Inside Milne Bay PNG — November 2016

Alotau—capital of the Milne Bay Province

      We had slow cruised here from Cairns via the Louisiade archipelago and were excited about the prospect of diving and exploring Milne Bay. But first, we needed to finish customs formalities, refuel, a little shopping and then go hunting for essentials — like a restaurant and Wi-Fi. Alotau was a busy, bustling town of shops, markets, and 16,000 phone toting locals. Large trading and fishing boats lined the harbour, and a cruise liner called in regularly. It was possible to anchor here, but being on a lee shore combined with an unknown level of security made us a little wary, so we opted to depart late afternoon and cross the bay six nautical Miles to the protected waters of Discovery Bay.

2018 Alotau information update for cruising yachts:

Meals and Internet: An excellent place for lunch and internet is the “Internation Hotel” which is near the marked anchorage location. Its Island bar is a right place to tie a dinghy, and their security chap will keep an eye on it for you. The internet is about A$4.00 per hour.

Fuel: The wharf in Alotau ( Toulie Huh Bay) has the best deal for fuel. We paid about A$1.25 litre for diesel. If their bowsers are not working they hand pump out of 200lt drums, which can have sediment at the bottom– so a fine filter is handy. They test for water, so that’s not a problem.

Security alert: A rascal gang robbed a supermarket and attacked a security van in December 2017. Two guards were shot and a girl killed. Nobody saw the police till after the rascals had left town!

For clearing in the necessary contacts are:

Customs: Matthieu M 72989182. He would be the first point of call when arriving and has an office over by the international pier. If you intend to leave via the Louisiade archipelago, he will also clear you out for the forward date of departure as there is no customs clearance for the Louisiade Archipelago.

Quarantine: Rosy M 72753757.. or Edward ….cost is A$25.oo(56k) and 5k a KG for rubbish disposal.

Health: Judith M 7014635, she signs off on the crew’s health and gives the OK to drop the yellow flag…usually there is no charge, but there may be some additional costs to travel to your boat if it’s not on a pier.

 Tied to the Old Alotau Wharf ready to fuel up.

We beat a hasty retreat from the fuel wharf when the close by PNG Banana boat factory burnt to the ground.

                                       The port at Alotau is crowded.

      Wagawaga— a sleepy village of 800

Unfortunately, both of us arrived at our new paradise suffering from severe skin infections, perhaps caused by coral cuts, so we decided this was a good place to relax until our antibiotics kicked in. Here, we were back in our Louisiades comfort zone: friendly people, beautiful wispy mountains, five churches, and fishermen in canoes dropping by our stern for a chat and a little trading.

Soon we made friends and were thrilled to be honoured guests at a two-day festival celebrating the 65th anniversary of the local school. Much traditional dancing, singing, all sorts of ceremonies, speeches and feasting on tender Hog with delicious fresh food.

Several Banana boats (16ft power boats) provided a taxi service to and from Alotau for just a couple of dollars, so we never had to leave our anchorage to explore.

Chief Dago in ceremonial habit.

On the down-side fishermen had warned us about several light-fingered local juveniles, we took their advice and left almost nothing laying on our deck. But after a week they snuck out to our boat in the early morning and stole our ships remote controls, shoes and even worse Sylvie’s favourite bikini! News of the theft quickly spread throughout the village, and our friends were full of apologies, their concern and embarrassment were quite heart rendering. Two days later councillor (chief) Dago returned all the goods to us. The young men had been named, blamed and shamed. He suggested that we inform any boats contemplating anchoring in Discovery Bay to contact him when they arrive so he can make sure of their security. He runs one of the Wagawaga Taxi boats and is easy to find. Another helpful contact we enjoyed meeting was Bernard the school headmaster who hails from the Trobriand Islands, you will find him around the school.

There are police at Alotau, but minor problems are best dealt with by Village elders.
Another downside of coastal PNG in November- December was the steamy heat. Mornings were are a mill pond, early afternoon a light breeze, then back to still nights with tropical rain. Even some the locals have trouble sleeping.

                                 Morning in Discovery Bay Wagawaga. No problem was doing the washing.

                               Evening in Discovery Bay Wagawaga

S.V.Westward was the only vessel we came across in our six weeks around Milne Bay. Captain Jason and crew Cory were delivering from the Phillipenes to NZ. Good luck boys 🙂

Wagawaga shipwreck

The rusty bow of our mystery shipwreck. Just a hundred meters from our boat.

       There is nothing like a mysterious shipwreck to bring out the Huckleberry Fin in us. After eight days waiting for our football shaped feet to normalise we were ready to find out what that large rusty hunk of metal protruding from the water was. Some said it was a Japanese cargo ship sunk by Australian bombers (romantic version) Others said it was an Australian cargo ship scuttled at the end of the war (more likely version). We still don’t know, but by all accounts, it sank around WW2 and was called something like the Mascoota. We had a couple of easy dives with no current. The bow lay in 10m, the stern in 24m, and it was about 50-60m long. Despite the modest visibility, we enjoyed finding plenty of macro life amongst the corals.

                     Macro life on Board the Wagawaga shipwreck.

2018 information update

Returning to Wagawaga in 2017 was special. Headman councillor Dargo came out to welcome us as soon as we dropped anchor. He was now staying in the young man’s huts to teach them the traditional customs and give them pride in their culture. We thrilled to their war boat festival, held every October, hiked up to the Treetop lodge with several boys, and had several dives looking for a wrecked cargo plane near the Aleford Islets. The plane is still there in hiding…but we tried. Wagawaga was an excellent place.

                                   Wagawaga war canoe festival

Kana Kopi–SE entrance to Milne Bay

We left Wagawaga and glided across a perfectly flat blue sea accompanied by 20 leaping dolphins; majestic mountains peered at us from the shoreline, it felt surreal. It was surreal!

Sixteen nautical miles on we parked inside the well-protected bay of Kana Kopi. Levi Gorto ( ph +675 71680084) owns the island of Saraoni which lies at the entrance; he spoke perfect English. He sells Zoom (two stroke fuel) to passing banana boats and offers a range of services at modest prices to yachts that may pass his way: guided walks, diving and fishing trips, and a security service for those who may want to leave their vessels here and take his water taxi service to Alotau. A most likeable entrepreneur.

At the end of the bay were the remnants of a small WW2 US base and a couple of small boat wrecks. We snorkelled the clear water around mangrove roots, over seagrass and looked for critters among black pebbles.

A pleasant stopover. Next day, we departed Milne Bay proper and headed north to the world-famous dive resort of Tawali. More on the spectacular diving experiences we had there next post.

2018 Kana Kopi information update

                    In December 2017 we took a few days and explored this place properly. We enjoyed looking at it from a different perspective. To see our story “Photographing Kana Kopi” click here.

To see a five-minute video of our time at Wagawaga click here

To see more pictures of around Milne Bay click here

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       When our outboard fails– Syl’s worth at least five horsepower.

Lest we forget.

Between 25 August — 7 September 1942 well over 1000 Australian and  Japanese soldiers were killed in the Battle of Milne Bay. It was a turning point in the Battle of the Pacific WW2.

For the full story of the Battle of Milne Bay click here

Australian soldier John French posthumously awarded the Victorian Cross for bravery.

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