Almost immediately upon dropping and securing our anchor in the Ninigo Islands of Papua New Guinea, a sailing canoe pushed off from the northwestern shore of Mal Island and headed for Carina. We were to windward of them, so their sail remained furled and two or three strong young men had to paddle. On it were Michael Tahalam (the ward councillor for the islands of Mal, Lau and Ahu); his 3 year-old daughter with an impish gleeful grin, Marianne; Solomon, a visiting family friend of strong dark features; and two young men, Augustine, Michael's handsome son, and Arnold, his younger brother. We soon had their out-rigger canoe secured to Carina's starboard side and invited them into the cockpit where we plied them with tea and coffee and of course, candy for Marianne. We ourselves were somewhat bleary-eyed from lack of sleep but we also high on adrenalin. This usually happens to us on the last day of a passage as we lose sleep as we become a little anxious leaving the sanctuary of the open sea and approaching a strange shore where things can go wrong.
Michael knew we were coming but did not know when; there is one telephone on the island, owned by the government that sits on a crude wooden table at the door of Michael's raised-floor tin house. We had called this telephone a number of months back and had had a difficult discussion with weak signals and much static, though because of it we knew the big annual canoe racing week was scheduled for August 25th. The only other communications Mal Island has with the world outside is via an HF radio in the regional health center, also owned by the government. Michael was repeatedly apologetic as he greeted us for not responding to an email we had promised him (and written). We repeatedly said that we had not expected a reply and were just thrilled to finally be here for the races and to meet him and the other islanders in person.
It seems our timing was good, we arrived on a Tuesday and it had just been Saturday when Michael arrived back from Manus Island. To give you an idea of how isolated these people are; to go to Lorengau, the islanders must take an open boat (skiff if you will), often with a single outboard engine about 200 nm east southeast. The cost of fuel round trip is about 1000 USD (3000 kina); which makes such trips pretty rare. Michael's recent trip had been on official business as a ward councillor and involved with climate change disaster planning. He had returned to the island on a chartered landing craft hired by AusAID to carry with climate change disaster materials - primarily building supplies.
Visits by yachts are rare in these islands and we bore with us, letters and gifts sent to us by previous yachts who jumped at the chance to send their love back to the islands via Carina. It was great fun to see the eyes of visitors to Carina light up as we delivered specially addressed packages and letters to them that we had squirreled carefully away amongst our boatload of supplies. One family, Thomas and Elizabeth Ailis, who also visited immediately, received in their skiff a particularly large stack from us and handed back an enormous lobster! What a wonderful welcome that was after days of one-pot left-overs!
During this initial visit, we explained to our visitors that we needed assistance to distribute our generously-donated supplies as equitably as we could. We wanted them off the boat and into the hands of islanders but we wanted to ensure that everyone felt the generosity of our donors and in our wake we would leave only good feelings and not envy that someone else had received more than they did.
During one of our first visits ashore, we asked the collected and curious islanders gathered on the beach outside of Michael and Lynette's kitchen hut, to allow us to create first, packages of food and clothing for the island's neediest. The gathered group gave us the names of eight families with disabilities of some sort that prevents them from taking care of themselves. It was serious business and everyone took it so, talking in the Seimat language to each other and us in English, as they gave us the names and the particulars of each family necessary for us to choose the donations wisely. For example, one family was an old woman (described to us as "fat") with one 5 YO granddaughter, another a disabled man with wife, son and two grandchildren ages 7 and 10, etc. We spent a long evening unearthing appropriate clothing from our huge pile of bagged items and packing these with a selection of staple foods in custom labeled bags that have now gone ashore.
A disconcerting development occurred on Mal over the weekend, an accident that demonstrates how isolated and vulnerable these communities are. Yesterday while we were ashore, Solomon approached Philip and said simply "can you help this boy"? Halokeni, the twelve year old adopted son of Michael and Lynette had swallowed a fish bone that had gotten firmly stuck far down in his throat. The accident had occurred almost two days earlier. The health services worker had tried to extract it but it was too far down to even see. He had given him only aspirin (!) at his point. Philip tried to examine him but the poor kid couldn't lift his head without tears streaming down his face. We asked him where the bone was, thinking we could possibly bring back surgical forceps and try to remove it. When he pointed so far down on his neck, we knew it was not something we could not help to treat. Poking in the little boy's throat would possibly cause more damage. A Heimlich maneuver would likely have been unsuccessful as the health worker - Vincent - commented that the bone was likely by this time lodged in tissue.
Already, the flesh of the child's neck was swollen; we were afraid the swelling might close down his air passage. Halokeni could only take tiny sips of water but no food. Philip sighed and then explained to the adults waiting for his opinion that the best course of action would be to evacuate him to Lorengau on Manus Island 200 miles away. The islanders assured us that there is a hospital in Lorengau where there were doctors and surgeons who could administer sedation and other meds necessary for extraction. Maybe it was the opinion of a respected outsider but things started to happen quickly at this point. Vincent, the man responsible for the Mal Island Clinic radioed his superiors on Manus - while we watched - and got permission to use clinic-allocated petrol to fuel a boat to evacuate the little boy. He then started an IV drip so Halokeni would stay hydrated. Meanwhile, Michael made arrangements of his skiff to brought from Pihon Island, have the fuel loaded and prepared for a trip to Lorengau first thing in the morning. He was hoping to find a second 40 HP engine, though this was in vain. We provided paracetamol and a bamboo straw and were able to coax the boy to drink a crushed pill in water through the straw. This helped to ease his pain and allowed him to later take a small amount of citrus juice.
Early this morning, Michael drove by Carina. In his skiff was Halokeni resting in the bottom of the skiff on a blue poly tarp, another ill little boy, the boy's mother and aunt, Vincent, and Solomon at the controls of the 40hp outboard, a 55 gallon drum of petrol, two live green turtles laying on their backs, bananas, coconuts and other food and a bouquet of betel nuts. (More on betel nut later!) Michael asked us to send out an email on his behalf, asked for a weather report for today and tomorrow and said he expected to reach Lorengau by 1600 (4 pm) that day. They were using a GPS we had donated to the island for navigation. He would try to call his wife Lynette on the island's phone once he arrived.
Today, we also installed a 12V battery, two solar panels, a charge controller and a voltmeter at the village school under the watchful eye of a cadre of students who carefully watched our every move. Philip, the principal, will use the extra electricity to power a computer and, possibly, an LED light. When we left, the battery, which registered on 12.5V at installation, was zinging along at 14.4V as the solar panels crammed amps into the battery from the equatorial sun.
And so, it was a full day on Mal Island. Tomorrow we hike down to the village at the far end for a visit, hoping to facilitate additional medical help for a family there. We had arranged for transport by skiff today but, alas, that skiff never arrived. Such is the way in the islands...
Your friends of the yacht Carina,
Philip, Leslie and the spirit of the fat cat, Jake
website: www.sv-carina.org
At 8/11/2016 and 7:16 UTC (GMT) our position was: 01°23.54'S / 144°10.80'E
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