25th July, Kamatal Lagoon

10:56.87S 152:42.33E
Swanky coming through the
pass
Olly checking the anchor Reef colours from the top of the mast Local dugout sail canoe coming in through pass, Swanky anchored in
background Six people on this tiny canoe coming in from the open sea to take their
smoked fish to market in the main island, this is just a stopping off
point. It had taken them all day to come from Motorina, it had only taken
us 3 hours! Sadly, they left too early the following day in just before a storm and
had their sails ripped to shreds. They had to paddle back to the island
they had come from, without being able to sell their fish to even help them buy
a new sail! Jimmy the island owner, enjoyed the muffins we offered, he told us the
other Australian sailors who call in call him Jimmy the cake man, as he’s
always given cakes! Inside the Kamatal lagoon ‘yacht club’ with Jimmy, who had
it built with money from the visiting yachts who come in a ‘Louisiades
Rally’group on an annual basis. The shelves behind are for
‘book swaps’ and other momentoes. Jimmy’s daughter has married a ‘black skin’ man, with
whom she has three children, so they are racist amongst themselves, some from
African descent, others Indonesian.
The well close to the houses offers a rather greenish, brakish water
for them to use for washing. Rain water is caught for drinking, as well as
drinking nuts. About three large red throated emperors were under our boat waiting for
anything we threw over the side, such as chicken carcass etc. However, as
soon as we put some chicken skin on a hook and line, they refused to take it
– no wonder they were so large, smart fish! We had a couple of these fish caught for us outside the reef by the
German couple aboard Antje, very bloody fish, but absolutely fine once the
finer meat is filleted out for eating. The outside reef area of Kamatal lagoon at low water, offered a good
opportunity to walk round the island, and observe just a few interesting
animals: Like this sea slug, now protected due to overfishing in PNG, as they
have been using this animal as their man income to sell to the Chinese.
They have almost vanished from the sea bed now, and are under serious threat of
extinction, not having had time to breed/ Ollie is amazed at the size of the ancient shells of scallops.
These are also eaten practically to extinction, although we have seen smaller
ones around whilst snorkelling. The sailing canoe with outrigger The carving on the front of the canoe represents the spirit from the
tree cut to build it, which becomes a team with the owner of the canoe. To keep
him safe whilst at sea. |