…with old knees and slowly diminishing prose competence.  But the spirit of Tainui survives, without shadow of doubt. What began as a summer cruise on 2005 morphed into a 12 year journey. Now that Tainui…

At 6 am, the best time of the day here in Milne Bay, I sit on the jetty and sip rich PNG coffee. Today we load the last of our medical supplies before setting off…

Kula Spirit is a solid 44′ fishing trawler owned by Australian Wendy Stein. She is setting up an outreach floating clinic to visit remote villages without access to adequate medical services. Wendy started off in…

We cast off mid–morning for our month-long islands circuit. A warm, windless sea. Departure delayed by my first patient – a local bloke with a chronic problem – huge, translucent cystic lesions on his head…

This one is for doctors only A couple of weeks ago at a remote coastal village I saw a sprightly 6 year old lad. His mother gave a 3 week history of mildly tender ulcers…

Like pinta, bejel and syphilis, the culprit is a spirochaete. Those ulcers are caused by treponema pertenue and the disease – yaws – is most common in younger children in tropical countries. Unlike syphilis, spread…