Bird Warfare, Rogue Waves and Port Moresby

Our visitor the following night was not a Booby this time but a petrel, which is much smaller and less intimidating than a Booby. Thus, I was able to adopt a new tactic with this one. It insisted on perching on the outboard engine, with its bum pointed inwards into the cockpit. Scaring it away was to no avail. It would circle the boat a few times and then return to exactly the same spot, in exactly the same orientation. But I’d noticed that it is possible, at night, to get very close to these birds indeed without them spooking and flying away. So close, in fact, that I was able to simply reach out, pick the thing up and re-locate it to what I thought was a mutually-acceptable perch. I put it on the port solar panels, which were raised out to the sides at the time and provided, I thought, a nice, firm, flat, large perching platform that would also be very easy to clean. Alas, it all went well until the first large wave rolled us over and the bird slid right off the side and then flew away just before it plopped into the water. When it returned, it did so to it’s engine perch. Take two. This time I chose a spot on the port quarter where the occasional boarding seas would wash away the nastiness. The bird, however, didn’t like that spot, and flew away only to return to……… the engine perch. I gave up and went to bed. Round two – birds.

In other news, we experienced my first proper rogue wave. Those of you with good memories might remember something called ‘wave superimposition theory’ from your schooling days. Basically, if you have, say, two waves, when they meet they will interact with one another to produce a single wave that is a mixture of the two. If a trough meets another trough then the resulting trough will be as deep as the two combined. If a crest meets a crest then the resulting crest will produce a wave that it as high as the two combined. And if a crest meets a trough then they cancel each other out and you get nothing. This can produce, on occasion, some quite uncomfortable, unpredictable, steep, large waves. What is known as a ‘rogue’ wave, however, is a much more rare occurrence. It is a matter of subjective opinion, but basically a rogue wave is a wave that is MUCH bigger and usually from a different direction than would normally be expected in the conditions that one is experiencing. I’ve had a few big waves that stand out in my history at sea, but none quite so roguish as the one that we had the other night. It was fairly calm and Bob was jogging along nicely. No big rolls, no lurching or pitching. You could perhaps have left a mug of something on the chart table and it would have stayed there. Suddenly, there was the sound of rushing water and a huge impact on the port side. Bob was thrown right over about 60 degrees. All the books on the shelf on the port side fell onto Sarah (who was sleeping peacefully in her bunk). A tray of eggs launched itself off the galley countertop and landed half way across the cabin. Afterwards………. nothing. Back to being pretty calm.

On the morning of August 15th we arrived in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, and have been anchored at the Royal Papua Yacht Club since then. It’s a really lovely place with superb facilities and two large supermarkets just a few minutes walk away. The city of Port Moresby is, as I’ve mentioned previously, not a safe place but it still has a lot to offer and is not too unsafe during the daytime, if you go in a group. Four of us (us and two new cruiser friends) went to a dance competition yesterday. Paul got his phone nicked out of his pocket and I’m 100% certain that if I hadn’t been walking around with my backpack on my front and a hand on the zippers at all times it would have been emptied in short order, but we never felt personally threatened and every single person we have (knowingly) met has been wonderfully friendly and nice. Sarah traded a shell head-dress with a local lady, and I had my own cultural experience when I tried betel nut – the local drug of choice (perfectly legal!).

These dancers all came from the island province of Manus, to the north of the main island:

Below is a photo of Sarah with the lady whose headdress she made the mistake of complimenting. It’s not the first time this has happened! In our culture if you express admiration for an item of clothing that another person is wearing it is received as a personal compliment and a congenial sentiment. In Polynesian and Melanesian culture, however, they take it one step further; their natural response is to offer that item as a gift. This lady immediately whipped off her headdress and tied it around Sarah’s head. Sarah responded by making a gift of her earrings. Last time it was her hat. Who knows what it’ll be next time!

You’ll notice that the lady above has a reddish tinge to her mouth? That’s a common feature among Papua New Guineans and it’s caused by the habitual chewing of Betel nut. It’s illegal in some places because it causes cancer of the mouth. It also appears to rot the teeth. People here chew it constantly. I thought I’d give it a go, so I bought a nut for one Kina (about 35 cents) and the lady showed me what to do with it. It tasted horrible, made me very light-headed and slightly ill. I should perhaps have tried half of a nut, or a quarter, rather than shoving the whole thing in! It turns deep red and releases the active ingredient when mixed with an acid. Mine is only orange because I am a wuss and couldn’t handle anything like the potency that the locals barely seem to notice: