Singapore, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea

Thursday, December 15, 2022 Still at sea; The trip is over   We’ve run into a problem: The charter plane which was to take us from Honiara, on the island of Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands to Brisbane, Australia on Saturday afternoon has broken down, and will not be repaired in time for our trip.  NG/Lindblad has only been able to find a replacement to leave at 3:45 AM on Saturday morning.  As a result, we must sail directly to Honiara without any of the stops along the way for snorkeling, to visit Samarai Island, Papua New Guinea, and to tour Guadalcanal, the site of important WW II battles.  Our trip effectively ended after our second day of visiting the Asmat on Sunday, and we will spend five full days aboard the ship.  They have created a lecture and demonstration schedule to try to keep us occupied, but there is a large number of distressed and upset people aboard, including us.   Our schedule, then is to dock in Honiara late Friday, depart Honiara at 3:45 AM Saturday for Brisb

Monday, December 12, 2012 The Arafura Sea   We have left the Asmat coast of New Guinea and are heading east.  We will actually enter Australian waters as we pass through the Torres Strait on the way to the country of Papua New Guinea.  Many thousands of years ago there was a land bridge here between New Guinea and Australia, and the strait is extremely shallow with many islands and reefs.  We will pick up an Australian pilot to guide us through the strait.  Activities today included a lecture on the cassowary and similar birds, both extant and extinct; a public review and critique of submitted photographs by the three National Geographic photographers on the trip with us; and a lecture with phenomenal photos about underseas photography. A word about New Guinea.  The topography is remarkable, with a spine of east-west mountains stretching more than 1000 miles across the island.  The highest peak is 16,023 feet.  The tree line is around 13,100 feet, and the tallest mountains contai

Sunday, December 11, 2022 Uwus Village Today we had a visit to another Asmat village, one even more remote than the one we saw yesterday, and even more affected by mud. We started out in the Zodiacs going east along the New Guinea coast, going past the river which we had used to get to the Per village, and ultimately turning up another river.  We then continued upriver for about five miles, and then slowed.  Suddenly, from a tributary off to the side, came war canoes as if in an ambush: The men of Uwus Village really surprised us.   They herded us upriver: Where we were met by another force of Uwus canoes:  Had it been real, we would have been in a pincer between upriver and downriver forces.  It had been raining lightly, but now a steady heavy rain began as we went ashore to land which only an hour before had been underwater with high tide.  Everything here depends on the tides, and the tide was going out.  We were welcomed with drumming: The women stood out in the pouring rain moving

 Saturday, December 10, 2022 Asmat Yesterday was completely at sea, headed towards the Asmat area.  We had three lectures, one on flying fish, one on photography looking at photos taken by the travelers (we were each invited to submit two), and one on how to tell a story with photography.  All extremely well done.  We had an ice cream social in the afternoon preceding the cocktail hour preceding dinner. Today was unforgettable.  Classic National Geographic, as we visited one village of the Asmat people.  The Asmat are an ethnic group of New Guinea who live in a region on the island’s southwestern coast bordering the Arafura Sea:  The coast is challenging, consisting of mangrove and enormous tidal swamps.  The mud flats extend out so far from the coast and are so gradual, that the distance from the high tide line to the low tide line is two kilometers!  Of mud!  There is no place near the shore for ships to go, and we anchored more than a mile off of the coast by the tiny town of Agats.

 Thursday, December 8, 2022 Kokas, Indonesia We have now reached New Guinea, the second largest island in the world (Greenland is almost three times bigger).  Politically, the western half is part of Indonesia, and the eastern half makes up most of the country of Papua New Guinea.  We went ashore at the small village of Kokas  And had a noisy welcome: We were told that this village had not had any Western visitors in over a year, so our arrival was a major event and school was let out as we arrived:  We paraded up into the village and were seated in the shade:  The equivalent of the town mayor gave a long speech in a language which none of us spoke:  The children were polite and tolerant of the speechifying:  We then had a dance performance: And the gabagaba stick dance, which some of us tried with no success: Ultimately many of us joined in the festivities amid much hilarity: We were introduced to a fruit called durian, which ripens at this time of year, and is a delicacy for some.