We left Dowera for another day of motoring, not quite enough wind to sail to, but almost. We passed the last point of Halmahera Island and headed for Iryan Jaya, now known as West Papua, or the islands in between. Charley made fish cakes from Barracuda and we sailed overnight to log some mileage. One of the men from Dowara gave us a couple of young coconuts, during the day I emptied the juice into a bottle and chilled it in the fridge. Charley spotted an island on the chart that might be a pleasant anchorage, not too far off our route, so we altered slightly and made for Pulua Miso, we arrived at five am just as the sun brightened the sky, it was my birthday. We anchored in a gently sloping area, which made a pleasant change. The water was crystal clear and for once there was no sign of human life. This island was only a mile long and I presume a lack of drinking water kept inhabitants away. We lowered the rib and went ashore; the main vegetation was bamboo, with a few hardwood trees. There were no edible fruit trees to be seen, we would have been delighted to find just coconuts but there were none. We returned to the yacht and donned snorkelling gear, the underwater scenery seemed to be quite new, Charley spotted a large lobster but by the time I returned, yet again to the yacht, to collect a tool for pulling it out of its crevice, it had withdrawn, never to be seen again. We were keen to catch our supper and maybe Barbeque it on the beach. Our next ploy was to troll a lure behind the rib and speed around the island hoping for a catch, this also failed but we noticed a couple of small caves during the exercise. That evening we enjoyed my birthday with cocktails of coconut milk mixed with Bacardi over ice.
The next day we snorkeled again, there were no other humans on the island so there was no need for swimwear. Nothing edible came into view so we discussed fishing, with Barracuda as bait, in one of the caves. We returned to the yacht and collected our tackle, but not our clothes, the caves were about half a mile away but the rib soon covered that distance. We anchored and found that the first cave was dry inside and the second had only small fish so no barbeque for us. We had a good look at the surrounding area and then began to make our way back to Loggerhead. The yacht was not visible from where we had anchored the rib but around the first point it came into view, so did an Indonesian fishing boat, slowly approaching our yacht. We made full speed to be there before them and just succeeded. I leapt on board and dashed below to grab some clothes for Charley. This fishing boat then anchored quite near us, there were five men on board, once anchored they just stared at us. We had intended to leave anyway but our company put a little urgency into our actions.
The anchor chain had wrapped around a coral head making it too heavy to lift. I grabbed a mask and swam down to free it. We then motored away. Soon the wind picked up and we began a decent sail east. Our destination was Sorong, a port, so unlikely to be beautiful but we should be able to buy diesel there. We were almost free to sail towards the channel between two islands to the west of Sorong, but not quite, we put in one five mile tack just after dark. This for us came at six o'clock. Our longitude was 130 but we had not advanced our clock since Malaysia. The channel was called Selat Sagawin, we had read that there was a strong tide but we had no way of discovering the state. As we approached the plotter described three knots against. We were only sailing at four knots so this made for slow progress. I hoped that the tides in the area were diurnal. Slowly we advanced; when the tide did turn the most we saw in our favour was one knot. The channel had steep sides and the wind there was light, as we left it the wind increased to twenty knots for the last ten miles to Sorong. The Navionics chart was way off again, we did one 360 thinking we were approaching rocks but in fact our judgement was better than the plotter.
Sorong was quite long in terms of frontage but none of it had any shelter from the southerly wind, we motored up and down looking for somewhere to anchor, I would not have built a port at Sorong. The least depth we found was 18 metres, not much good to us without a windlass. We chose a spot in the lee of a nearby island, poor for access to Sorong but sheltered and only 10 metres deep. The rib was lowered and I quickly motored up to a nearby moored fishing boat, the two people I saw on deck turned out to be children but they understood my newly learned Indonesian request for diesel and pointed me at a nearby shed on stilts over the water. The building sold diesel, petrol and two-stroke oil and was within one hundred metres of where we had anchored. I had my two 25 litre containers filled and returned to the yacht. Charley was surprised to see me back so soon. I siphoned the fuel into the tank and returned to the shed. After three trips we had a full tank and 70 litres in containers as a reserve.
The people were aboriginal in appearance, not Indonesian and were friendly and polite; there was no begging or harassment. I walked to the few shops on the island; there were basic provisions but not what we wanted, so after a good sleep, next morning I took Charley in the rib to the mainland, with the hope that she could find anything on our shopping list.
We were just south of the equator but the temperature was three or four degrees less than further west, this made it very comfortable, especially at night. Our red ensign was very faded by this time so we broke out a new one, and flew it from a halyard half way up the backstay. It looked very smart.
Charley returned from the mainland with a new friend. She had met an English speaking local who had helped her with the shopping. Almost all my must have provisions were purchased. We had beer and butter, milk and tonic water, enough to keep us happy for another two weeks of cruising. I did not expect to find much in Papua. The friends name was Jos, we showed him the yacht and then I took him back in the rib. Two young boys were aboard when Charley returned neither spoke much English but both seemed impressed with the yacht. One of them arrived on a piece of polystyrene, paddling with another piece of the same. I tried to gesture to him that it might be dangerous but he didn't seem to care.
A passing canoe caught my eye, they had coconuts and other fruit, I shouted coconut and they stopped, their canoe was large and un-manoeuvrable so I jumped into the rib and caught them up. I selected two coconuts, two large grapefruit and a whole stalk of bananas. I asked how much, one chap said a hundred, meaning a hundred thousand, I said twenty, he replied in sign language, times five. I opened Charley's purse and pulled out a twenty thousand note, there was only one, there were a few one and two thousand notes as well, I offered them all to the man, he took them and shook my hand. It's sixteen thousand to the pound.
Next morning we left just after dawn, I took a grib file download as we drank our first cup of tea. It described five to ten knots of wind all day. The plotter was not much help in navigating the way north and then east. As we left the harbour the wind rose steadily and peaked at 27 knots. We shortened sail and made seven knots. The wind was off shore so there were no waves to slow us down. It was text book sailing
As usual I trolled a lure, only one this time as we got into a tangle with two a few days earlier. It wasn't long before we had a bite, the conditions were a bit testing, we tacked and tried to stop. I reeled in, fairly soon I saw a decent tuna come to the stern, a yellowfin, Charley passed me the gaff and I collected the fish and began to raise it enough to bring it inboard, it began to shake violently and splash blood everywhere sow I lowered it again to wait for it to stop. At that point a gust of wind caused the boat to heel and I slipped, I dropped the gaff and it sank immediately, we still had the tuna on the hook so I attempted to bring it in. It began shaking again and the hook came away. The Tuna swam away. That was the fifth bite in a row we had not landed, I think some of the others were sharks, so no loss there but the fridge is empty.
I soon fashioned a new gaff from a splicing tool and a deck brush. The wind soon eased and within two hours we were motoring, as soon as the wind picked up to seven knots we sailed again. The rest of the day saw light winds; we drifted at one to three knots, not enough progress but an enjoyable day. We were following the coast so there was always an interesting sight to starboard.