Rabaul, Papua New Guinea
We had planned to skip Rabaul due to some bad reports regarding theft and armed robberies, but we thought it might be too interesting to miss. The entrance to the harbor is beautiful as you pass a string of volcanoes. There are 4 active volcanoes here with one having blown up in the mid 90's and devastating the town, covering it with ash. Most of the residents moved down to Kokopo but are now starting to rebuild villages up on the hills above the original Rabaul.
Here an orchid pokes out of the ash.
The area around Rabaul has many WWII sights including Admiral Yamamoto's bunker which had a map on the ceiling of the planned world domination by the Japanese. We found old barge tunnels where the Japanese pulled their barges out of the water on rails and hid them from their enemy as well as a hospital which was carved out of the limestone hills.
String bags are very popular in PNG with different styles coming from different regions. Notice the nice red smile ..... betel nut!
Lest you think its all fun and play: here Jim repairs the cover on our jib and we hunted around for freon for our refrigerator.
Cruiser notes: Anchored off the yacht club "dock". We were able to get water there. If you don't get too much they don't charge you anything. The club has a small bar and serves food on weekends. They also let us use the showers and tie our dinghy up at the dock. There were no charges for this but we bought some sodas in their bar. We got laundry done at the hotel next door. The customs officer could be a jerk sometimes. He sent one cruiser to Kokopo to check out which was completely unnecessary. We got fuel at the dock with the big yellow pipes. They were very hospitable and let us fill our water tanks as well. You can get fuel delivered to the yacht club dock in 200 litre drums, too. One American yachtie, Billy (can't remember his boat's name) screwed them by giving them a bad credit card and stealing two blue drums. Anchor position: 04 12.5S; 152 10.6E.
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