Yacht Delivery Blog

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....

Well, yesterday didn't quite go as planned! We lost the wind early in the morning and ended up fighting a bit of tide, which meant we arrived a little later than expected. We dropped anchor around 3:30 PM and were told the boarding officers had been notified. At about this point, I started glancing at my watch and wondering what the chances were of actually getting cleared in late on a Sunday afternoon. Turns out, the chances were zero. Around 17.00 they told us they'd come first thing in the morning (i.e., in a few hours). So, we had a choice to make: leave and go back out to sea for the night, then return in the morning (far safer, but a bit of a hassle), or stay put. The yacht club assured us it was safe to anchor outside the marina and that they have security monitoring the seawall. Which, of course, made me wonder why they have security if it's so safe, and what exactly a security guard on the seawall is going to do if something happens!  Anyway, since we were alread...

You know how there's always one person in every organization who really makes things happen? Well, at the Royal Papua Yacht Club, that person is Josephine! We were having a bit of trouble getting clearance to enter the country – our messages and calls to the authorities were going unanswered. Thankfully, we have Starlink! We called Josephine with Skype, and she managed to get in touch with someone and arrange for them to be standing by for our arrival today. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly, but I have a good feeling about it thanks to Josephine! Yesterday's sailing was great. The breeze was pretty steady, and we seemed to be making good time. I'm not entirely sure how accurate our tracker is (it's sitting inside the boat), but we seemed to be averaging around 8 knots. One thing that's surprised me is how little activity we've seen along the coast. Port Moresby has a population of almost half a million, but approaching the city, there's barely a light to...