11:07.89  152:20.10

18.07.10 – PANASIA ISLAND

This is more like it, just a couple of hours sail over to Panasia Island – but the entrance was highly dangerous – with huge waves across the entrance offered us a heart thumping experience!

Panasia Island

 

 

David negotiating the reef

Surfing in through the reef passage

Passage through the Reef

Dramatic Anchorage against the limestone cliffs

Sunset at Panasia

 

George, who speaks excellent English and lives on the beach nearby, came and traded these huge 3 pound painted crayfish with us shortly after we arrived.

By contrast, we were offered these large spiny crayfish the next day

We traded with clothes, sugar and biscuits plus a fishing reel and plenty of water, as they had nearly run out.  They did not have a good water catchment system on their houses.

We visited their beach home next morning, giving them two large 5 gallon cans of water, which David poured into plastic fishing buoys

We took a walk around their garden, on the side of the cliff, full of stones that needed to be dug out of the soil and piled up to form terracing in order to make room to grow the bananas, yams, taro and tomatoes

The stones piled upp to make room for planting

It’s women’s work in the garden, Dorothy here planting yams

Huge store of yams lasts more than a year

Also prized is the betel nut, which they chew with limes and spit out, making their teeth red

This family group were all sitting chewing betel nut, having sailed over from a nearby island

At least we had a dugout to sit on rather than the beach!

The gardens offer plenty of fruit and vegetables – pineapple, spinach, paw paw, yams, taro, limes, chilli peppers and coconuts.

This huge grasshopper looks more like a locust!

Good snorkelling spots close to the beach we motor through to reach the other side of the island

The men are fishing on the reef for fish which they smoke and sell to the main island

Sailing dugouts are the only way to get from island to island

This hut is sure not to be caught by a tsunami wave!

What a gorgeous pink sandy beach they have on their doorstep!

With dramatic limestone caves and rock formations

There is skulls in one of these caves, relics from when the people were cannibals

This group of men had just sailed back from the nearby island of Misima after having sold their catch of smoked fish.  This is the largest sailing canoe on the island, bought with shell necklaces and some of the local currency.