Voyage Planning

Teaching navigation to teenage sail trainees.

When planning voyages at sea, we’d lay a straight line across a chart between waypoints and make a week long plan of courses and magnetic compass headings. In a sailing ship, this line was always an ideal and rarely a reality as wind and waves determined our actual path. The start and end point usually remained consistent, although sometimes these too would be changed by conditions.

When I make travel plans in PNG, I leave a week open in my schedule to allow for changes to flight schedules and then plan around the planes. Planes are weather bound too, as fog, low cloud, soggy grass airstrips and other factors can cause changes to plans. Once we have the plane approximately planned, the other plans follow. Do we need to get to or from the airstrip? Does this involve a boat or a car ride? Who might have the vessel or the vehicle and the driver and the fuel to make that possible?  What weight is available on the plane and what is the combined total of our body weights and our cargo?

After a particularly frustrating and changeable recent patch of travel planning in PNG, I decided it was an activity that required the patience of a saint, the strategic planning skills of a General, the networks of a digital native and the flexibility of an Olympic gymnast.

Travel plans for Australia are another whole experience. I jump online and look up maps and schedules. Transport networks tell me to the minute when trains and due and how long it should take for me to walk between points. Tickets can be pre-purchased on line or swipe cards reloaded. Prices are compared and links take you direct to other services. I can plan my travel in small pieces and be realistic in expecting that most things will happen as planned. It is lovely to have things so straightforward!

Yet when a friend was running to catch a tram the other day, I realised how much I have adapted to ‘PNG time’. Why run for a tram when the next one is 15 minutes away? PNG time is relational time rather than scheduled time. Things take longer because people stop to talk to those they meet. Rather than running to catch a tram they would continue the conversation and let one or even two trams go by and only head off when the conversation was done.

I find I value both things; being able to plan ahead and being able to spend the time with friends. Now my planning involves leaving big spaces, so that relationships have room, but schedules are not interfered with, as I try to balance both ways of being.