For about a week we have been sailing west, wind behind us, leaving behind the most easterly extremity of our travels: Rossel Island. We are now in the mysteriously named, 'conflict' group, that lies between the Calvados and the larger islands off the the PNG main land. These islands are unpopulated and are postcard typical tropical coral atols. That describe a massive 20 kilometer oval. On one of them, Panasesa, is a largely deserted resort, jetty collapsed into the sea, with a tattered wind sock at the start of a coconut lined air strip. Who knows why it hasn't succeeded. One transport connection too many? Definitely not the quality of the diving: Jamie has just hauled up a crayfish for our lunch. 

We have completed the scoping of our small aid project and have decided in favour of a solar lighting installation in a village. The solar equipment is arriving in Alotau on Saturday. The water tank project was unviable for positive reasons: a local government member from Alotau, a nationalised Swede named John Luc, had recently completed a vote buying mass distribution of water tanks. Also many islands already have water tanks donated by ausaid or the considerate yachties that visit here. There are still communities that need them no doubt, but finding them and the logistics of moving the equipment have now exceeded our available time.

Economical and efficient lighting is greatly needed in the Louisiades. They light their huts generally in 3 ways; Fires, hurricane lamps or battery powdered lights (a frequent trade request is d sized batteries). Indoor fires cause a number of chronic diseases in developing countries and are inferior light sources. The hurricane lamps and battery lights consume scarce cash, (up to 4 keena a week for a household based on my discussions with villagers). LED and micro solar technology has advanced greatly in the last 10 years. Cheap systems with excellent illumination are available and are long lived. We plan to do a couple of installs with the equipment we have arriving and use this work to try and develop micro systems that can be shipped to the islands when we get back to Australia.