Australia

PNG to Australia

I'm in Australia, Darwin NT
 NT stands for Northern territories or alternatively 'Not Today and Not Tomorrow'. We arrived a few days a go from Port Moresby Papua New Guinea, after a smooth passage through the Torres Straight ( as the Skipper puts it "it looks like someone sneezed Snuff on the chart"). Swedish snuff is sort of chewing tobacco in tea bags. Our stay in PNG was pretty uneventful, we arrived in Misima the eastern most Island you can clear customs at with out visas, we were told the leave next day for Moresby to deal with it. This was not a great problem since Misima's capital would be proud one day to achieve the at present unreachable high title of "one horse Town". Also we didn't worry too much about the restriction of not being allowed to go ashore because we had no visas, we solved this by taking one of the officials to the pub with us. He came to the pub with us because he and the customs man had drunk all the alcohol on board. We departed the next morning.

We arrived a few days later in Port Moresby crime capital of the Pacific, we got lots of stuff done and went to customs to get tax free fuel, then round to shell to get a form shell sent us to another customs office and they sent us back to the fist office who eventually gave us the form, in quadruplicate, with no carbon. Saying "it must have the ships rubber stamp on it, or its not legal" Great we don't have a stamp. I solved the problem buy writing ÖRNEN on the shell receptionists rubber and then stamping the appropriate signature. The intelligent amongst you will by now have realised I should have written NENRÖ. Well it looked like it had been rubber stamped but it was backwards....... In Moresby we lost Börje and Roz, Roz had to go home to NSW and Börje went with her, pity Börje has been with us since Trinidad and Roz since Panama, she brought the cat onboard. The cat was then a kitten living with out permission at a back packers hostel in Panama. Obviously as a small kitten it hadn't been injected or tested for any thing yet and we had no papers for it........

A bigger classic even than Beowulf.

Well we signed the cat in to every harbour we went to till Tonga. Then they said "no paper with the cats medical record, we kill the cat" eventually after some fast talking they agreed that if we stayed a anchor and kept the cat in a cage on board it was OK. We didn't keep the cat in a cage, they had no way of making sure we kept the cat in the cage. They asked us to give them a ride out to the boat, in the old dinghy, it sank regularly even the most fastidious Quarantine officer would avoid it. Well they gave that idea up after 1 time!!!!! Well we left giving them the cat sand in a bag. Then when we got to Cook Islands we stopped telling Quarantine and customs about the cat. We used to lock it in the engine room or the toilet...... That was fine till the Quarantine people in Misima Papua new guinea wanted the toilet, they'd been drinking their way though all the beer on board, no to mention the vodka whiskey etc. We told them it was broken and they went to the loo over the side. By that time though we were friends and promising to come back and see them again, they wanted postcards etc. And as Tom put it "they wouldn't care if we had a Bengal Tiger on board". After an afternoon of drinking and Abba being stuck in the bog she was nearly a Bengal tiger! Any way the Quarantine officer didn't even bother to come out to the boat in Port Moresby. Despite our lovely new dinghy, with the new big engine, I can soak any customs officer in the southern hemisphere!!!!!! Then comes Australia----- oz strucking failier as Sandra calls it. We knew customs was tight here very tight. We their fore hid the cat in the locker on deck at the back that contains the rudder, under the auxiliary. I then went ashore to get the people. Got one lot and dropped them on board and went back for a second load (there were 5 plus the dog). Then I saw them brining the dog down the jetty. I was not responsible for the boat that all falls on Tom as the captain. But even so when I saw the Dog it was brown trousers time. I thought we'd end up with a dead cat and a bad fine or worse. Well when we came back to the Örnen, the dog kept trying to go for a swim on the way. When we got to Örnen I called Tom before we got alongside to warn him. He told me to start the generator, I did Tom then spilt diesel all over the area, I was going to throw the cat in the sea. But I guess he isn't that nasty. So I went and hid and filled out paper work, lots of paper work. The dog went straight to the box the cat uses as a toilet, now empty and by the washing up (its an old washing up bowl). The girls who were handling the dog pulled it away They could see there were no drugs there. The dog went all over the front cabin. No drugs there. The dog then went round the deck, while I was bellow, IT WENT STRAIGHT TO THE LOCKER WITH THE CAT, big surprise its a Dog...........

The handlers just pulled it away and went on with the search, Tom had a heart attack......... I was below. While I was bellow the Quarantine officer was busy going through all the lockers and taking stuff he didn't like. Then he said "what's the cat food for", I kind of told the truth. Tom used to have a cat, the tom appeared and I asked him "when did the cat get off", he caught the hint and said "La Palma" (true that's when the old cat got off) then he said "its good for fishing". They guy said no more............. Soon after they left... I went **** I NEED A DRINK.............. And while taking them ashore a sea plane tried to land on me ...........

I was going to come home from here but will now be going on to Thailand, via the war zone called Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia.