Harlequin Cruising Blog: Ninigo

Longan Island anchorage - with sail approaching across the lagoon

Oscar the Pilot

Oscar's girls

A week out from Palau, the opportunity arose to stop off at Longan Island in the Ninigo atoll - famous for building and navigating traditional 2-masted, square-sailed outrigger canoes. Approaching the narrow Northern channel, a paddle canoe was sighted approaching, with the three occupants furiously paddling & waving. And so Oscar stepped aboard to pilot us through the reef, leaving his daughters in the canoe to be towed behind, loving every minute.

Oscar guided us to anchor off the East end of Longan Island, where, quite quickly (but with no unseemly rush), we were visited by other canoes & villagers, keen to say hello. And trade. T-shirts, soap & soap powder bought papaya, 'snake beans', coconuts and eggs. Fishing hooks & line traded for half-a-dozen crayfish (which we politely asked for in time for supper). Dinner at sunset was a feast!

Ninigo Trading

Visitors Book with canoes

Solomon also came aboard, apparently a self-designated island rep' & guide (perhaps the reason Oscar had been so keen to board first?), bringing with him an old Visitors Book filled with praise & info from previous cruisers. It made fascinating reading, which we did after supper with rum & fresh coconut juice. Sadly the latter (a natural laxative in such large quantities) didn't seem to agree with a couple of the crew, who spent the night purging!

Visits to the island itself revealed a clean, well-ordered village on a strip of sand barely 300 m wide and 1 m above sea level. With over 40 students (Grades 3-8) the school, run by 4 teachers on a long-term detachment from Manus, seemed take a huge priority. The village was essentially a campus.

Ninigo Crays

Ninigo Supper

Coco-libra

They had built their own classrooms, desks & blackboards (albeit on sand floors) and were well equiped with government-supplied books (many courtesy of AusAid). Head teacher, Philip's most pressing need was for us to fix his lawn-mower!

The children were all working away busily at English & Maths - their first day back at school after the Easter hols (Longan Island is mostly Catholic, while nearby Pihun Island is Seventh Day Adventist). An example of what the Grade 3 class were working on from their Language in Context workbook: 'How to Build a Raft'. Very well thought out - practical and relevant, whilst still teaching written English.

We also watched Oscar & friends working on a new sailing canoe, the basics of which had been built on Pihun from a single carved tree with extra freeboard afforded by doweled planks. They were now adding bow & stern, as well as the outrigger itself. All done by eye with simple tools, but the fit could not be faulted. These men were expert craftsmen.

Sadly, we didn't have time for more than one night here. We had hoped to sail the local canoes, but we were becalmed. Given more time, we would also have visited Pihun. But time pressed, so we made our farewells and departed the way we had come, circling to the North of Ninigo Atoll, then overnight to the Hermit Islands, just 50 nm to the East.

Again, with fuel-saving in mind, and given we would be approaching in the early morning light, we elected to sail round the South of Hermit Atoll to the Eastern Channel through the reef. A S'ly setting tide and a succession of showers (more shampoo moments) made this slower than expected, but we still managed through the reef at 0900, and moored on a village buoy by 1045.

Orange-whips all round...