Left PNG
Well, we made it out of Port Moresby! Let me tell you, there are only two reasons to go there, and neither of them are worth the risk of getting your head smashed in and violently robbed. You can get fuel, and the steak at the yacht club is the best I've ever had. My strong suggestion - Get extra fuel somewhere else and become a vegetarian for a week. It's just not worth it.
We had to wait 24 hours to get checked in, which didn't exactly put me in a great mood. Then, seven customs officers in big black boots and red betel stained teeth came stomping around the boat for hours, pulling apart anything they thought was suspicious. A drawer with tape over it to stop it from sliding open? Suspicious! Anything in a bag? Dumped on the floor and rifled through!
They eventually came to our pretty impressive medical kit, which is all organized in plastic boxes. I could just see what was going to happen. The officer goes, "WHAT'S THIS?" I said, "A medical kit." He just said "Oh," closed the cupboard, and went back to inspecting a taped-shut drawer!
Later, I heard we got off very lightly. Apparently, one boat last month had to anchor outside for four days waiting for customs. The poor guy wasn't as cautious as I was and stayed several hundred meters from the seawall. On the third night, he was robbed of most of his possessions. When we were told we wouldn't be cleared in that afternoon, I moved the boat as close to the seawall as possible. I've also heard that some cruisers have been told they have to pay AU$100 per officer and are escorted to the ATM with the officers standing over them until they hand over the money.
We had to get a taxi for immigration and a few other things, and it had bars over the windows, like all the others we saw. There's a jogging track around the marina that's completely fenced in with razor wire. Even the apartments in the marina complex have fences and razor wire around them! A lot of the local houses are built on concrete pillars to keep "rascals" out. None of this adds up to a very pleasant environment.
We booked the day before to clear out at 8 am, but there was no sign of the officials until well after 12. And when they finally arrived? Betel-stained teeth and those big black boots again.
We finally got underway and dodged a few ships on the way out of the channel. We even managed to sail for a little while with some light headwinds, dodging even more fishing boats. The fishing boats made me a little nervous, as they all had 5 or 6 people in them and 50hp motors. Since the wind was so light, we decided to motor-sail, which turned out to be the right plan as we haven't had over 5 knots of breeze since then.
