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Sailing back to Garove Island to re-engine Dickie Doyle's yacht - 1977
We sail back to Garove Island in the Witu Islands to do some paid work, something we poor yacht cruising people need! After we arrived in Rabaul I received a message from Dickie Doyle, the manager of the Langu Plantation on Garove Island. He wanted to pay me to install a new Yanmar motor in his yacht. As a true "cruising on a budget" yacht I jumped at the chance. This meant a rather uncomfortable trip back to the Witu Islands and Garove against the NW Monsoon season, a period of calms interspersed by frequent NW squalls, enough to kick up a reasonable set of heading waves, enough to slow our motoring speed down to about 3 knots and a very uncomfortable motion. We spent a month at Langu Plantation on Garove Island with Dickie Doyle and family. I installed the new motor in his yacht and then Dick found me some more paid work building a new trade store and office over old foundations. After that we returned to Rabaul and explored the local area including watching the Firewalkers of Rabaul, a rather spectacular event. Remember that any video sections are digitised from 50 year old super 8 film. Photos are digitised from 50 year old 35mm slides.