11:16.68S  152:21.06E

Friday 16^th July 2010

Arrival Papua New Guinea, Du Chateau Island

A very fast sail, averaging 180 miles a day with the wind just forward of the beam, we managed to get into the safe anchorage inside the Calvados Chain of islands in time to see the reef in the last of the good daylight, at 4 p.m.

Our new crew member, Ollie, could not have been more relieved, having spent the last three days and two nights in fear of throwing up, hardly eating and drinking anything more than water, dry biscuits and the odd hot drink of sweet ginger or Bovril, in between sips of water.

It was an easy entrance to the anchorage, in beautiful clear water.  Peace and quiet at last! David never noticed the roll of the boat at night, which nearly flung me out of bed,  when the water was heaving over  the protective reef around us.  We spent one day there, for David to repair the broken Mainsail outhaul and rethread it.  He had brilliantly managed to make a temporary repair the morning of our arrival, which ensured we could surf along at nearly 10 knots towards our landfall before the light faded too much.  The other main problem to solve was to  clear the blocked drain pipe in our gas bottle locker. 

That locker had filled with water which had poured in from all the waves crashing into us, and having nowhere to escape but into the bilges under our aft cabin.  I had only noticed the problem when the carpet was looking rather sodden! The spaghetti of mainsail lines and outhall lines being dealt with by David whilst he is whipping the end of the new line he threaded through the boom.  Not an easy task either with so many hurdles for the mouse line to clear from one end of the boom to the other!

Taking a walk ashore, Ollie spotted these beautiful white collared kingfishers perched to catch fish in the rock pools, and the white bellied sea eagle catch a snake to have for supper.

Several scrub fowl were also on the shoreline, scratching around in the mangroves, and we frightened away a few whistling ducks!  Amazing to see how far these animals are from mainland, but they are so happy to be able to live on an uninhabited island.