| Louisiade Archipeligo |
| We arrived in the Louisiade Archipeligo after a smooth, uneventful, 5 day sail from Magnetic Island near Townsville, Australia. Our first stop was the Duchateau's, a handful of islands on the southern edge of the archipeligo. It was here that we discovered the people that live here, though there are very few, use only hand-made sailing canoes to travel from island to island, they have no engine driven vessels. We then went on to the Calvados Chain inside the oval-shaped reef that surrounds the Louisiades. It was here that we spent most of our 16 days in the archipeligo. These are pristine cruising grounds, absolutely gorgeous and serene. We could see right away why so many Australian sailors come here to get away from it all. There's no towns, no stores, no cars, telephones, tv, radio, but there are people who live and thrive here and have for hundreds of years. Amongst all this serenity, as in so many of the islands across the Pacific, there are left over remnants of WWII. We found one of them when we snorkled in a peaceful bay and discovered a crashed Japanese fighter plane in just 10 feet of water. You'll notice from the pictures below that Richard had a great time playing in it while I clicked away with the under water camera. click photos to enlarge |
approaching our first island in the Louisiades
cockpit of submerged Japanese WWII airplane
local sailing canoe
one of many serene achorages in the Louisiades
Prop of Jap plane
Richard, playing in the WWII Japanese plane
Friends made in the islands