Yacht Watermelon's 1994 Christmas letter to all their cruising friends.

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December 1, 1994
My, how time goes by when you're having fun. This is our ninth Christmas letter since we've been cruising, and we're still disgustingly pleased with ourselves and our boat. We hope 1994 was as good a year for you as it was for us.

We spent a total of nine months in Australia, six of them working on Yacht Watermelon. She has had a complete facelift, with a 3-foot addition to her stern, new paint job, new head ("not one bit of wood in there, guys, not one splinter" was Peter's rallying cry), some nasty fiberglass damage repaired, and a new engine. By the time we left Mooloolaba in June of this year we were much poorer, but very proud of the 'Melon's new look. We were then in a losing race to get far enough north to escape Australia's winter cold. Not until August in Townsville and Cairns was the weather warm enough for us to stop sleeping under two blankets and the two rugs intended for our cabin sole (this is a tropical boat with tropical denizens - we don't have enough cold-weather clothes or linens to tolerate temperatures lower than 60° F).

We had decided to postpone sailing for Indonesia for the near future, so, after waiting for a month for the weather in Australia to calm down enough to have a reasonable sail, we headed for Papua New Guinea.

The United States issues travel warnings for people headed for Papua New Guinea because of their much-publicized "rascal" crime problem (which is a problem in the more populated cities on the mainland), holding down the tourist traffic to this most fascinating country. The former Prime Minister, Paius Wingti, understandably irked by the constant bad press given his country by the United States, had his revenge after the murder of the German tourist in Florida two (?) years ago. He issued a travel advisory to alert Papua New Guineans about the danger of traveling to the United States; yes, we agree, turnabout is fair play.

We had a perfect sail to Papua New Guinea, and were finally in warm, clear water again. We spent our time in the Louisiade Group, which is the most remote of the island groups to the nominal civilization of mainland PNG, and we had been told that some of the nicest people in PNG live there. We found that because of the lack of tourists, and the small populations on the islands in the group, this is an unspoiled, almost pristine, area of the South Pacific. Because the people on the small islands still follow a subsistence agricultural way of life, theirs is a rather spartan existence. Yet the cultural emphasis on communal family and village life has shaped them into a most generous and happy people. They welcome visiting yachts because of the goods they have on board to trade, but also, more importantly, because the visitors provide some change in their daily routines. They are endlessly fascinated by us ("dim-dims" we are called. "Dim-dim" does not mean that they think we aren't too bright, but rather is their local word for "white skin"), and whenever we anchored near a village we had a constant stream of visitors.

It's easy to think of these islanders as "primitive" when in reality they are simply unsophisticated. The following story about elections held after PNG gaining its independence, quoted from "Papua New Guinea, A Travel Survival Kit" illustrates that the idea of commerce is pretty universal:

"The people of New Hanover [PNG] are best known for their brave attempt to buy the US President, Lyndon Johnson. When the first House of Assembly elections in PNG were held, the New Hanover voters decided, quite reasonably, that if this was democracy and they could vote for whoever they liked they might as well vote for Lyndon Johnson.

"New Hanover went 'all the way with LBJ', but when the American President showed no sign of taking up the island's cause the islanders decided to take more direct action. They refused to pay their taxes and instead put the money into a fund to 'buy' him. They raised quite a large sum but even this example of Texas-style capitalism failed to bring the man to New Hanover.

"Eventually the Johnson cult died out and the events were all but forgotten. Until someone on the island started selling Johnson outboard motors. Well, you can imagine..."

Because we foreigners were not simply welcomed for our possessions, but for ourselves, this has been the most enjoyable of our visits to the South Pacific since the Gambier and Austral groups of islands in French Polynesia, and probably for the same reason -- that is, we are guests, not welfare.

After we had been in one anchorage for two days or so, an older fellow came by to trade with us (these are not beggars - they don't always have the best idea of values of things, but they do not just ask for things - they always carried something in their canoes to trade - food, shells, local crafts). He told Peter that we were "nice people", not like some of the yachts that came to their bay. When we asked what he meant by "not nice" people, he explained that a lot of yachties would stand on deck and yell at the children to go away from their boat and leave them alone. This is pretty insensitive once one understands that in the traditional culture of the Papuans - land (and the sea bottom that can be reached by a diver) is traditionally owned, and when a yacht anchors in a lovely cove near a village, they are parking themselves in somebody's back yard. It wouldn't be tolerated in the States or Australia, no matter how friendly the campers were, yet here we yachties are, doing to another culture what we wouldn't stand for ourselves. And yet yachties who show a modicum of courtesy are welcomed as guests here, and the rude ones are tolerated.

Our last stop in Papua New Guinea was in one of the chains most remote from the mainland and government authority and assistance - the Calvados Group. We were very lucky to have met, on our first day in the anchorage, an Australian couple who had been coming to this chain for the past several years and who truly loved the area and the people, and who exceed in generosity just about any other yachties we have met. Between them, and the movers and shakers of the Bagaman Island Youth Group who visited us in their canoe that first day, and stayed for hours joking with us and sharing information and ideas, we were to become immersed in the activities and culture of the villages on this island. When we mentioned that we wanted crayfish (same as the Caribbean spiny lobster) they came by the next morning, quite pleased with themselves, and plunked eight crayfish in our cockpit. I cooked, and picked the meat (not easy - one gets lots of puncture wounds from the shell - that's why they're called "spiny lobsters"), and alternated between curses for the work involved and cries of greedy joy, while Peter paid for them - a couple of T-shirts, a pair of shorts, and various other items culled from our "too good to throw away but not worth carrying on the boat anymore" pile (we knew that we would be trading for stuff, so had carefully hoarded a lot of stuff). That started the stream of visitors, again invited aboard, with me happily passing out balloons to the children.

The last week of our visit the island was having a grand celebration to inaugurate the opening of their new Community Center, with visitors from other islands, and officials from the mainland. There were three yachts in the anchorage, two Australian yachts and WATERMELON, and all of us were invited to the festivities. They had prepared a schedule of the festivities, and on the list was "presentation of gifts", so I frantically worked to prepare a suitable gift for them. Hah! For all the guidebooks we have, nobody explained what we were in for.

The day started at seven in the morning with traditional dancing and food for everyone. I had made a few papaya cakes to be included in the spread, which were not needed but extremely well-received. The foreign yachties were included in the special treatment afforded the government officials that arrived for the festivities. Then more dancing, and a sing-sing. A "sing-sing" is pretty neat - everyone who knows the words and can sing at all gets together and sings - most of it is a capella, though two fellows had guitars and played along for a lot of it. The songs are, for the most part, church hymns in their local language and set to local tunes. Pretty music.

Then there was the presentation of gifts. I got it wrong. The villagers presented gifts to their visitors, including every single foreign yachty. Lovely woven Pandanus bags. Nice people.

The partying, dancing and singing went on until sunrise the next day. And then they told us to come back that evening for more food and more sing-sing and dancing because they were going to do it all over again as a special farewell party for their minister who had been assigned to another island out of the Calvados Group. They really sound wonderful singing in three-part harmony, and they really know how to party.

As we knew from our reading, and from our visits to other island countries, church is a very important part of their lives. When we walked into the church and sat down together as if this were the States, it took about five minutes before I realized that men and women did not sit together - the men sat on the left side of the church, women on the right side - so I quickly scurried to the women's side (we had been told that the islanders were quite tolerant of the ignorance of the dim-dims, and here was another example of that - nobody had the bad taste to point out my error, but all were approving when I corrected it). As people wandered in, the "choir" stood in the front of the church singing - because people are walking from all around the island with one village about an hour's walk away, the assembly takes about an hour of singing. Happy, joyous, in their local language until the lead soprano would call out "English" and the next verse would be sung in English for us. The church is just a larger version of their traditional thatched houses, but with a concrete floor and woven pandanus mats to sit on. No chairs, pews, just a mat on the hard floor. As a courtesy to us the minister gave his sermon both in their language and in English. When I figured out how to read their language, I sang along with them (as the women realized that I was singing, they nudged each other, and turned to give me the warmest smiles of both approval and pride - what a great feeling), particularly since my voice sours milk!

Another example of their village personality. The papaya cake that I made was such a hit that everyone was asking for it. But when a papaya cake was given to one person, it was cut up in small pieces and passed out to all the children who asked. No person receiving a gift of a papaya cake got to eat more than one or two slices, all the rest was given away to the rest of the village. (The children, like children everywhere - to get more than their allotted one slice they would stand in line to get their piece of cake, and then walk around the house and get back in the back of the line for another piece - and like adults everywhere, it took them a while to catch on to this trick).

Perhaps the most important thing we've learned in these eight and a half years is just how much people are alike wherever in the world they are, whatever their skin color. Being able to look past physical appearance and language peculiarities left us free to see each person for the individual he was, and so many of the personality traits we tolerate or hold dear in our friends and family in the States are recognizable in the people we have met everywhere else in the world. Courtesy is met with courtesy, Friendliness with greater friendship. The yachties who visit these places and stand aloof or in judgment of a culture quite different from their own are cheating themselves of the greatest rewards of this lifestyle. As shy as Peter is, his tolerance of my constant invitations to local visitors to board WATERMELON has rewarded both of us with new insights into the people we have met. And it is always an ego-booster to be told that we are "nice people".

As Americans, we too often suffer from the bad impression that less sensitive American tourists have left for us to overcome. It is so easy to meet one or two representatives of a culture and draw general conclusions about everyone in that country/city/village from the few we meet. Of course to do so is a mistake, and one can miss out on a lot by falling prey to this all too common human failing. A good example of this was illustrated to us on our first village foray in the Solomon Islands, where we'll be for the next several months. Shortly after dropping our anchor in Tokoyo Bay (a famous WW II battle site), two young men from the village came by in their canoes to trade. As it turned out, we made a mistake that we knew better than to do - we gave one of the boys, Moses, a T-shirt before he had brought us all the food we had agreed on as a fair trade. For us, at least, the ten limes we had asked for and not received were the most important omissions. The next day we anchored off the boy's village and went ashore to meet the chief (and give me the opportunity to blow up lots of balloons and pass them out). Moses did not come up with the limes or the rest of the stuff he was supposed to bring to us, and because of his aggressive behavior everyone in the village heard what was going on. Charles, another young fellow in the village, with a better command of English, asked us what the problem was, and we explained. He told us we were very foolish to have given the kid his half of the trade without getting everything we had negotiated for, and we agreed, but we also said that it was okay, we had learned our lesson. But that wasn't enough for this young fellow - of course we got a lecture on prudent trading tactics, a caution that Moses was not a nice person, and then, in his own language he spoke with one of the other young boys in a canoe. Shortly thereafter we had the ten limes presented to us to make up for Moses' bad behavior. Since each family has their own personal garden, and trading their goods is how they get some of the goods they need, the family who contributed the limes to pay for another family's "bad" behavior had made a significant gesture of generosity. Other yachties have had similar bad bargains made, and have left the particular village with a bad impression of all the people in the village. And perhaps we would have too, had we not wanted to see the WW II artifacts in the village, and thereby got to know more than just Moses and his brother. An initial impression that the people in this village were less than honorable was changed to an impression that the inhabitants were pleasant, friendly and fair with one or two bad ones in the bunch (not much different from bananas or people anyplace you might be in the world, we think).

So, another year of cruising, another year of new experiences, and a lot of new friends. We wish you a very happy holiday season and a joyous and rewarding new year.