Alotau, Papua New Guinea
This morning we are at the Alotau airport waiting for the charter flight from Port Moresby. Just about on time, the plane was sighted!
We made the short ride from the airport to the harbor where the Oceanic Discoverer is waiting. After a bit of talking and lunch it was off to a very special event, the first day of the ‘9th National Kenu & Kundu Festival’… that would be the Canoe and Drum Festival. There are dozens of traditional canoes and sail boats from here and many of the near and far islands of the Kula Trading Circle.
Today there are sail boat races for the boys under 18 years of age, the arrival of important people in gorgeous war canoes, speeches, singing and dancing. There are hundreds of enthusiastic spectators. Quite the sight, quite the experience and completely unplanned. That is just the way it happens sometimes, something you will remember and treasure for a long time. That is how travel is, or at least can be.
We left Alotau just before sunset and as we cruised through the calm waters of Milne Bay we enjoyed complimentary cocktails for Captain Kevin Stone’s Welcome and watched the sky go from bright, to blue, to pink. I can hardly wait for the next sunset, it seems that here they are all different, but all beautiful.
