Published with the permission of Stephen Wawn.

Timber and Logs Everywhere

Pleasure III, our 45 foot catamaran, is now anchored in Lorengau Harbour at Manus Island, PNG.  I provide the following information to assist any sailors considering sailing in waters east of Biak, West Papua Indonesia.

We left Biak Harbour on 11 March 2025 and plotted our course to the Ninigo Atoll passing Pulau Owi  east of Biak Harbour and heading North East for a distance of 60 nm to get far out to sea from the vicinity of the mouth of the Mamberamo River before turning east.  Our plan was to avoid a large majority of the timber and logs we had been warned about in this area which seem to be flushed out from the river mouth here.

However, our plan very soon proved of no use as we almost immediately commenced to see large pieces of isolated timber and then whole trees in  tide lines over 70 nm from the mainland of West Papua. Some of these timber strewn tide lines were over 2 miles long.

Constant vigilance needed

It required constant vigilance to avoid collisions with these trees, some of which were over 60-70 feet long.

The real danger was at night. Our catamaran has a powerful search light on the bow and with a crewman also on the bow with a high powered torch, we were forced to proceed at 3-4 knots maximum speed.  At times we had to stop completely to have time to detect and avoid collisions with these trees and hundreds of timber logs.

We were fortunate that the sea state was fairly calm and we were motoring into a  5-6 knot head wind and 2 knot adverse current so our progress was fairly slow.  It was a nerve wracking experience and one I do not wish to ever encounter again. It took us four days and nights before we escaped from the worst of this disaster area.

A monohull which left Biak a day before us also heading to Ninigo Atoll sustained severe damage to its rudder and was forced into Jayapura to effect emergency repairs. We also sustained minor damage to our bow and port rudder.

Sail in this area at your peril!

As a matter of interest, there is a constant 1.5 to 2 knot adverse current all the way from Biak to Manus Island.

Stephen Wawn
SV Pleasure III

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