January 2008

Gizo Yacht Club is nice but sometimes unnerving. Aside from testing their sound system at 6:30 AM at full full, very full blast, after we paid our temporary membership (required to use showers, dump garbage etc.) we dicovered that due to carelessness and mismanagement the water was out more often than not. Complaints were taken in only to see the same happening next weekend. Not much for xmas and new year's eve, just a dinner at Gizo Hotel and a potluck lunch with the other yachts at GYC, which stayed smartly closed during the whole festivities except for late night loud music and general drunkedness.

The town isn't at all unpleasant, with the market staying open late in the night. We also got boarded twice at night by wannabe thieves who manage to skiff off on their canoes before I could get my hands on them. Solomons therefore gets quite a 'mixed review' here...nice but with many many 'but' (oh our lovely Fiji, so lovely even during a military coup!).
The cockpit all spruced up, we jerrycan poll with Hamamas to fill tanks fast, full water and full provisioning all we have to do is wait for Cecilia to show up and go. She does, the day before our visas run out. She has one and a half day to get comfy with the boat, take a look around town, help us chase the officials down (too busy sitting in the market, chewing betel nut and telling sea stories, we're told). When we bring hem to reason and get all our papers done time to leave for Micronesia, at last, one year late, has come. Me and two girls, 970 miles to go.
Morning after we are all ready for the first hop to Vella Lavella. Smartly, the windlass refuses to work, therefore we haul ground tackle by hand and have a nice start all sweaty and greasy. We take the north passage out of the lagoon, and after a little motoring, we're out. Sadly the motoring continues all day as Solomons never gave us any wind at all (except once). By late afternoon we enter Vongo Bay, on the NE side. Hamamas being faster gets in first, and scrapes the keel on an uncharted rock, it's lead, so just a scratch. We follow unscathed and anchor in a marshy but sheltered cove. We all have dinner on Keturah, as I caught a hefty barracuda on the way...that also gives us time to plan for the following day.
Thursday January 10this another beautifully flat day...we motor towards Choiseul Bay, our last stop in Solomons. We manage to raise some sails while motoring, that giving us that extra knot to keep up with faster Hamamas, so we get there almost simultaneously (we also took a less roundabout way). The bay is quite stunning, being almost completely a white sand bottom, a pleasant village on Taro Island has some homes on stilts in the water. Thirsty we go ashore and mamage to drink some lukewarm beers in company with the local cop and some of his friends. We also gather infos on diesel purchase, fresh water and other details. We are told of the waterfall inland, a must see. On Sunday it doesn't take long to find bored locals wanting to show us around the place, and for only the price of outboard fuel we are more than happy and grateful to go along. First ride is between Taro and Sipozae islands. The two islands form a breath-taking lagoon with more white sand bottom and crystal clear turquoise water (photos on flickr). I get the guys to drop me off at the edge of the inner reef...I'll snorkle on the outer reef and meet them at the sand dune south of Taro.

The outer reef isn't very alive (fishwise), so I hurry to the sandbar where Michela is busy digging for clams with the rasta guy, while Cecilia snorkels about. Once the clams were sufficient and we got quite baked in the white midday glare, we head off for the waterfall. We pick up our friends Tom and Fran, and the lauch speed off by Mbochombochoro Island then enter a thick mangrove swamp infesterd with salt water crocs. A few miles inland we finally reach a majestic waterfall. The water comes straight off the jungle and I even drink it it's so pure. There are also rock overhangs under which to slide undr a wall of water. It's cool and shaded...our last "bath" before the crossing.

Going back downrive we're all cheery and refreshed by the great day...one of those that make it all worthwhile (the expenses, the constant maintenance performed in impossible temperatures and postures, the frustration of something always malfunctioning and of the wankers on email who think they should have it all for free etc.).
Back to the boats we invite again Hamams over for dinner, since we have plenty of small clams (telline) for a big pasta. As usual they bring cold white wine, which we can't get out of a sandbar!
Monday is refuelling day, geting ready to depart on Thursday.
We start the crossing together, able to sail at last. As soon as we are too far out to turn back my jib shreds in a series of squalls that will plague the whole trip. Soon we are forced to motor again, while in discordance with forecasts (are they ever right?) we get waves and wind right on the nose. I begin to stitch the jib up, but while going like that it's quite hopeless. We decide to stop at Nuugurigia (a.k.a. Tauu, PNG Mortlocks), about 120 miles NNE of Choiseul. We limp for two days and a half, motoring mostly, or sailing on main and yankee. Already quite beaten by the uninterrupted squalls, we enter Tauu, and head for the only village to make sure we pay respect to the chiefs and all. Little did we know that the whole island is in the midst of some festivity, and nearly everyone is beserk-drunk on palm liquor. We are boarded en-masse by what we thought were well-meaners tryng to get us to a good spot to anchor...instead we are swamped by drunken bored horny youths of large muscular capacity...I am one lone white guy with two young, white, fairly attractive girls...
Luckily, a guy acting as a 'leader', educated on the mainland, manages to keep everyone in check...it works while he's there, but it could turn very ugly any time. I must part with plenty cigarettes to keep eveyone happy, they try to get me drunk on their wine, but I can tolerate quite a bit without showing effects. After lots of "we're really tired, please, we'll see you all tomorrow" etc. the lader manages to get them all to leave, and we're finally alone, aside from the local cargo boat that's been stuck at the island due to...."too much bad weather out there!"...thanks.
We have a little wash, almost get down to dinner when...another canoe approaches. We try to explain once more...they guy boards without permission and start shouting things like: "I must stay on your boat tonight", "I must have dinner with you", "I want cigarettes want want", "This is MY Island!", "You MUST give ME...", "I AM son of a chief! You do NOT respect me! You must give me...!". This soon turns into a shouting match, as the guy has already broken every rule of conduct; and tiredness and fatigue makes me very short fused. I also fear for the girls, who are themselves quite nervous at the whole affair...the guy is obviously out of his mind. We scream for help from the cargo boat, which does nothing until I manage to shove the guy overboard. That shut him up alright.
Not a good sleep later we are very keen on getting as far away from the village as possible, and so we do, by rigging a new battery the windlass wakes up...and we move to the much nicer, much more sheltered and actually gorgeous "reserve" island -Nukerekia- at the other end of the atoll (which is roughly 8 miles in diameter). The island is packed with birds, and a long white sand arch creates a perfect anchorage. The wind is blowing very hard, squall after squall, but at least we're not out there anymore!
After getting some proper rest, sail tape, needles, palm, and waxed thread are out and off we stitch away for a whole week. In the meantime we enjoy our first deserted atoll scenario, keeping an eye toward the other end to see if a punishment squad is on the way...since I might hav offended the son of a chief!
Instead the cargo boat comes along to shelter, and we get good visitors now, very nice guys from the island working the boat and/or studying in Rabaul or Port Moresby. We gladly keep some of them over for luch, which is repaid to us by gift of boobie's eggs, which aren't that bad. We are informed that the whole village was very sorry about the whole thing (they all lost a chance to trade and bum a lot of stuff), and the guy, who was not son of anybody important, was thoroughly belted as punishment. I was told that I should have punched him the second he boarded without permission. Even "savages" then, know the basic rules of the sea! A week of painstaking stitching goes by, weather seems to have calmed down, and we're ready to go. It's a good sail on the lee side of the island, about three hundred miles to the next possible landfall, Kapingamarangi, about four hundred or more to the next, Nukuoro. As the afternoon goes on, we relax, and so the squalls resume. Before nightfall the jib is shredded, again, this time beyond repair. I curse heavily, it's kind of a disaster! The jib was way too baked to whidstand another crossing, I guess. The day after I manage to dig out some old hank-ons stowed away and forgotten in a deep locker. Having the darned furler on, I must rig a wire halyard as stay for the hanks and hope for the best. I put on a light winds Genoa, the weather is nasty, but not too much wind...it lasts about 36 hours, then it too breaks. Last resource I have a n. 1 jib, I rig that plus the yankee and that will be it as foresails until Chuuk. We pass the doldrums that at this time of the year are quite narrow and sitting low. They are narrow but anything but calm! In this area they are a strip of constant squalls and thunderstorms, lightning, swell, the works. We motor on autopilot, me with a night shift that seems intent of scaring the beejesus out of me. Luckily no lighning strikes us, the engine holds nobly and we pass them...back to regular non-doldrum squalls! Yippee!
A combination of limited canvas choice, wind direction and at times plain disgust at our bad luck makes us miss Kapingamarangi, then we decide not too alter course for Nukuoro, too much trouble; we want to get safe once and for all. So we take it all, until 750 miles from Choiseul, we declare it good enough (we are utterly wasted energy-wise), and stop at Satawal in the Micronesian Mortlocks.