WEEVILS CAUSE BROKEN TOOTH

25 February 2025

I love fresh bread and am ordinarily quite happy to bake it onboard when sailing.  However, in the tropics the heat generated by the kneading and baking process is a massive deterrent.  Body and boat just get too hot for comfort.  Recently, I have been producing stove top bread that requires minimal kneading and just half an hour cooking on a low heat gas hob.  While not as good as a nice fluffy loaf it’s a perfectly good alternative and will keep fresh for a couple of days and the boat doesn’t get too hot.

As my shop bought bread had run out I decided to make some bread with fresh flour I had bought in Biak.  When I opened the flour container I was greeted by whole bunch of Weevils. The second flour container was also similarly infested.  I really dislike weevils, the flour went over the side immediately.  Bread was off the menu but my craving for bread only intensified.

Searching around for a bread substitute I came across some wholewheat crackers.  They had been on the boat for a while, but were still in their packaging.  I tried one, they were very hard, rock hard, but they tasted OK.  I set about making a snack with some cheese, pickled onions and sun dried tomatoes, lovely.  Chomping down on the cracker I felt one of my back molars break, sure enough I spat out a big piece of tooth.  Probing around with my tongue I could feel a big hole. 

But my tooth was not finished disintegrating, the following day I was chewing something else and forgot about the broken tooth when the second bit of my molar detached.  Now I had a huge crater in my gum which needed dental attention.  The front part of the tooth was still intact but the back half had gone completely. 

So, its obvious the weevils caused the broken tooth. If there were no weevils the flour would not have been thrown out and I would not have resorted to chewing rock hard wholewheat crackers. Thankfully, there was no pain but I knew it would be only a matter of time before pain, infection or both would set in.  Oh disaster, this was very serious, I would have to find a dentist somewhere in PNG.

But first my mission was to sail across the top of Manaus Island and over to New Hanover and then across to Kavieng to check into PNG and complete the customs, immigration formalities etc.  The wind and a strong current were still against me along the top of Manaus Island.  I opted to sail and motor inside the northern fringing reef, Challenger Reef, as far as Manaus. 

Inside the reef proved to be calm and sheltered from the offshore swell by the fringing reef  There were a few shallow spots to be navigated but they usually showed up with a change in the water colour.  Half way along the top of Manaus Island I found a spot late in the afternoon to anchor for the night.  The spot I picked looked deserted a good distance from shore behind a reef.  I had been warned of rascals along this coast so wanted to keep a low profile.  Of course, once I had anchored, seemingly out of nowhere the canoes started to come out.  The locals were very friendly and I did some barter for fresh fruit, coconuts and sweet potatoes.  The place was called Ndromalmal Station and apparently government land and safe. 

The following morning I was on my way again early and was soon popping out of the reef back to deep water and on my way to Kavieng.  After a few hours of fickle wind on a lee shore we managed to clear the coast, picked up a favourable wind, the sailing was good, in the right direction for a change.  A couple of days sailing and we reached New Hanover where the wind died.  I entered through the outlaying reef and anchored in the lee of an Island to the east of Cape Entrance for the night.  It had been a good sail from Manaus Island with a few squalls and wind shifts along the way, averaging just under one hundred miles per day.

The first night out of Manaus I had a bird trying to land on the boat.  I hate birds on the boat, they make a terrible mess.  They are also really creepy when they pop up out of nowhere at night, quite scary.  Anyway, this particular bird was very stubborn (stupid) and persistent.  After several aborted landings he landed on the wind instrument.  I managed to beat him off with a rope end but not before he had broken the plastic wind direction indicator vane.  I was really upset.  Not satisfied with this mischief he returned twenty minutes later and tried to land on top of the mast.  This time he got tangled up with the Windex and managed to skew it around so the arms were pointing abeam.  In less than an hour the bloody bird had wrecked all my wind indicating gear.  A different bird had wrecked the windex in the Philippines and Jessica went up the mast in Puerto Princesa to fix it.  Now there would need to be another trip up the mast, not a task I enjoy.

I managed to repair the wind vane on the Clipper wind instrument. I cut out a plastic west system plastic spreader to the approximate shape of the existing wind vane. Unfortunately the broken one had gone over the side when it broke so my replacement was the best approximate shape I could make. I then roughed up the surfaces a bit and applied epoxy and clamped the two parts together. I gave it overnight to cure before fitting everything back in place. So far is is working well although maybe not so sensitive in light winds I can see no difference when the wind picks up over six knots.

The following day it was a challenging sail to Kavieng, starting with motoring in calm, then a strong wind on the nose and tacking followed by a beautiful beam reach before we motored into the anchorage.  I dropped the hook and let out plenty of chain, on a good scope I would be able to sleep better.  Once settled I cracked a beer, I was happy and satisfied to have arrived. It had been a long haul against the wind and current from Biak. 

The next day after a great sleep I set off with the ships papers, the (important) ships stamp and my passport to the Customs office in Kavieng.  The check in process was quick and easy and I was officially in the country.  Now my mission is to try and find a dentist.