  <h3>PNG to Australia </h3>
  <p> I'm in Australia, Darwin NT<br>
NT stands for Northern territories or alternativly '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 unreachably 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. 
  </p>
<p> <img src="content/pic/trip1/grog.jpg" alt="Grog For Sale (kava) (grog.jpg)" border="0" align="right">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........</p>

  <hr align="left">

    <h3>A bigger classic even than Beowulf.</h3>
  <p>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...........</p>
  <p><img src="content/pic/trip1/liftout.jpg" alt="Örnen gets lifted out, Darwin (liftout.jpg)" align="left">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 ...........</p>
  <hr>

      <p>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.</p>
