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Sea Kayaking Pupua New Guinea '97
Our plan was to begin the journey at Rabaul, and paddle to New Ireland, across the St George’s Channel. We’d island hop across to Duke of York Island and the surrounding islands that dotted the channel. From there, we’d follow the New Ireland coast north, pulling into villages until we got to our destination, the tropical town of Kavieng on the northern end of New Ireland.
When we arrived at Rabaul we were warned not to cross the St George’s Channel as a typhoon to the north, near Japan, was sucking wind through the straight. That, combined with the strange weather patterns from El Nino, which had a pronounced affect on tropical areas, had caused unusually rough weather with a steep chop in the channel. We were told that many boats had disappeared without trace in the last few months, presumably caught in a current and dragged out into the Pacific Ocean. Luckily, the day the kayaks arrived, the 24 hour forecast was for exceptionally light winds. We had to leave the next morning when the conditions were calmest.
We began the trip before the sun had risen and continued paddling all day until we reached the Duke of Yorks. We spent the night in a grass thatched hut, cooking damper and sharing it with the locals. Two boys of similar age to Bea and me were assaigned to escort us for the night. We offered them some damper, but the politely refused, preferring to stick with their fish. Early the next morning the boys cut down some coconuts for us for breakfast.
From Duke of York Island, we headed to the north of the island. As we paddled along a group of people waved to us, signalling for us to come in, which we did. The whole village wanted to shake our hands. The villagers chatted excitedly as they gave us kulau, a baby coconut not yet fully developed with sweet milk inside. It took us ages to finally get away.
As we passed more villages, children would run from their huts and beckon us to visit. But Beau and I had learnt our lesson – we’d wave back and keep paddling. If we stopped at every village we’d never get anywhere.
I was keen to find some sunken World War II tanks off Duke of York Island that I’d read about. But when I saw the large shadows under-water, I wasn’t too keen to take a look, as it was hard to tell if they were tanks or sharks. Luckily, they turned out to be the tanks.
I was terrified of sharks, and the feeling that they could be lurking nearby really played on my mind during the entire trip. A few villages on the coast of new Ireland were famous for the so called ‘shark-callers’, men who intentionally went out to attract sharks in their canoes, then trapped and clubbed them to death.
Our last night on Duke of York Island was at Waterhouse Bay at the northern tip of the island. We were lucky enough to be invited by the richest man in the village to have dinner with him. After dinner half the village appeared to gather outside our tent, chattering excitedly until a guitar appeared and the singing started. It was a beautiful warm night with the stars in full view. More and more lanterns appeared on the water as men took out their canoes to go fishing. We headed off to bed with the knowledge we must be up early in the morning before the seas built up in the St George’s Channel.
A typical day started as the sun came up. The tent got too hot if we stayed in it any longer, so we had no choice but to start early. We nearly always had food left over tat had been given to us. On the odd occasion we didn’t, we cooked a bit of damper or noddles for breakfast. The coastal waters were rougher than we imagined, which got us into the habit of leaving early while it was calm and retiring when the sun was at full strength, at about 2 p.m., and the waves threatened to tip us over. We had no plan of where we would end up each night, merely selecting a friendly looking village as our stopover.
After saying goodbye to our new friends, we’d head for the furthest tip we could see and be on our way for the day. We usually paddled for eight hours daily, all the while filming everything around us. We’d see the most amazing wildlife. An entire school of flying fish would emerge from the water at once and hit the side of our kayaks with a loud thud. Huge manta rays would jump into the air in the distance, doing a double back flip, apparently just for the fun of it or perhaps to get a look at us. Because our paddles hardly made any noise, we could sneak up on unsuspecting turtles as they lay semi-submerged, sunning themselves. But when they saw us, they were off in a flash, moving a hell of a lot quicker than you’d expect a turtle to move.
But the wildlife was not always a pleasant surprise. One day we finally saw what we’d been dreading the entire trip. About ten metres from my kayak lurked the outline of the biggest shark I’d ever seen. It’s torso would have been the size of a 200-litre drum. And it was heading our way. I yelled – as quietly as I could yell – to Beau to be quiet, stop paddling and get the paddles clear of the water. We tried desperately not to attract any attention to ourselves, which was difficult, given that we were the only people crazy enough to be in this wild part of the world with the brightest fluoro blue and yellow craft and equipment you could imagine. As I was pointing out the lurking shadow to Beau it suddenly disappeared. This was worse as I was paranoid it would surface next to us and take a huge bite out of our kayaks. We decided to make a dash for shore, about a mile away, which I’m sure we covered in record time. After a rest and enough time to build up the courage to head out again, we hesitantly continued on our way. But our eyes were on red alert.
Taken from p.29-33 of Lionheart: A Journey of the Human Spirit