What beach?
Once you get a few miles SE of Kerema, there's only rugged cliffs covered with lots of very tall trees. At the base of said cliffs is lots and lots of jagged little rocks.
In any event, I couldn't see out the windscreen coz it was covered in oil from a line to the CSU that had let go.
All I could see out the side window was trees atop cliffs, topped with cloud and, down at sea level, sea water breaking over rocks. My track kept me in VMC, but that's all it did.
And, yeah, for all the good it did me, I was always within gliding distance of land. Only problem was that the "land" was unusable at the time. It's just the sort of sh*t that happens in PNG and, from time to time, the sh*t actually happens.
The sadest part of the whole thing was seeing a Talair twotter circling several miles out to sea from Kerema. It had obviously been directed to the area after my mayday but, typically, was given ballzed-up directions and was, therefore, nowhere near the area. Of course, by the time it arrived to start searching, I was already standing atop the cliff, surveying the scene.
I then had to find the Police rescue party that had also been despatched to the approximate area. They got lost while trying to find me, but all was well when I rescued them!
