Joe, whos actual name is Edward we later learned, canoed over in the morning with another friend of his. Canoes are not individually owned but shared in the community so visits to the boat depend on canoe availablility.

We had decided to postpone departure till midday and have a look at IloIlo, the village on the mainland, so we had an escort with Joe/Edward. The drying sand and weed fringe on that side stretched out a couple of 100 yards but the tide was high enough for us to just skim over to the beach.

John whos actual name is Elvis met us on the beach and they showed us the primary school, the sports field, the clinic and the large LMS church, all looking very neat and pretty. The school has colourful flower borders along all the paths and the clasrooms are better equiped that at the new school in Panapompom with rules and schedules all over the walls, a collection of home made musical instruments and things the pupils had made from found material hanging from the ceiling.

Elvis' dad the minister came out to show us the church which has sparkling clean white ceramic ties on the floor but no seats.  He was very softly spoken and seemed a bit thrown by our visit. He had only been in the village for a few months and this was his first appointment since finishing his training in Port Moresby. We  learned later that his wife recently died so he must have been in mourning as well as finding his feet in a new place. The London Missionary Society arrived in this area  of PNG 1st and the majority of the people have stuck with them.

A teachers husband, Pinar, accompanied the minister and was more forthcomming. He offered to take us for a walk to a view point along the new road being built by the logging company. It was Pinar who had sent the boys over with coconuts yesterday. He comes from an area that has tourism so knew that we would apreciate the gesture.

The malaysian buldozer has cut a wide swathe through the forest linking the village to the logging site and then on to the town of Alatou in Milne bay. Many  of the villagers were up at the logging site playing football.  Pinar thought that another company would follow on from the loggers doing some carbon reinstatement-presumably re-planting. Perhaps the loggers do pay a carbon tax which is used to compensate the carbon. I have my doubts.

Pinar was full of interesting information- such as there are 8000 completely different languages in PNG.

Green and red parrots crossed over our heads and lots of big black crows complained in a noisy fashion.

The view point overlooks the bay to the west of Bilabila, a large drying area inside the reef with a solitary tree in the middle.

Thinking our trading was done untill we could re-stock in Port Moresby I gave Pinar the last few (slightly used) exercise books and pens for his wife to use. Then back at the boat we had a visit from Silvester and his wife Rita bearing sugar cane, and Tito who brought another Pawpaw and an older man who came with grapefruit and passionfruit. We managed to

find some reading glasses, and the last pencils and a slightly used exercise book.

We had coffee with Silvester and Rita and they filled us in with the village gossip. We took Ritas facebook details so can send her some pictures.

Upped the anchor at midday but the breeze we were feeling optimistic about in the bay didn't yield sailing wind for a couple of hours.