Zoom!

Recently I was able to join the YWAM medical ship Pacific Link for one of their medical outreaches to Gulf Province. It was good to be back afloat, to spend three weeks immersed in another organisation, to see another region of PNG and to participate in a different sort of work within PNG.

hi ho, hi ho, its off to work we go.

We spent 24(ish) hours crossing from Port Moresby to Gulf Province then spent most of the next two weeks anchored by Kikori hospital. We were well upstream from the Gulf in areas which Admiralty charts mark as uncharted, where the zone of confidence diagrams are lacking confidence. We went upstream with a captain who has been that way before and lots of fancy technology. One of the zodiacs (small boats) could be fitted out with GPS, depth sounder, computer and more to survey as it travelled. Each time before we went to a new place, the zodiac would go ahead of us, creating charts which were then interfaced with the ship’s navigation system. Impressive!

Taking the PHC team out.

While we were at Kikori, the river was in flood. Somewhere upstream it must have been raining heavily, for although it was not particularly dry where we were, the body of water flowing by was tremendous. Many trees and large logs floated by, sometimes forming a dam wall between the anchor chain and the bow, always making driving about in the zodiacs just that little bit more exciting. Only in the last few days did the water level drop enough for the rumoured sand banks to be visible, but even then the outflow defeated the tide every day and we always had our bow pointing upstream.

I joined Pacific Link as second mate, stepping back into what felt like a former life. It took awhile for me to be at ease in the role, but although that side of me was fairly well buried, it was not forgotten. This role meant navigational watches when under way, anchor watches in the river and zooming about in zodiacs delivering the health teams to various villages.

Managing traffic at the sea door

Every morning we would take the ophthalmology team to Kikori Haus Sik (Hospital) to spend their day doing eye surgery. We would also take the primary health care (PHC) team to their village-of-the-day where they would set up for immunisations, consulting and training. We would then return to the ship with dental patients from Kikori and the village where we had left the PHC team. During the day there would be lots of back and forth, ferrying dental patients as well as our own people. There were also some longs runs, when a zodiac would go out for the day to collect, and later to return, an ophthalmology patient from their village to the hospital. These people had been referred for surgery during previous outreaches, but needed assistance to reach the hospital. Each day there was also the visit to tomorrow’s village. We would go and meet the leaders, confirm that it was okay to come with the PHC team and discuss if there was any particular concerns that they hoped we could help with.

Dental patients waiting on the aft deck

In the course of two weeks the three zodiacs travelled approximately 2000km and burnt 12 drums of fuel; a combination of unleaded and zoom (oil-unleaded pre-mix). This was the most the zodiacs had ever done in a single outreach. It was also the worst they had behaved. Something was messing with the engines. The original theory was that it was the wrong oil-fuel mix, but it was probably dirty fuel or water in the fuel. The result was an endless series of sparkplug changes, difficulty getting the boats up on the plane and a lot of uncertainty, but we made it.

Another spark plug change

At the end of each day we would do the final trips, returning the final dental patients and welcoming home the teams who had been on land. Once all were back on board, we would stow, clean and re-fuel the zodiacs for another day of zooming about. Then it would be time to share stories from the day, over dinner or over a cuppa, before curling up in bed to sleep deeply to the sound of water rushing past the hull. My favourite lullaby.



For information on volunteering with YWAM, go to www.ywamships.org.au