I’m beginning to get organised for a return to Papua New Guinea after a 30-year absence. In a couple of weeks time Ingrid (who has spent time in the Solomon Islands but has never visited PNG) and I will be departing from Cairns aboard the motor yacht MY Orion. The 100-passenger vessel is equipped for expedition cruising with Zodiac embarkation platforms for wet landings and a tight manoeuvring capability which allows her to get close inshore.

Orion cruises Milne Bay (Alotau. D’Entrecasteux, Trobriands), the Solomons, Rabaul, the Sepik, Madang returning via Tufi and Samarai. In Rabaul we’ll catch up with my old PNG Broadcasting Commission mate, Sam Piniau (he was chairman when I was cutting my teeth as a broadcasting exec), and visit the post-eruption studios of Radio East New Britain, now based at Kokopo.

Here I’ll present manager Terry Lombut and his staff with a rare original program guide (left) for the former Radio Rabaul, which commenced broadcasting in 1961.

Satellite communications permitting, I’ll be diarising the voyage on the Internet through regular posts to ASOPA PEOPLE.