There And Back Again: A Programmer's Tale by Nathan Miles
Part 1 - The Boat Race
I flew up in the copilot’s seat from Wewak to Vanimo last Friday. The sea looks beautiful from the air---a 1 hour flight up the coast and just like sitting in your front room as far as your rear end can tell. During this flight I learned that it would be a 3.5 hour boat ride going back 1/3 of the distance flown up the coast in order to get to Arop village. This seemed reasonable. A nice relaxing boat ride 3.5 hours one way and 3.5 hours a week later. You, know there are some things in life that it is really good that you don't know in advance---it would ruin the fun of it all.
We needed to make a nice fast trip to Arop to get there before dark. Two reasons for this. The "Otto" is the name of the pass into the bay at Arop. It was named after a German policeman from pre WW1. The Germans owned the place back then. The Otto is "interesting"---there are waves coming in, there are waves coming out, there is the tide coming out or in or not depending on the time of day, there is the wind blowing the water around. What happens when all four worktogether? A scary randomness where an area of water may be flat as Texas one second and have an 8 foot potentially boat flipping wave a few seconds later---not really the kind of thing you would like to try in the dark. In addition, for reasons described below, the 1.5 hour walk from the boat landing has its own set of challenges. Walking this in the dark would be somewhere between stupid and suicidal for a gringo.
Our first leg up in making a fast transit was to have a boat waiting for us as we got off the plan. (Ha ha ha he he he, good one, Nathan!) It was only 100 yards to the beach so this should not have been hard. In addition the head translator guy Emil had prearranged a boat to meet us and even hiked the 1.5 hours from his house down to the beach the previous day to use his cell phone to verify the skipper was on the way. So was the boat there? Nogat (pidgin for "no"). Not clear whether this was "circumstance beyond the control" of said skipper or something more sinister but either way it takes _1 hour gone_ tofigure out that boat was not coming so John headed off the find another while I kept an eye on the baggage---encouraged to vigilance by the fact that all my food for the next 10 days was in that pile. John found a second skipper for _1 more hour gone.
Sadly said skipper had not bought gas yet. It could maybe have been bought on the water front but it would be cheaper .5 hours back each way by car. Fetching gas, _1 hour gone_. It is now 3pm. We can still make it thru the Otto by dark if we start now and make good time. We hop in the boat with our stuff and the skipper pulls the starting rope. Em i strongpela tumas (he is too strong). The rope breaks. No problem, he knows a nearby mechanic. Mechanic is knowledgeable but hampered by fact he does not have a Phillips screw driver or the correct size wrench. In an impressive display of improvisation he replaces pull rope anyway. _1 more hour gone_. It is now 4 pm. We probably should have abandoned attempt to get to Arop on Friday at that point but hope springs eternal in the human breast and we head out. A perfect transit would get us there just before dark. John is partly motivated in this by the fact that a group of friends from the village has already agreed to make the 1.5 hour trek down to the beach to help us carry our stuff from boat to village and there is no way to call them back at this point---it is an amazingly kind act on their part and we do not want to disappoint. (Aside: If you want neighbors or complete strangers to do a major favor for you I recommend asking in PNG rather than Dallas.)
The boat has a cross board installed in the back for us to sit on. Sadly it extends over the edge of boat so that everything splashed up is redirected into faces of passengers. Result---John and I are mostly soaked by the time we make it out Vanimo harbor. By end of first 15 minutes I am dearly wishing my swim goggles from my backpack were accessible since salt water and eyes are (in my humble opinion) a poor combination. Next best thing is to hold your head down and let your Tilly hat brim take the worst of it. Works, sorta.
As to making perfect time sadly there is a cyclone (Pacific talk for Hurricane) stalled off the coast of Australia. Luckily that was a ways away. Unluckily it was causing it to rain torrentially in PNG every day. This caused rivers to flood and run to the sea (which by the way is why were boat riding and not going into Arop by car or plane---the flooding had ruined roads and airstrips). Anyway these flooding rivers meant the each of the several times we went past a river mouth the water running out hitting the waves coming in created 6 foot swells. Not particularly dangerous as long as a good skipper keeps the boat headed into them (which of course assumes the motor keeps running) but it slowed things down considerable especially since John thinks the skipper decided to go slow sparing his two wimpy non-local-boys passengers the worst of the beating by the waves. I think I am glad he did. My rear end was pretty banged up by the slow transit version and I hate to think what the fast transit version would have done.
One other thing which will become important shortly. The flooded rivers carry big fallen trees out to sea. Not too much of a problem in the day time with the crew guy sitting up front warning the skipper how to steer to avoid them.
With one thing and another our poor tired and beaten butts get to the Otto around 6:30PM just after dark. Skipper decides to try it anyway. I don't think he was a local Arop man---they would have known better. John is scared; I am not too scared---that is because I am ignorant---ignorance is a great protection against fear. So we head in; we get part way thru and 8 foot wave out of nowhere turns the boat into a roller coaster. Fortunately wave hits head on, same wavehitting sidewise would have meant, at best, a nice swim in the Pacific and at worst? Skipper sees the light, even though there now is none and we give up and head another hour up the coast to Aitape, fast. Disappointed Arop friends get to hike back 1.5 hours in dark and come back on next day to help us carry. If a cup of cold water given gets a reward in heaven these guys are destined to be rich there.
Well ignorance saved me from being scared in advance at the Otto but sadly even I did not have sufficient ignorance to not be able to imagine what it would mean if our boat which was now proceeding full speed ahead (maybe 25 mph?) thru the darkness with no moon and no lights happened to run head on into one of the floating trees washed down by the flooding rivers. I think this is the most scared I have ever been but by the grace of God we made it to Aitape with boatintact.
With help of kind strangers we unload boat, put stuff it into kind strangers truck, and carry it to local guest house where kind strangers help us unload maybe 200 hundred pounds of stuff. PNG is the land of kind strangers. Guest house gets 1/2 star rating but I am glad to have bed and be alive.
Next morning we WTHOKS (with the help of kind strangers) retransport, reload, the boat is there (only 1/2 hour late, which is good) we make a fast 1 hour transit. This time skipper has hired a local (to the Otto) man to pilot us in. Assistant skipper is amazing and takes us right thru Otto without a pause which is highly unusual and we this time experience barely a ripple due to assistant skippers perfect timing.
So how did we do on our fast transit? Well 3.5 hour trip has become pretty much exactly 24 hours but at least it gives me plenty of room for improvement on return trip. Once again ignorance of the future is a source of bliss.
Part 1A - The Swamp
Well, we get in at high noon to link up with friends, several of whom have made the 1.5 hour hike each way a second day to meet us and help carry our stuff to village. I am a bit put out with John. He had mentioned there was 1.5 hour walk to village we would be making. He did not mention first hour was thru a Mangrove swamp. The swamp had the added feature of having been rained on more or less continuously for the last 10 days. Now I am not sure what it takes to improve a dirt path thru a swamp but I think I can state from personal experience rather authoritatively that 10 days of rain does not do it.
I had chosen my Crocs for this trip. I hate to think what would have happened to my street shoes. Crocs do have one problem. When you place them in mud that comes up over your ankle they tend to stay down when your foot comes up. Next you get to balance on one foot while fishing around in the mud to retrieve the shoe for the other. I never actually fell all the way down but I came close enough a few dozen times to keep the process interesting.
We made it thru the swamp and for a moment my joy was unbounded until I realized there was still a half hour walk ahead. It is now 1pm and a massive tropical sun is beating down reminding me of my Kipling saying "Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon day sun." I am carrying my 15 pound back and comforting myself that at least I remained mostly vertical thru the swamp when I look up ahead. There is a young woman, she weighs 90 pounds max, she is carrying at least 40 pounds of our luggage, she is walking faster than I am, and she has not yet broken a sweat. Humbling to say the least.
We make reasonable time on the dry ground. There is one little problem. The closer we get to John's house in the village the more people we know and the more we need to stop and chat. It is a relief to get to John's house pretty much exactly 24 hours after the airplane has landed.
Will the trip back be better? Stay tuned kids.
Part 2 - Home Again/The Swamp (reprise)
After 7 more raining days have had their opportunity to improve the swamp it is time for me to head home. We need to make an alternate path this time. My heart falls a bit when I hear this path described as a "bad" road (previous path was the "good" road, who knew?). I do have one major advantage this time. I have borrowed John's walking stick. Three legs are much better than two for transiting the mud. You can put your third leg in the worst part of the path and balance along the grass at the edge of path sometimes. Sadly sometimes you just have to suck it up and head straight thru the knee deep water and ankle deep mud. Third legs saves me from an undesirable bath several times.
We have done this leg of the trip at 6am and so missed the worst heat of the day. Altho grueling coming out has not been as hard as going in and I am cautiously hopeful about upcoming boat ride. We have left early in morning in order to avoid winds that happened as sun heats up ocean. We are on the water by 8am and have 10 more hours of sunlight to make a 3.5 hour trip. Weather is good. Motor is working. Life is good. What could go wrong?
Part 2B - The boat transit record reattempted
(best experienced if you hum the Gilligan's Island theme to yourself while reading)
We get to the "Otto" 20 minutes later after creeping across the middle of the lagoon which is oddly enuf in the middle shallowest and most likely to ground a boat and chew up a propeller. We spend the next 15 minutes watching waves come in thru the Otto while the skipper waits for the best moment to make a dash out into the open ocean. The six adults in the boat engage in a lengthy and experienced discussion about the best time to dash for it. The gringo and David (age 6) do not have an opinion, well David might have had one or two. Skipper makes good choice and we get past the Otto with just a small bump or two.
We start out with 2 foot waves on the ocean. This is like driving over a bumpy road. Not too bad really. Within an hour the wind had come up and the waves were at 4 feet. This is mildly painful when the boat smacks down. An hour later and the wind is a bit stronger. 6 foot waves. Judging from skippers reaction on both trips this is about the limit of "safe" for a 18 foot power boat on the ocean. It is pretty painful from time to time. The problem is when the timing gets just right and the front end of the boat is crashing down just as this next wave is rushing up the resulting smack is pretty outrageous for those (like me) sitting in front. Oddly on this trip a life jacket was a real "life saver". Well, not literally but a second life jacket I brought along to sit on and cushion my rear during smack downs on waves did help a bit.
We finally get within sight of Vanimo. This is good. The wind has now however pushed the waves to 8 feet. Not "safe" in this small of a boat and something needs to be done. The skipper heads the boat toward the beach 500 yards away and guns it. Evidently this is the "safe" way to land on an unknown beach. I think the goal was to come in on top of a big wave to maximize the water depth beneath the hull as we come in. It works and we are safe on the beach within sight of our objective. So near yet so far.
At this point I discover an unpleasant truth. The boat cannot be left down by the water. It must be hauled up above the high water mark. Everyone says I should just sit down and watch but of course I am too proud to do this--especially when the two women are helping push. It is 10am-ish and we sit down on the beach. The captain is confident that by late afternoon the high winds will go down and we can get on our way. This pretty much always happens there and in Dallas too. By the middle of the afternoon the wind velocity has changed quite a bit. It has now twice as fast as the morning and we have to leave the beach altogether because sitting down there is like being in a sandstorm. We move just off the beach in the shelter of some trees and everyone naps for the rest of the afternoon. Around 5pm we look up and see really dark rain clouds heading our way. It is time to abandon the beach altogether.
Fortunately we have the PNG Kindness to Strangers thing going for us. The people that live just down the beach 1/4 mile say we are welcome to use an abandoned house in their village for the night. We gather up all zillion pounds of stuff in the boat including the outboard motor and 30 gallons of gas and make the trek to the village. The villagers also bring us a water basin, bananas, squash, and firewood for the night.
Well, I am glad to have a roof over my head as it is raining now. The 1/2 star hotel in Aitape is now remembered fondly because it had things the abandoned house does not have: beds, toilets, screens in the windows, a roof that does not leak, etc. I have never slept on a unfinished wood floor for a night before. Hopefully I won't do it again. A life preserver makes a reasonable pillow. You don't really need a blanket in the tropics. I am sooo glad when morning comes.
We get up at 5am. Everyone else has bananas cooked in the fire for breakfast. I settle for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich left over from my pack from the day before. We gather up all the stuff and head down to the beach getting there right at dawn.
We haul the boat down to the beach. Down is good. Down is easier than up. At this point the gringo discovers a painful truth. It is a lot easier getting onto a beach in a power boat than off a beach. Here is the deal. When a two foot wave comes in when it hits the shallow water it piles up and becomes a 4 foot wave or 6 foot wave if a couple hit at the same time. I think the technical term for this is a "breaker". Now an 18 foot boat is able to handle this OK---as long as it hits it straight head on---hit sidewise the boat ends up either full of water or upside down. With a power boat you have to get it far enuf away from the shore so you can get the motor down without the propeller hitting the bottom and you have to get the motor started and get the boat steered and pointed right into the wave before the first wave hits. Waves come a bit randomly but I suppose on the average every 10 seconds. That is not much time to get 8 people including a gringo who has never done this before into a boat and get the motor down and started.
We stand next to the boat on the beach for an hour. Skipper never sees a time calm enuf to give it a try. After one hour tide is now too high to try. We move boat back up off the beach (oh my aching back) and wait for tide to turn. We wait a couple hours. Skipper consults with local beach gurus as they pass and decides that 100 yards down the beach would be a safer place to give this a try. With help of locals we push boat 100 yards down beach. We wait another hour.
I am really worried at this point. I have never tried this push the boat into the water and jump in when the skipper calls "Kalap!" (pidgin for "jump"). You see once you start the operation you have to carry it thru. Stopping in the middle can be life threatening for all involved. I pray that I will make it into the boat and not cause everyone (including Emil's 6 year old son David) to be killed. Finally we go. Hop into boat not as hard as I feared. We do it when water is still only knee deep. The two crewmen have a harder time they cannot hop in until water is chest deep. The gringo makes one awkward leap and lands smack in the middle of the boat. Not beautiful but effective. Everyone else hops in. We hit the first wave perfectly. Jink hard right and scoot out before the next wave can catch us and are on our way for the 20 minute remaining leg to Vanimo.
We get there. I help haul the boat up (next day my shoulders are sooo mad I did not listen when they told me not to help). I go to the hotel to check in. It has been 30 hours, a night sleeping on the floor of an abandoned house, and several immersions in sea water since I last bathed. I bet the clerk thot I was the most bedraggled gringo they ever saw but they let me in anyway. A shower and I collapsed into bed.
Sadly the trip out did not beat the trip in. I have managed to squeeze a projected total transit time of 7 boat hours into "only" 52 hours.
Well it was certainly a memorable experience.
-- Nathan
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment