Sideia Island

Sideia Island is an island in the Louisiade Archipelago in Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea.

Sideia Island
Nickname: St. Bonaventure Island
Sideia Island
Geography
LocationOceania
Coordinates10°35′19″S 150°52′55″E[1]
ArchipelagoLouisiade Archipelago
Adjacent bodies of waterSolomon Sea
Total islands1
Major islands
  • Sideia
Area101.3 km2 (39.1 sq mi)
Length13.5 km (8.39 mi)
Width15.5 km (9.63 mi)
Coastline150 km (93 mi)
Highest elevation377 m (1,237 ft)
Highest pointMount Kipoki
Administration
Province Milne Bay
Island GroupSamarai Islands
Island GroupSideia Islands
Wardsplit
Largest settlementSideia (pop. 400)
Demographics
Population1890 (2014)
Pop. density18.66/km2 (48.33/sq mi)
Ethnic groupsPapauans, Austronesians, Melanesians.
Additional information
Time zone
ISO codePG-MBA
Official websitewww.ncdc.gov.pg

Administration

The island is part of the following Wards:

  • Sauasauaga, on the southwest cape. (This Ward is mostly on Sariba)
  • Gotai, on the southeast area (with Populai Island)
  • Sekuku, on the central area (with Dinana Island)
  • Tegerauna, on the northeast area.
  • Sideia, on the northwest area.

All Wards belong to Bwanabwana Rural Local Level Government Area LLG, Samarai-Murua District, which are in Milne Bay Province.[2]

History

Sideia Island was sighted by Europeans when the Spanish expedition of Luís Vaez de Torres arrived on 18 July 1606.[3] Their ship, San Pedro anchored at Oba Bay in the south west, that they then named Puerto San Francisco. It was later renamed as Puerto Lerma after the 1st Duke of Lerma. Torres named the island St. Bonaventure.

The mission in that island was established on April 22, 1932 by the Australian Province of the French Congregation Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC). By 1942, it was fully developed and became the base for other missions in the nearby islands. Many facilities were set up to provide education, medical assistance and ways of living to the native of the area.[4]

Geography

Sideia is located East of the end of New Guinea mainland. Its area is 101.3 km². The island is part of the Sideia group, itself a part of Samarai Islands of the Louisiade Archipelago. It is located between Sariba Island and Basilaki Island. The island of Sideia is quite near Alotau and can be reached in less than three hours by motor boat.

Demographics

The population of 1890 is living in 30 villages across the island. The most important one, and where the dock is located, is Sideia. The other villages: Lamoasi, Mwalotakilili, Dumalawe, Paka, Gugui, Gadogadowa, Oba, Memeali, Kunubala, Gabutau, Makabweabweau, Nasauwai, Tabuara, Liliki, Kalu, Gotai, Wanahaua, Sekuku, Waiyau, Goteia, Kaula, Kubi, Boikalakalawa, Namoa, Dulaona, Balagatete, Tegerauna [5]

Economy

The islanders, are farmers as opposed to eastern Louisiade Archipelago islanders. they grow Sago, Taro, and Yams for crops.[6]

Transportation

There is a dock at Sideia.

Flora and fauna

The following mammals are on the island:

The following fish are near the island:[7]

gollark: Oh, those work fine, sure.
gollark: There was also a project for patching firmware for the built-in WiFi chipset of said other thing to allow monitor mode stuff. Unfortunately, this shipped with its own several year outdated gcc binaries and plugin for incomprehensible reasons?
gollark: Then, I just gave up and compiled it on my other thing with an older kernel, where it eventually worked.
gollark: I decided to look at the code in more detail. This was a mistake. It contained thousands of lines with minimally useful comments, for some reason its own implementation of hash tables (this is very C, I suppose), and apparently its own implementation of WiFi mesh things even though that should really be handled generically for any device.
gollark: After I was able to work through git's terrible CLI enough to make that work, and "fixed" some merge conflicts, it somehow compiled still, but upon plugging in the thing, hung things again. I had dmesg open, and apparently it was a page fault somehow in the code assigning names or something?

References
  1. Prostar Sailing Directions 2004 New Guinea Enroute, p. 168
  2. LLG map Archived 2010-08-11 at the Wayback Machine
  3. Hilder, Brett The voyage of Torres, Brisbane, 1980, pp.26,27
  4. Sideia History
  5. map
  6. Sideia info
  7. Sideia Research of fish
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