or not) from its baby state in a wire cage type thing, then they do something to it to initiate formation of the pearl and take it out to the deep water. After about a year and a half total they pull it out and “tada” pearl. This provides jobs for the local people – predominantly as security at the pearling warehouse and at the sites where the shells are hanging out in the ocean.

At the end of our tour we went snorkeling at the main wharf on the island. We were a bit skeptical about the quality of snorkeling as there are a lot of boats in and out of there and a lot of garbage. We were pleasantly surprised. Just a meter or two underwater was an awesome collection of small creatures. In addition to some great clown fish, Christmas tree worms and other favorites, there were some creatures I’ve never seen before. My favorite was a pair of things (fish, maybe) that were maybe 6 inches high and an inch or two wide but very, very thin. They swam upright (vertical) and stayed in a pair. As I followed them around they would dart back and forth but always stayed about 4 inches apart. They were like the pair figure skaters of the aquatic world. I could have followed them for ages. I’ve done some googling to try to figure out what they are but can’t find them. There is such a thing as a “sea pen” which is how I would have described them but what I saw doesn’t match the images on google. If anyone knows, please let me know.

Anyway, so this was Christmas eve. A number of the men on our island (including the two owners) play the guitar and came Christmas caroling. They sang local songs and carols. They were supposed to be heading over to Samarai to play for their family and friends but wanted to come play for us first. I think they would have happily sat there and played for hours so we eventually had to politely suggest that they go across to Samarai otherwise they would miss their chance. So they left us at about 9:30 pm. We heard them playing as we got ready for bed and drifted off to sleep. When we woke up at about 6am we could still hear them playing and they kept going until about 8. They had been at it all night. They had gone around Samarai and then come back to Logia and were working their way back up the island. Needless to say there was not a lot of activity on the island for most of Christmas day.

Christmas morning was spent just hanging out at the resort. Crazy Joe’s job was to prepare the crabs so we followed him for a lesson in crab-ology. When we followed Joe into their bungalow we found the crabs just roaming around the place. He showed us their pinchers, how to tell male from female (totally a skill that’s marketable these days, right?), etc. We had Rottie, the 9 week old Rottweiler puppy with us. He was very curious about these creatures and began to investigate. Shortly after I uttered the phrase “I
Bride priceBride priceBride price

Poor little piggie wasn't very happy. Pigs are an important sign of wealth and they are needed as part of a "dowery" which they call "bride price" in PNG.
worry that he’s going to get pinched by that guy” the crab got hold of Rottie’s lip in his big pincher. Rottie freaked out and ran away yelping and crying. He was shaking and wimpering for quite a while after and had a cut on his lip. I think Rottie learned a valuable lesson that morning.

After a lazy morning we headed out to Deka Deka island which is just a small island that locals use for picnicking etc. We actually timed our departure with the unexpected arrival of a boat of “relatives” who had clearly been drinking all night and showed up at the restaurant asking for lunch. Our host was not very happy but managed to put on a lunch for the group who left happy. There were a few families out swimming and fishing. We went for a bit of a snorkel and hung out on an island that looks like what you get if you google “pacific island with white sand beach” (I made that up but then thought someone might actually try it so I checked, and…yup, that’s what it looked like). We arrived back to a Christmas lunch of Chili Crab and Lobster Curry. Not bad.

Boxing day we were up bright and early to do the hour long boat ride back to Alotau to begin the next leg of our journey…The Trobriand Islands.


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Fishing on the wharf.Fishing on the wharf.
Fishing on the wharf.

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