Expedition Log

Day 10 Friday 20th January 2006

Dave Gill paid Tropicana direct to their account 25,862 Kina for the food. We were told the Provincial Administrator was not available until Monday. Tom Chapman went to Andersons for final food supplies plus food for boat trip. The boat was confirmed for 4 pm. We arranged to deliver food to dock direct from Tropicana.

Joe Meava came to pick up Elery for a radio interview with Oscar. Dave G and I went to Tropicana, got an invoice for the food and then the bank to get some cash. A busy day was had paying for everything and re-checking things. All the baggage was gathered together and marked and counted. In total we had 67 items plus 2 pallets of food and seven drums of Jet A1 fuel.

The truck we had arranged for transport had broken down so we had to do several trips to the port in a small pickup. On the first trip we were stopped by the police. Tom and one of the local helpers were riding in the back with the gear and the police claimed their legs were hanging out over the tailboard. They thrashed the local helper's legs with a whip and shouted at Tom. When we arrived at the port the police came and made us get out of the pickup. They told the driver to take the pickup to the police station and put DG & TC in a police car. During the confusion I managed to fade into the background and escape their attention. After they had gone I went to the shipping office and told Rebecca what had happened. I asked her to see if she could find out what was happening and, if necessary, to contact the Governor.

After a short while though, the team re-appeared before she had the chance to contact anyone. They had been given a good telling off by the police boss and sent on their way after much grovelling by Dave Gill. I stayed at the port to keep an eye on the equipment while the others returned for another load. It took three more trips in the pickup to fetch the equipment and supplies while the team travelled in Joe Meava's bus.

It took a long time for the ship to be loaded as they were on their way to attempt a salvage operation on another of their ships which had run aground three months ago and was now lying on it's side in shallow water. The last attempt to salvage it failed and it now had some holes in the hull due to the battering it was taking from the sea. They were taking steel plates and welding equipment to make temporary repairs and some very large cables, ropes, pulley blocks, chains and anchors as well as an extremely large rope.

After loading was complete a tarpaulin was rigged up over the hatch cover for us to camp under during the voyage. We took along our own food for the journey consisting of bread, jam, peanut butter and apples. Our camp area was even provided with it's own electric light. We set off at 7pm and all went to sleep early as it was dark by the time we set off.