Wednesday, December 12, 2001
Monday, October 15, 2001
Monday, October 01, 2001
October 2001 - The Louisiade Archipelago Brooker or Utian island
It was about a 15 mile run to Brooker and placed us back in the main Louisiade lagoon and ready to run back along the Calvados chain. It was a straightforward trip out of the Deboyne lagoon. The passage we chose was well defined and wide. At the Brooker end of the trip I wish I could say the same. The clear water makes the bottom look very close even though it was 6 metres deep and there was coral right across the entrance . We relied heavily on the waypoints we had from the cruising notes we had.
Once inside the lagoon was easy to navigate and we moved around to the second bay and joined Saltaire and also Envy and Beenalong. We enjoyed catching up with them all over drinks on Saltaire. Brooker is the location for clay pots and several canoes came out with pots to trade. These were mainly small flower vases made for yachts. We asked many questions about how they are made and one man Graeme said his wife, Edith, would show us how they make them.
Next day we went ashore with Jo, Jemma and Joman to visit the village and we met a man Joseph who was extremely well spoken and gave us much information about Brooker and the islands traditional trading routes. Edith came out and sat down with a board and small dish and a bag of clay and progressively rolled cylinders of clay and formed the beginnings. We steadily became enthralled as she smoothed the pot with her hands as she rotated it. In less than an hour she had a pot that could well have been spun on a wheel that was 20cm tall and 40cm round. Around the corner we found Justine, a younger lady, making a pot that was at least 60cm wide and 40 cm tall. This we learnt was the traditional size that the pots are made for village use and trading.
We agreed that next day we would return and see the pot fired. We were intrigued as to how they fired them without a kiln. Next day we found another lady, Catherine doing the firing. This was done by building a fire and placing the pot upside-down on the embers and then stacking a particular shaped coconut husk around the edges of the pot. After about 30 minutes of careful tending the pot was finished. We made a generous trade to Edith for the pot as we felt very privileged to be able to see the pot created.We also went to visit Joseph and Elizabeth at a village further east on the island. This was clearly a much poorer little spot. We walked over to the other side of the island to visit their house and get some water from a well to do some washing. One of the boys from this village came out the next day with a large model sailing canoe as a 'gift'. We reciprocated with a small first aid kit that could be used for tropical cuts and sores.
After 5 or 6 days we left Brooker, negotiating the hairy passage successfully and headed towards Bagaman. We chose this as the next stop as we had told Simmy and Miriam we would return for a BBQ on the 1st October. Simmy was not about and had forgotten about it. We found several boats in the bay and more arrived till there was 8. They were mostly waiting to go back to Australia.
In the bay there was Aleena, HoiHoi, Southern Lights, Yum Yum, Envy, Beenalong, Wave Sweeper, Kudos and Crystal Dancer. Quite a crowd. On the first night we had the pleasure of listening to the Knights win the football on the radio (we get North Queensland ABC radio quite well) and also caught a nice lot of Sweetlip while listening.
We then headed to Abaga Gaheia / Gigilia Island
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