As mentioned before, my motivation for this trip had been, to get the opportunity to get to see the Sepik River – and today was the day. Over night we had covered the 129 nautical miles from Madang to the mouth of the Sepik River into the Pacific Ocean.

Our morning stop was at Kopar, a village part of the Marienberg Rural local level-government in East Sepik Province. The ship had moored out in the bay, well away from the river currents – and as such a long zodiac trip (~25min) against the currents and going around fishing nets was waiting for us on our journey to the village.

Here I kicked it off with a walk through the village, passing by the spirit house and through the souvenir market the locals had set up for us. Of course also a cultural performance was waiting for us – and again in a different style. Kick-off here was with a flag ceremony including singing of Papua New-Guinea’s national anthem; this was followed by a number of traditional dances – with the dragon dance and the shark dance being most memorable (plus new and unique, compared to what we had seen in the other villages); the performance concluded with a short theater play.