En Route to Rabaul, Papua New Guinea

 During our voyage along the west, south and east coasts of Australia, we sailed through the Indian Ocean, the Tasman Sea, the Pacific Ocean, the Coral Sea, and would soon be entering the Solomon Sea. We’ve covered a lot of water. We probably passed through other bodies of water, but I’ve started losing track of them since there have been so many. We also crossed the line marking the Tropic of Capricorn (going north this time) and would soon be crossing the equator.

I was particularly interested in sailing through the Coral Sea, the location of major naval battles during WWII. My uncle was on the U.S.S. Lexington, a ship sunk by the Japanese during the Battle of the Coral Sea. Fortunately, he was rescued and lived to the age of 96.

Leaving Yorkie’s Knob and the coast of Australia, we passed through the Trinity Passage of the Great Barrier Reef and headed northeast toward Papua New Guinea. On that route, we sailed through the Straits of China, which is a narrow passage between the mainland and a long series of islands covered with tall palm trees and lush vegetation.

Throughout the day, we sailed close to some of the islands and had a wonderful view of them from our cabin. Up until the 1960s some of them were known to be the home of cannibals and headhunters. Headhunters were different from cannibals in that they only displayed the heads of their enemies on a post—they didn’t eat them. That probably wasn’t any comfort to their victims. One of the islands has a cave filled with skulls.

Another of the islands, Doini, is now the location of an exclusive resort. How times change. Now they only scalp you with the cost of staying there.

The islands looked totally uninhabited, but we saw a lone man floating on a hollowed-out tree trunk with a single outrigger. The captain, addressing passengers over the PA system, pointed out the man who was waving at us. We waved back as the ship sailed by him. For all we knew he could have been waving for help thinking that a ship had finally arrived to rescue him from one of the islands. Poor man. We’ll never know.

A pilot came onboard to guide the Queen Elizabeth through the Straits of China and around the numerous islands that border the straits. The straits come under Australian jurisdiction, and the Australians require that all ships passing through this area must have a pilot onboard. The pilot gave a presentation in the theater describing the difficulty of transiting the straits and the condition of some of the ships he has worked on. He said one ship was so decrepit and poorly equipped that it didn’t even have navigational charts.

Islands in the Straits

He also told us stories about the area and showed us maps and photos. He pointed out Iwa Island, home to over 700 islanders. Apparently a film short had been made in the 1950s about a former Scottish colonel who lived on the island inhabited only by women He supposedly had 80 wives and over 50 children. The pilot said that the story had been absolutely faked. He showed us a bit of the film—it had a touch of Hollywood to it.

Gazing at the Passing Islands

In many of the islands, the islanders only have what is on the island for subsistence. Their major form of currency is the yam. They grow them, wrap them carefully, and store them in raised huts to keep pigs from getting to them. They also store coconuts in trees to protect them from the pigs. I wouldn’t want to come in contact with a pig whose jaw is strong enough to break into a coconut and its outer shell.

Boobies, a type of bird, have been flying alongside the ship. According to the pilot, the name came from the Spanish term boo-boos, meaning stupid. The birds were supposedly stupid and easy to catch. Historians credit the easy catch of these birds as being what helped keep Captain Bligh and his crew alive after they were set adrift in a small boat by the crew of HMS Bounty.

When we weren’t gazing at the islands we were passing, we attended some of the lectures held during the day. We’ve had some outstanding speakers, which I’ll talk more about later. One in particular was a series about the sun, planets, and stars presented by Valerie Calderbank. She very much reminds me of Gloria Barnett, the woman who gave the lectures about the seas. She is very knowledgeable about her subject, an experienced teacher, and has a good sense of humor. They even have the same build.

If Gloria Barnett’s sessions were like Oceanography 101, finishing Valerie Calderbank’s sessions could make you eligible for a degree in astronomy. She really knows her subject and goes into great detail, frequently going over the heads of the audience. She lost most of us when she discussed the Hertzprung-Russell Diagram to measure distances and brightness, but we’ve learned a lot. If nothing else, I learned why on a double rainbow the second rainbow is less intense and the colors are reversed from the other rainbow.

In one session she addressed how astronomers determine the distance to the sun, planets, and stars; how hot they are; how bright, and what elements they are composed of. The sun is composed of 67 elements. She even covered how they determine how old they are. Apparently, based on Hubble’s Law, the universe is 13.84 billion years old.

Her lectures came at a good time since we’ve finally had some calm nights with skies that were clear enough for us to see the stars. One night they turned off the lights on the back deck so we could do some stargazing. Gloria used a laser to point out various objects in the night sky, including Venus, Sirius, Alpha Centauri, Betelgeuse, the Southern Cross, the Big Dipper, and many others. We also had a good view of the Milky Way. She pointed out that near the equator is the only place the Big Dipper and the Southern Cross can be viewed at the same time, so we felt quite lucky to be able to view them. Her last session will be on the Big Bang Theory.

She also did a session on eclipses, which is good timing since there is going to be a total eclipse of the sun on March 9. She said that people are coming from over the world to view it in Indonesia, the place that a total eclipse can be viewed. As we will be near the Philippines on March 9, we will only get a partial eclipse.

The stars that form the Southern Cross appear on both the Australian and New Zealand flags, along with the Union Jack. On the New Zealand flag, the stars are outlined in red. We were told that the people of New Zealand are considering a new flag that is unique to them. Several designs have been proposed, but so far they haven’t made a decision.

During our transit, we sailed over the New Britain Trench, which is an unbelievable five miles deep. The ocean bottom of the trench is covered with shifting Teutonic plates, which create tremendous pressure in the area and contribute to volcanic eruptions on the nearby islands. Our course was taking us directly to one of those volcanoes.

While sitting on our balcony writing this, I looked up to see a dolphin jump out of the water just below our balcony. He wanted to make his presence known.