Saturday 8th March

This morning was to be an unusual day at sea in as much as we were so close to land we could almost touch it. We had barely sat down to breakfast when the distant islands started to get closer, (I know we were getting closer to them, but you know what I mean). We were taking a scenic route round Doini Island and entering the Waibuyounna Channel. It was an amazing sight as we passed between these tropical Islands, some the usual volcanic shape, tips of cones covered in jungle sticking out of the sea whilst others were really quite flat and surrounded by coral lagoons but still covered in undergrowth, their tropical nature underlined by palm trees poking above the surrounding undergrowth. If I say we were as close to shore as we would have been sailing up Lake Windermere you will get some idea of how narrow these straights were. Dozens of what we thought at first were kayaks were dotted around the straight, these turned out to be fishing canoes and the incumbents waved their hands and paddles as we passed. Exiting the straights we turned to pass closely between the islands of Samarai and Sariba and then into the Kawanasausau Straight. By 10:00am we were passing Isulailai Point which is the Eastern tip of the main Island of Papua New Guinea, after which we headed out into slightly more open waters, though we were still surrounded by dozens of islands many of which are wrapped in stoles of white clouds. The temperature was only in the high twenties but with the humidity also very high, it felt just like the whole sky was laying on you. The humidity was creating some interesting effects on the islands as we passed. Some of the smaller pointy head islands looked like volcanoes as the moist air rose up the slopes and turned to white cloud near the top, giving the impression of an eruption taking place. On other larger islands the slight wind carried the moist air diagonally across the face of the slopes, turning to cloud as it passed over ridges in the landscape, giving the impression of multiple forest fires pouring out white smoke.

Talking about weather, last night after dinner, I wandered up to the Garden lounge for a nightcap or two and was fascinated to see the rain. The Garden lounge has a glass roof and glass walls between it and the lido deck where the swimming pool is. We were sailing through a very intense tropical storm and the rain was so heavy that there wasn’t room for all the individual raindrops. In amongst the torrential rain, drops were clumping together in what I can only describe as huge gobbets of water landing with great splats on the roof of the Garden lounge and the deck outside, in the flood lights it looked like lumpy rain. Water was cascading off the upper deck surrounding the pool like a circular waterfall, intensifying first on one side and then the other with the roll of the ship. It was a first for me, I didn’t venture out, for two reasons, one, I was still in black tie (last night being a formal night) and two, I’m sure that being hit on the head by one of those gobbets of water would have been painful, from the sound they made on landing.

Anyway later in the day we passed some larger islands, altering course several times as we wended our way through this congested area, squeezing between Daloloia and Fonoie islands, then passing between the Trobriand and Marshall Bennett Island groups before finally entering the Solomon Sea.

We went to another of Diane Simpson’s talks in the morning. This time on the left and the right side of the brain, I didn’t fall asleep this time as she was quite funny. The day ended almost as wet as yesterday, with most of the nearby islands disappearing into the murk and gloom but it was still hot and humid.

Friday 7th March

Day at sea with a short stop at Yorkeys Knob (no one got ashore as it was for ship clearance on leaving Australia)

We went to an insight lecture on three weeks that changed the world, given by Michael Howard (now Lord Michael Howard). It detailed the events in cabinet during May 1940 when Winston Churchill took over as prime minister and just how near we came to taking the appeasement route with Hitler. The ‘War Cabinet’ were minded to give it a go and contact had been made with Mussolini to facilitate it. Churchill who was fervently against it but looked like being out voted, staged a coup of his own and thwarted the move, but only just. It was a fascinating insight to what actually was five crucial days. The theatre was packed and included a lot of Aussies and Americans so there were some great questions afterwards which he handled extremely well and diplomatically. An interesting fact that came from an American in the Audience was that the USS Winston Churchill is the only American warship named after a foreign leader, the only American Warship that flies a Union Flag (Jack) and the only American warship that carries a Royal Navy officer as part of the permanent ships company. I hope the rest of his talks are as good.

Formal night tonight, we have four new people at the table, Aussies and both guys are ex Aussie Navy (Musicians) one ended up as director of naval music, but they both have a navy sense of humour and are constantly being told off by their wives and the lamp is always swinging.