Sailing Afrikii

Some sailboats don’t go to PNG because their insurance won’t cover them due to security concerns and the rare kidnapping. It’s rated like Venezuela, Haiti, and Somali. Our insurance did cover us, and we took the wise route up over the outer islands, avoiding the mainland towns. We checked in and out of Kavieng, and dropped into the Hermit Islands en route to Indonesia.

Kavieng is quaint. We stocked up on fresh fruit and veg, and sourced the right engine oil from the super helpful automotive shop. We anchored off of Nusa Island Retreat, a resort that’s been around forever, and we ate there every night–the three course meal was amazing! – highly recommend this place if you want to check out the wonderful PNG.

The Hermits are a collection of remote islands, and when we dropped anchor, we were assured that it was okay to swim near the boat but “over there”–vaguely pointing in a general direction, “there’s crocodiles”. We only stayed a few days because the wind and 2-knot ocean currents were changing from going with-us to going against-us. Regardless, we left with an overstock of fresh food and no croc encounters to add to our travelogue.