Suffering from an acute bout of 'Bougainvillits' on a grey autumn morning in the Deep South, I was searching on YouTube for a copy of Liz Thompson's video "Breaking Bows and Arrows" - click here - when I found this fascinating 45-minute clip of an 84-day voyage in an open dinghy from Sydney to Port Moresby via Thursday Island in 1978.
What makes this video so special for me is that it shows both Thursday Island (14:40) and Port Moresby's Royal Papuan Yacht Club (45:00) the way they were when I used to live and work there in the 'seventies.
This is for you, Hubert in Cooktown, and all the others who shared my time on Thursday Island, in Port Moresby, and on Bougainville Island when we were still young and thought those days would never end.
We only live once, but we can live in such a way that at the end of the long journey, we will feel as though we have lived a hundred lives.
P.S. If you're interested in more of Malcolm Douglas's videos, click here.
