DXPED TO PAPUA NEW GUINEA

DEREK G3KHZ, GORDON G3USR, DAVID M0VTG, HANS SM6CVX, LUIS CT1AGF AND STIG (PR) EXPEDITION TO PAPUA NEW GUINEA P29.

29 Nov 2009

DXped to Papua New Guinea

The DXpedition planned to visit 3 of the rarest activated islands - the Tanga, Green and Woodlark Groups. As there are no scheduled flights to any of these islands our access was restricted to chartered boat.

Four of our six man team met up in London Heathrow for the first leg of our trip which was London to Singapore. In Singapore we were joined by two others from Sweden and we flew together to Port Moresby, the capital of PNG and thence to Kokopo in north eastern New Britain where we had a welcome overnight respite after nearly 40 hours of continuous travel from the UK.

The next day, after shopping for essential hardware supplies we joined our boat. This was a 45 foot motor vessel called Barbarian II which was to be our home for the next 3 weeks. Except when ashore operating, all our meals and sleeping would be on the boat. Designed and built by Rod her skipper some 30 years ago, she proved to be a sturdy little vessel, for which as things turned out, we were extremely grateful. We were admiably looked after by Daisy (cook), Lilian (laundry), and Precilla (general cleaner and chamber maid). The fifth crew member was Eppa who was general factotum and handy man.

The Tanga Island Group (OC-102)

After setting out from Kokopo, New Britain we encountered some very rough weather near Cape St George on New Ireland and we were relieved to find a refuge around 30 miles south of our start point. This was Putt Putt Harbour where our overnight stop gave us a short opportunity to activate an unplanned IOTA, New Britain (OC-008).

Following a further stay in another safe haven on the east coast of New Ireland, we eventually arrived in the Tanga Island Group at mid day, a day late, and spent much of the afternoon seeking somewhere suitable to land and set up our stations.

We eventually anchored in 70 metres of water and located a suitable shore-side village site on Lif Island. The Island Councillor Greg, whose permission was needed, proved to be an excellent contact as he had a large wider family of strong young men who willingly helped carry our equipment.

Our stay in Tanga was curtailed to 4 days to catch up time and by early afternoon 27th October, we were ready to depart. Before leaving we thanked Councillor Greg and his fellow villagers for their support and eager co-operation. It was an emotional experience when they unexpectedly gave us coconuts, oranges, a yam and a live hen to take with us. Their accommodation of our DXpedition was heartening.

The Green Islands Group (OC-231)

The Green Islands are a coral reef formed over a very long period of time by the growth of living organisms on top of the remains of worn down rocks thrown up by two, now extinct, volcanoes. The atoll's lagoon provide us with a calm anchorage after another rough voyage of over 18 hrs. Our skipper (an Australian named Rod) told us that the doldrums, which should have arrived by the time we got to PNG, simply hadn't yet happened and the wind continued to whip up the sea. We met Paramount Chief Patrick the next morning who was to be our main contact. 3 days later we were ready to depart early on 1st November. Before we left Chief Patrick was keen to involve his whole local village in our departure and had organised both garland presents for us and some entertainment before our departure.

The Woodlark Group, (OC-205)

We set off south at around 11.00. The weather now appeared to be more settled and a generally glassy calm sea encouraged the skipper to set a direct course south for Woodlark. The distance was an estimated 300 miles which at about 6 knots would take 50 hours! In the event it took 53 hours and the latter stages were again very rough, perhaps the worst we had yet encountered. Even the usually unruffled crew were �uncomfortable�.

We identified two sites on Madau Island, negotiated access and set up our stations. However, during our first night the generator at our SSB / RTTY station failed and we were unable to make a repair. We combined our SSB and CW operations into a single location for our final days with an appropriate rota to share the band / mode activities.

A highlight at Madau was a morning team visit to the local village school which serves the whole island. Shibaba who was the local headmaster and 4 teachers welcomed us to their two classroom school - for over 200 pupils. We talked about radio to the children and distributed P29 QSL cards from previous PNG DXpeditions. We were gathered outdoors and much to our surprise, the children then sang impromptu songs in the distinctive melodic tradition of the PNG islands � haunting and fantastic.

Our final Saturday evening and overnight operations at Madau were difficult. From early afternoon we experienced repeated heavy tropical rain storms which culminated in a noisy downpour just after we started operating at 17.00 local, 07.00 u.t.c. Some operators ended up very cold and wet � and the damp equipment buzzed with voltages!
We dismantled our stations for the last time on the 8th November having planned to leave mid morning. However, tropical storm warnings caused our skipper to defer our departure until 00.30 local on Monday morning when we began our trip back to the PNG mainland. After sheltering for several hours en route in the dark we arrived at the eastern mainland town of Alotau mid Tuesday morning. From there we began our return air journey to the UK and arrived back in London early on the morning of Friday 13th November.

QSOs by Mode

P29VSR Putt Putt (New Britain) OC-008
CW SSB RTTY All
0 375 0 375

P29VCX Lif (Tanga Group) OC-102
CW SSB RTTY All
3,677 914 184 4,775

P29VLR - Nissan (Green) OC-231
CW SSB RTTY All
4,523 879 412 5,814

P29NI - Madeau (Woodlark Group) OC-205
CW SSB RTTY All
6,455 1,834 564 8,853

Totals
CW SSB RTTY All
14,655 4,002 1,160 19,817