In the late 19th century a Royal Navy survey vessel formally charted an atoll to the east of New Guinea. Running out of ideas they named the islands of the atoll after the ship itself, which is why today I visited the HMS Conflict Islands. Without the HMS.

This is what the Cruise Line would tell you it looks like:

That’s my photograph. This is the ship I arrived on:

By 8am I’d been on Panasesa island, back off the island, sunk a boat, back onto the island and back off again, a new boat to myself.

It wasn’t my fault I sank the boat. Its owner saw it go down, launched a rescue boat, a swimmer diving off the beach too, all of them apologising to me as they came up to me, treading water and giggling as I waited for them. The boat was a two person kayak and they’d told me to sit in the back. If there’d been someone in the front it would’ve been balanced, but after five minutes of working out how to combine forward motion with lateral stability in the curved bottom boat I’d given it some pace, the front had risen and the back had gone under. That was enough, an exponential flood of water soon had half the boat under and as I came out of my seat the front went down too.

I swam back to shore.

The replacement was designed for a single person and I had no trouble keeping it stable, or propelling it over the coral reef. It had a perspex panel in the bottom through which I saw a clam, lots of coral, many small fish. To the side of the boat shoals near the surface of other small fish, an inch or two in length. One shoal of electric blue minnows took fright and as one leapt out of the water away from me, landing back together and swimming off. Other larger blue fish caught the eye near the sea bed, swimming in and out of the coral. Their larger brethren were harder to spot, beautiful pale browns in elegant patterns giving them good camouflage. I saw over a dozen different species, some of them sole fish, some of them shoals with two dozen fish in at a time.

The kayak was $20 for an hour, Australian, making it far better value than the $70 USD for an hour in a glass bottom boat the ship tried to sell me. More fun too. Not including the one that sank I was out for nearer half an hour, but that was enough. My arms aren’t used to the paddling and the sun was relentless – I have sunburn, clear lines showing where my trunks ended, despite applying sunblock this morning.

After coming ashore and handing back the kayak, one of the ladies taking money for the hire teasing me about sinking, I bumped into the ship’s crew member that organises the formal ship’s tours. He asked if I was ok, admitted he’d seen me sink. I laughed, said the team on the island had been apologising but I’d found it amusing, had enjoyed paddling in the replacement. At that point I realised the man with him is Ian Gowrie-Smith, the owner of the islands. He made small talk and I didn’t say sorry for sinking one of his boats.

I’d had to cross the island to get to the kayaks, but the best swimming was on the corner, so I walked the length of the beach, reached a hundred yards of sand with sea on three sides. Dropping my bag there I walked into the sea and had a 20 minute swim, only a few hundred metres. The sea was cooler than at Kiriwina, but that was nice with the direct sun.

By 9am I was tired and knew a drink would be sensible. I did have water in my bag but walked back along the other side of the island, another long beach, and reached the jetty where I could get a tender back to the ship. By the time I’d washed my t-shirt, my swimming trunks, my sunhat (which had got seawater on it when the boat sank), my sandals and finally myself, the Lido had stopped serving breakfast. I got coffee anyway, came back to my room and ordered toast on room service.

They only offer it from 6-11am, and technically they offer a full cooked breakfast that includes toast. I skipped the rest of the breakfast, just told them to bring toast.

The kitchens are on another deck at the other end of the ship so the toast wasn’t hot when it arrived. It was warm, so I put the cold butter between two slices to make it soft enough to spread, enjoyed a simple breakfast.

Watched today’s film: Crazy Rich Asians. It was ok, but must surely have had investment from the Singapore tourist board. They even mentioned the butterfly garden in the airport in a moment of raw product placement.

After that, a week after my last ‘net access and a week ahead of getting anything remotely resembling a useful link again, I splurged $25 on 24 hours of highly restricted satellite access. So obviously I posted a quick update to the travelogue to let people know I’m alive, although perhaps using the word ‘shipwreck’ to refer to this morning’s boating mishap was cruel.

Dinner was lovely, an extended conversation with a lady in her mid 70s. She’s travelled a bit, has published some books, is proud of her children’s achievements and works at the Cricket Hall of Fame (that started life as a Donald Bradman museum). We ended up chatting long after desert, and long after the lady the other side of me had left. She was Canadian and loud, too loud. To talk to the Italian ladies opposite she was speaking at ‘giving speech to room full of people’ volumes that hurt my ears. When she raised the volume further I involuntarily flinched, turned and told her she had two volumes, and that by hitting the louader one she was causing me pain. She took offence but offended silence was infinitely more tolerable so I didn’t care. Her husband said nothing, to me or to her.

Dinner itself was a veal starter, tandoori chicken main and a slice of chocolate cake.

At dinner I heard about the glass bottomed boat experience that the ship had organised. Less sinking than my adventures but also over crowded with some people unable to even see the glass bottom. Hopefully they had their $70 refunded. The ‘almost as expensive’ turtle conservation tour was apparently far better, the chance to pick up and hold baby turtles and watch two older ones being released into the sea. I’d taken the cheaper option, stood next to the hut with the turtle tanks in it, watched baby turtles swimming in a tank by the window.

Although I’d done little since 10am I’d also had a very early start and my arms were still sore from the kayaking – it gave me a good upper arm workout – and 4 of the 5km walked had been on shifting sand, often ankle deep in water and with blisters threatening from walking in wet sandals and shorts. I felt no guilt in having an early night.