Living in an Inside Cabin

Copra Heading to Market

Papua New Guinea provided us with 2 ports this cruise, Alotau and Madang. I had great hopes of diving in Alotau since it is home to Milne Bay, one of the world’s top dive destinations. Hopes were dashed , however, when we found that there was no space with the dive operator. So plan B was to walk about 25 minutes into the town and take a look around.

New Guinea is a developing country with the world’s friendliest people. Almost everyone greeted us with a hello, good morning as we strolled along past the ferry stations, markets and parks. It is hot and very humid and you notice hundreds of people taking respite in the shade of any tree or building.

Like most developing countries, the people do whatever they can to survive. There are 700 languages spoken in New Guinea with English, spoken more in pigeon, being the common communication. Villages are self supporting with families growing what they need. Copra from the coconuts is a major export for the.

While we walked through one of the neighborhoods, I started chatting to a lady carrying an umbrella with a little one year old in her arms. She looked to be about mid forties but I know she was much younger. Life is hard here. On my way back to the ship in Alotau, I left Michael at the bus shuttle stop and kept walking. I picked up a couple of brothers, 12 and 9, named Willy and Sugi (spelling), cute kids that wanted to “talk English”. They left at their village about halfway to the ship when I was picked up by a kindergarten teacher, Mabel, who walked me all the way back to my ship. She was very interesting and caught me up on the disappearing tourists. Fewer ships call here and even land based tourists are not coming as frequently.