Living as we do on a boat moored in the Madang harbor, we have an unusual array of neighbors. Our neighborhood consists of a wide variety of boats, some seaworthy and some less so. And on these boats live quite a variety of people, some seaworthy and some less so. Here is a tour of our neighborhood.
Work continues on the refit of Maneba.
Luthern Shipping slipways, a facility for repairing larger boats, is located to our west. There is usually a boat in the slipway being welded, sand blasted, painted or repaired. And as is now the case with Manaba there is often an additional boat tied along side the shore, also being welded, painted, or repaired.
This hand-made wooden boat from the Philippines has been achored here for a year.
Moving towards the South we come to a weird Phillipino passenger boat that arrived about a year ago with a load of people aboard. It has not moved since. Rumour has it that they want to put the boat into the slipway for repairs but it is in such sorry condition that the manager of the slipway has refused, fearing that once it was in it would never be seaworthy enough to leave again. And that may be true. The bilge pumps come on several times a day and pump prodigious amounts of water out of the boat. A couple weeks ago the bilge pumps failed and it nearly sank, providing hours of entertainment to those of us living in the harbor.
Several Fishermen out for the afternoon.
Out in the main part of the harbor are the ubiquitous canoes. This is one of the standard means of getting around for the people living on the outlying islands. For many of them it is the equivalent of the family car. With the outriggers they are quite stable and when well handled can move right along.
North of us is our closest neighbor – Moonlighting. This is a live aboard dive boat owned by Tony and Lorraine Collins. Occasionally they rent it out as a floating flat but it usually is empty. Tony and Lorraine are moving to Cairns soon and will be taking Moonlighting with them. We will miss them.
Warrior returns from a cargo run down the coast.
The last functional boat in the mix is Warrior. This boat is under contract to carry fresh foodstuffs to the Chineese mine operation about 30 miles down the coast. Three times a week the boat is loaded to the gills with cabbages and other assorted veggies. Then about midnight the crew of three takes off for the mine.
An array of boat projects.
And then there are our less functional neighbors. Tony Biernes ran a small repair yard out of a warehouse on shore. He passed away a few weeks ago but while he was alive he had a habit of towing home old boats to refurbish. So we have quite a collection of non-working boats to the northeast in various states of disrepair. This includes one that sank last year and is currently being used as a mooring. Several of the others look like they could become moorings at any moment.
Many of these boat in the harbor are home to fair-size community of people who live here. Everyone is friendly and sort of keeps an eye on what is going on around our neighborhood. It is a fascinating place to live.