Snorkeling: Blue Starfish & Scorpionfish. 5 July

Today we head out with our driver (Bugao) and our guide (Kanaut?).  First we go to the old Dive Shop at Malolo... it turns out they used to run a dive shop, but no more.   Probably because no one is actually coming to PNG to dive, and also because the coral reef here is fast disappearing.   We pick up some flippers, which they actually have in our sizes, which is great.   The divemaster is willing to accompany us snorkeling, but he says that he just hurt his back, so he kind of wants to take it easy.

Rachel's image of a Scorpionfish, swimming in and around the
wreck of a Japanese plane, shot down in WWII.

We head out to a tiny island just off the coast, called Tadwai Island.   It is so tiny that only locals would know of it, and it really doesn't show up on any maps.   A boat takes us and our belongs to the island, which really, we could have swum to easily from the mainland.   We get in and have a look.   The coral isn't great here, but it's ok.   We look around, trying to find stone fish or a scorpionfish.   There are some fish here, some pretty reef fish, but really, not a lot.   It's not terrible though, and we are grateful for the break of something different to do.   Our guide does find part of an old wreck, part of a plane from WWII, and in it there is indeed a scorpionfish and a moray eel.   I've ditched all my camera gear for the day, and Rachel has the only camera.  There are a fair number of cute little clownfish, hiding out in their swaying anemone homes.

Rachel's image of a giant, cobalt blue starfish, about
12 inches from tip to tip.

We meet a few kids swimming around the island, and we see some glorious giant, cobalt blue starfish.

When I wrote this up, interestingly, I conveniently forgot about one of the unpleasant parts of the day.   How could I forget?   Rachel and I swam back to the "mainland" (a short swim from Tadwai island), and suddenly, Rachel surfaced, saying "ow, ow... OW!!!!" She had gotten stung by jellyfish.   I got her to swim to shore, but she was really distracted by the pain, all over her neck and jaw.   She didn't seem to be able to fully focus, mentally.   I remembered the old "if a jellyfish stings you, pee on it" trick, and suggested to Rachel that she ought to do that.   Still unfocussed, she said she didn't need to pee!   So, I offered up my own.   Well, THAT brought her out of the sting-pain-fog, and she snapped to, immediately producing her own antidote into the heel-well of her borrowed fin.   She said it actually made a huge difference!  But it was a little disgusting, as one of the most painful places was right above her upper lip.   Ewwwwwwww!   Swimming back to our guide, we explained what happened, and then I got some sea lice (jellyfish larvae) on my own face.  This time, the stinging was minor (Rachel got these too).   She said the other one was different, extremely painful, like a knife slicing through her flesh. Mercifully, as we were wearing the full body Australian "Sunshell" swimsuits, neither of us get stung anywhere but our faces and necks.

After we finish up snorkeling, we swim back to the mainland (our dry things are brought back by boat), where we find a wonderful clear, cool spring with freshwater.   We thoroughly enjoyed the cool spring water... a welcome relief from the the sticky heat.

Rachel finds a sweet puppy at the springs.

There were a couple of young puppies playing by the water's edge... Rachel couldn't resist playing with them and snuggling them.

We had a boxed lunch, then our guide suggested we check out a coconut and cacao bean processing plant.   It sounded rather dull to me, but as there was really little else to do, I thought, why not?

The coconut/chocolate bean processing area turned out to be much more interesting than I'd imagined.    Most of the work was being done by hand, hardly any of it was mechanized.   Our guides told the local workers here were earning some ridiculously low amount of money, something like 14 Kina ($5.20 USD) per week.  Crikey!   No wonder they mostly stood about languidly, and didn't appear particularly motivated.  We first went to the coconut (copra) part of the operation, which actually wasn't that exciting.   Although the part where they take the coconuts and put them into a roasting oven (in a giant warehouse) was nice, from a photographic perspective   We quickly moved onto the cacao processing, yes sir-eee!   Anything to do with chocolate can't be all bad.   We were first shown a succession of large wooden cribs where the cocoa beans are placed, then moved along to a new crib during each stage of fermentation.   At the final box, the cocoa beans were actually warm and steaming from the self-fermention process.   Bugao gathered up handfuls of these to chomp on, as did Rachel.   I daintily tried one or two, but honestly they didn't taste all that interesting to me.  The best I can describe them:  large, dense beans tasting rather like canned pinto beans, with the vaguest hint of chocolate.

This is what an unprocessed cocoa bean looks like.
Tastes kind of like a vaguely chocolate-y pinto bean.

Cocoa beans being moved to a drying area.

PNG man and his son, overseeing the drying of the
cocoa beans.

An old PNG fellow at the lodge serves us dinner every night, Kamong.   We feel a bit bad that we are the only guests.   He's always very pleasant and brings us everything we need for the meal.