Good buddy and Madang- Ples Bilong Mi  reader Rich Jones shot me an email this morning with photos of the Burns Philp fire in Port Moresby.

This from Rich Jones:

We were sitting on the balcony drinking wine and saw a huge plume of smoke from downtown. Like any good PNGer we immediately raced towards the disaster and saw the final moments of the famous yet flammable Burns Philip building, once home of the excellent Tribal Den nightclub and currently under, um, renovation. There were vast and knowledgeable crowds who were remarkably close to the action and a few brave firemen trying to save Westpac with some very leaky hoses.

Check out Jenn’s chairs in the heart of the fire.

It was quite a communal affair. Well ordered and quite solemn at times.

Rich sent some shots of the fire along with the email. The Sunday night fire, which rated a short blurb in the Post Courier’s online rag, was apparently spectacular and a great crowd pleaser:

The building was under renovation at the time of the fire. You can plainly see the scaffolding.

Here it is getting well and truly under way:

I’m not familiar with Port Moresby (and I can’t say that I’m a big fan either), so I don’t know what we’re looking at in this shot:

A lot of money burning up, I’d say. Rich explained to me on the phone that the firemen did manage to save the bank next to the blazing building, but doesn’t give huge credit for that, since the wind was blowing the other direction quite strongly.

Here is a shot showing the mystery chairs, which were, by all accounts, amazingly fire resistant. Sounds like a handy thing to save your home in case someone spontaneously combusts while napping in front of the tellie:

I recall several huge fires here in Madang. The first that I remember, strangely enough, was the Burns Philp warehouse fire way back when. Then Binnen Bakery burned down, followed soon by the Lutheran Shipping Fibreglass shop. That one was very spectacular. There were 200 litre drums popping like bombs and rocketing many tens of metres into the air trailing orange flames. A terrific show which we could easily watch from our house.

Probably the most well remembered fire in Madang is the old Chemcare shop. Here’s our old buddy Greg O’Keeffe looking a little bewildered as his shop burns to the ground behind him.

The Fire Service makes an easy target, since the equipment is laughable, and the record of success rather thin. I can’t recall a single fire in Madang at which the Fire Service made much impression on the fire. Maybe it’s just my poor memory.

Lest we pick on the poor Fire Service fellows, let’s remember that they are about as effective as any other government operation. Let’s not single them out for abuse. There’s enough to go around to everybody.

It’s time to show a few images out of my big folder of shots that amused me.

If you don’t find this one amusing, then you may as well skip the rest and come back tomorrow. Rich Jones and Mike Wolfe were fooling around snapping Jenn in the reflection of Rich’s extraordinarily funky sunglasses. Only an Englishman would sport eye ware so in-your-face gauche. The glasses are by Cheesy-Mart. The model is sold only in the UK and is aptly named “Ouch, was that a stingray?”

Of course, being the bore who knows all about all things photographic, I had to shoulder in with my boxy-but-safe G-9 and hog the set. The shot turned out the way I wanted, except for one thing. An astute observer will note that there is a physical impossibility in the image. If you click to enlarge, you will note that you can read the “SENIOR OF CIA” warning on my cap. You should not be able to read it nomally. It is a mirror reflection, therefore it should be flipped horizontally and read backwards – “mirror writing”. I fixed this annoyance by flipping the image horizontally in Photoshop. The shot above reminds me of the “Shiny Sunglasses” image that won me a chintzy medal in a photography contest.

The sun was being very coopreative, so Rich got his pasty-white English body out where the deadly rays could do it some good:

There was a big thunderstorm hurtling up the coast. You can see it in the background.

As events were conspiring to change the outing into a camera party, someone said, “Look at the reflection of the boat in the motor.”  Sure enough, the sun was just at the right angle to cause a strong reflection of the entire aft section of Faded Glory in my nearly new Suzuki 140:

At this point I would like to mention that I am not nearly so short and broad as the reflection indicates. It’s a sort of fun-house mirror effect.

On to another time – another day. I was at The Madang Club waiting for the game fishing boats to arrive. We sometimes don’t even notice the screeching sound of the Flying Foxes. I just fades into the background after a few years. The ears become desensitised and it’s no longer annoying. The moon was a hazy blob and the Flying Foxes were stirring around in the sky on their way to raid village gardens of bananas and papayas:

Of course, they also feed in the rainforest. They don’t ravage the gardens. They just eat the best stuff. I can sometimes hear them flapping around at night on my banana trees.

Winding down now, on the same evening I caught this nice image of one of the game fishing boats snuggled in for the night with the setting sun in the background.

Inside, I would lay odds, beer and wine flow like the waters of a mighty river.

Eunie came back from Port Moresby yesterday morning with a present for me from Rich Jones. It’s nice to have friends who know what you like. This, I like:I’ve seen some good sky shots and I’ve taken a few myself, but I’d have to put this in the top ten. Rich, you know your way around a camera.

Rich referred to J. M. W. Turner as the ‘look’. I agree. To prove it, here’s a Turner:
Enough said.

Rich Jones emailed to me a photo that he took at Planet Rock. I don’t often get a chance to see myself underwater. I’m madly chasing a school of barracuda with my camera stuck out in front snapping away. Here it is:

I was thinking about that day and looked back through my own photos to see if I could find one taken at the same time. Luckily, I found one that came out looking okay. Here is what I was seeing as Rich snapped his shot:

The fish are Pickhandle Barracuda (Sphyraena jello). We have previously called it the Chevron Barracuda and the Millitary Seapike, both of these I now think are species different from this one. Who cares? It’s a fun fish to swim with. Despite the reputation of barracudas these are pussycats. On occasions when I can get close enough, I’ve rolled over on my back and reached up to briefly tickle a tummy. They don’t much care for that.

Thanks, Rich, for sending it along. I look forward to being back in Madang on 4 June with my new Cannon G9 and housing.

And don’t send me any more emails about seeing Orcas while I’m here freezing off important parts of my anatomy.