Nulia village, Panapompom Island (Deboyne Group), snorkeling and lunch on Nivani Island
After another night of good sailing, we awake to clear skies and a magnificent day to follow. Ashore at Nulia, the village is crowded with excited people, a great many of whom have crossed the island from the more populous northern side, where the school is situated, intending either to perform or look on, in this, Panapompom’s first combined concert for visitors. Martin, the cultural committee’s spokesman, says that there will be more than fifteen items by schoolchildren, men and women, and we wait on the beach until everyone is ashore and the men’s welcome dance ends with our entrance into the village. Twenty yards further, we line up near the United Church, where an array of artefacts at the entrance includes rare Lapita-type pottery from nearby Nogini Island. The program proceeds rapidly, and there is great variety, from beautifully decorated and grass-skirted small children whose spear-dances are totally winning, to a mellifluous women’s choir, to agile male dancers with drumming accompaniment, to an hilarious ‘drama’ in which several grossly (stuffed) fat-bellied dimdims (whites) in Western clothes attempt to dance what appears to be The Twist, to the accompaniment of a string-band. This delights everyone to no end.
After the concert is concluded and we have presented the school with a bag of supplies, we disperse to explore the surroundings, or look at the goods on sale, and many visit a nearby shed to see an almost completed sailau (ocean-going canoe), which will be given by a local man to his parents-in-law as part of a protracted bride-wealth payment. This is the third such canoe built here this year; the carpenter charges K500 (c. $US200), excluding the cost of materials. This one can hold up to 25-30 people, the men tell us.
The action moves by midday across to a gorgeous white sand beach on nearby uninhabited Nivani Island, once home to an Australian copra producer whose plantations extended onto Panapompom, and whose neat lines of trees ascend steep hills to the west of Nulia. We are treated to a delicious sandwich lunch by our ever-attentive kitchen and wait-staff, who toil in the heat to keep us well fed and hydrated. The snorkeling is middling, but a sunken Japanese fighter is a major attraction, as it is in shallow water only 200 yards or so from shore, and is enhanced by its many varieties of fish inhabitants. We are glad to be out of the heat, and many of us retreat into the trees where there is welcome shade. The water colors are stunning today, truly emblematic of the blue-green Pacific, and many of us are content to spend a totally relaxed afternoon, wishing it would never end and hoping that there will be many more days as gloriously warm and sunny as this one has been.
After another night of good sailing, we awake to clear skies and a magnificent day to follow. Ashore at Nulia, the village is crowded with excited people, a great many of whom have crossed the island from the more populous northern side, where the school is situated, intending either to perform or look on, in this, Panapompom’s first combined concert for visitors. Martin, the cultural committee’s spokesman, says that there will be more than fifteen items by schoolchildren, men and women, and we wait on the beach until everyone is ashore and the men’s welcome dance ends with our entrance into the village. Twenty yards further, we line up near the United Church, where an array of artefacts at the entrance includes rare Lapita-type pottery from nearby Nogini Island. The program proceeds rapidly, and there is great variety, from beautifully decorated and grass-skirted small children whose spear-dances are totally winning, to a mellifluous women’s choir, to agile male dancers with drumming accompaniment, to an hilarious ‘drama’ in which several grossly (stuffed) fat-bellied dimdims (whites) in Western clothes attempt to dance what appears to be The Twist, to the accompaniment of a string-band. This delights everyone to no end.
After the concert is concluded and we have presented the school with a bag of supplies, we disperse to explore the surroundings, or look at the goods on sale, and many visit a nearby shed to see an almost completed sailau (ocean-going canoe), which will be given by a local man to his parents-in-law as part of a protracted bride-wealth payment. This is the third such canoe built here this year; the carpenter charges K500 (c. $US200), excluding the cost of materials. This one can hold up to 25-30 people, the men tell us.
The action moves by midday across to a gorgeous white sand beach on nearby uninhabited Nivani Island, once home to an Australian copra producer whose plantations extended onto Panapompom, and whose neat lines of trees ascend steep hills to the west of Nulia. We are treated to a delicious sandwich lunch by our ever-attentive kitchen and wait-staff, who toil in the heat to keep us well fed and hydrated. The snorkeling is middling, but a sunken Japanese fighter is a major attraction, as it is in shallow water only 200 yards or so from shore, and is enhanced by its many varieties of fish inhabitants. We are glad to be out of the heat, and many of us retreat into the trees where there is welcome shade. The water colors are stunning today, truly emblematic of the blue-green Pacific, and many of us are content to spend a totally relaxed afternoon, wishing it would never end and hoping that there will be many more days as gloriously warm and sunny as this one has been.
