So hot you can fry an egg...

Cooking an egg in the midday sun

It's so hot here...

Our anchor windlass button heated up in the sun and the windlass spontaneously started. We had to shut off the breaker quickly but by then, the anchor and about 15 feet of chain had dropped into the water (we are on a mooring). Fortunately, it was the down button. We'll keep the anchor locker lid down from now on.

The summit of the local hill. So bright...

Also, we have been having more fun with our water-cooled refrigeration system. Matt cleaned out a bunch of silt from the water in Honiara and also found coral polyps growing in the strainer (along with the usual tiny fish, crabs, and shells).

MS World Explorer wreck.

We had a fun New Year's Eve potluck with the local village and Field Trip. Wishing you all a great New Year!

Winning the Lottery in the Solomons

There is a study that shows that happiness levels for lottery winners decline after they win. Part of the reason is that they start getting bombarded with requests for money from relatives, friends, charitable causes--everyone. They can't give money to everyone and having to saying 'no' creates a feeling of guilt.

For me, being in the Solomon Islands creates the same sort of discomfort. In every anchorage, a regular stream of villagers in dugout canoes paddle out to our boat wanting to trade fruits, vegetables, shells and carvings for things they need. They might want clothing, sugar, tinned meat, soap, or myriad other items. They are desperate to trade and it's clear that they have very little.

Often, they have items that we don't want, such as papaya (it's not our favorite, it ripens quickly and a little goes a long way) or other item that we have too much of already. It's very difficult to turn them away with nothing, so often we trade for things that we might have to throw away because we haven't been able to eat it soon enough. We also don't trade for shells, mostly because we don't want them. Another boat that had previously traded for shells was appalled when villagers began bringing live cowries to them. On the other hand, they don't necessarily have much else to trade.

For us, it is important that we trade rather than give items away. Trading allows villagers to offer something of value in exchange for what they're getting, rather than making them feel like beggars.

There is a language barrier and Solomon Islanders are somewhat shy, so it can be difficult to come to an agreement. We don't always have what they want or know if what we have given is fair in their minds.

We enjoy talking to villagers and many times they do have produce that we want, but on balance it has been hard to get used to being a floating Wal-Mart. At some anchorages, the constant interruption makes it hard to get school or other tasks done.

The anchorages are the villagers' backyard (there are always villages in every anchorage and you aren't allowed to anchor in other locations) and we are coming in with our big, shiny boats that are worth more money than most of them will ever see in their lives. We will keep trying to balance doing what we can to help out (fairly) and keeping our sanity.

A Solomons Christmas

A hand-carved canoe Conrad bought with some of his
Christmas money

This Christmas marks the end of our fourth year on the boat. It is also the first Christmas where the boys didn't get any big, commercial gifts. No Lego or electronic devices. Instead, they got some local wood carvings, shorts that I sewed them, stocking stuffers of candy and small toys that Matt has had forever, and extra time for iPad games. They also got Christmas money from their grandparents and uncle.

My deeply conditioned Christmas capitalist self couldn't stop worrying about the boys' potential disappointment. As it turned out, I didn't have to worry. The boys said it was their best Christmas so far and a big part of it was that they got to be with their friends. How heartwarming and Christmas spirit-y is that?

The Holidays in Roderick Bay

Boat kids watching the dancing

After the stress of being in Honiara, we were ready to be somewhere peaceful for Christmas. We had heard about Roderick Bay from other cruisers and our friend Titus in Ndendo. Although the other islands in the Florida Island group have a reputation for thefts and for charging to anchor, John Roka has made an effort to keep Roderick Bay yacht-friendly. He has free moorings and canoes to patrol the anchorage at night.

 

After a short-ish motor from Honiara, we turned the corner into Roderick Bay and saw a lovely bay as well as the wreck of MS World Discoverer. Our friends on Rehua and Field Trip arrived first and were put on the two available moorings. The other two moorings didn't have lines, so we anchored in about 90 feet of water. After making sure that we wouldn't get too close to shore, we had a relaxing evening in the calm anchorage.

 

We spent some time with the folks from the village. Christmas Eve was spent among friends on Rehua. On Christmas Day, our breakfast was interrupted several times by dugouts wanting to trade. Later, a cruise ship visited the harbor and transported more than 200 people to the beach near the World Discoverer wreck to see some local "kustom dances".

John and his village re-did the show the next evening for us, complete with elaborate costumes and floral arrangements. The music they produced with Pa VC pipe drum set and flip flops was impressive. We ate a dinner of local food and the evening ended with us dancing with the locals- much to their delight and laughter.

Honiara Hell

Honiara, while not as bad as some people had reported, was not a relaxing place. When we arrived in Point Cruz, we had to med-moor (for the first time) to the wall in very tight quarters. Fortunately, our friends on Rehua had arrived earlier that day and Seathan was a big help in getting us situated. Though the population of Honiara is only around 64,000, the city itself was overwhelming in contrast to the small villages we had been frequenting for the last six weeks. There were hordes of people, cars everywhere, and smells of copra and other industry.

We tried to get as much provisioning done as possible before everything closed for the holidays. We were already too late for the chandlery, hardware and some other shops.  We also had to finish the check in process with customs, biosecurity and immigration, finishing what was started back in Lata. We hustled through the check list of things we needed to accomplish, both because we wanted to get it done, but also because we were a bit concerned being away from the boat.  Although some people said that it was safe to leave your boat unattended, others warned that there had been thefts (one local guy said you would get robbed, no question, if the boat was left alone). In reality, Honiara probably carries risks similar to any 'big' city but we were more wary nevertheless.

Near 5 p.m. on the second day, we came back on board after a morning of errands and lunch at the local burger joint. The wind started to pick up and one of the workers from the boat next door motored over to let us know that the 130 foot steel fishing boat on the other side of Rehua had been known to drag anchor in the past. As the squall started to hit and the wind blew harder, all the tightly packed boats around us started to sway. A stern line on one of the boats to the other side of Rehua snapped and its crew struggled to put out another line. The fishing boat that we had been warned about started moving closer to Rehua. Rehua started up its engines to get ready to flee, as did we. When the big boat was within three meters of Rehua, they dropped their stern line and picked up anchor as quickly as possible. We did the same.

We went around the corner, about a mile away. The anchorage was safe, but not very protected. There was a bit of current that kept the boat broadside to the swell that the squall had kicked up. It was very wavy, with unsecured items falling down inside the boat and the waves were hitting us on the side and all over. I actually took seasickness medication for the first time in years. Audrie from Rehua, was still on shore and had to wait at the yacht club several hours until things were calm enough for her to be picked up. Field Trip, which was on a mooring, came over later that evening because the mooring ball was bashing against their boat. They picked up Audrie and dropped her off on Rehua. Everyone had a bumpy night until the seas finally calmed down in the early morning.

Rehua got their dock line the following day and picked up ours as well (the fender they had tied to their line was no longer there). We decided to stay at anchor and dinghy the mile into town. It was challenging to get things accomplished both with continuing squalls as well as a mid-week bank holiday. One day, I dropped Matt and Conrad off at the fishing wharf to do errands. A squall came through that set up a good size swell and made a pick-up untenable, even hours after the squall had passed. Matt found a cooler to temporarily store the frozen meat he was carrying and I dinghied over to Point Cruz to bring our immigration documents, so we could finish that up before we left Honiara.

Lots of villages. No internet.

Port Mary, Santa Ana Island. Our boat became the playground
for the local kids, who were on holiday.

Since we left Luganville almost two months ago, we have been in some of the most remote places that we have cruised to date: The Banks and Torres Islands (Vanuatu) and The Reef Islands (Solomons).  The internet has been even scarcer than usual and, more often than not, nonexistent.  Hence, our failure to update the blog for over two months.

Chief Godfrey at a rock spinning ceremony.
Veutumboso Bay (Vanua Lava, Vanuatu) 

Retrieving a wayward coconut crab.
Hayter Bay (Torres Islands, Vanuatu)

We traded for coconut crab, which we hadn't tried before.

Mark and Sarah with one of our cooked crabs.

Since arriving in the Solomon's,  we have been in the company of not just one, but two other kid boats (Field Trip and Rehua). After checking in at the tiny hamlet of Lata, we decided to head off to the relatively unvisited Reef Islands.  Only one other boat has visited this year and the villagers viewed us as a bit of an oddity, as if the circus had just arrived in town (and with 6 rambunctious kids, it sort of had).  There were no stores here and we were running low on fresh produce when luckily, Matt (along with the guys on the other boats) helped some of the villagers with repairs to their outboards and other engines, which garnered us some gifts in the form of  much-needed produce.

Mohawk Bay, Reef Islands (Solomon Islands)

Fenualoa, Reef Islands (Solomon Islands)

Fixing an engine for some produce was a deal that worked out for both sides, but there was no time for Matt, Mark and Seathan to rest on laurels because word got around that the cruisers were working miracles with engines and sewing machines. Engines and machines started coming out of the woodwork and pretty soon all the cruiser men's time was spent fixing. When we got to the next anchorage, 13 miles away, word had already traveled and the men were working on generators almost as soon as we arrived. 

Halloween. Rowa Islands (The Banks, Vanuatu).

The sailing has been challenging because of the unsettled weather. Wind has been more often than not accompanied by squalls. Our headsail ripped during one trip when the webbing chafed through (Rehua ripped their genoa on the same trip). We were fortunate that Field Trip has a heavy-duty sewing machine and was willing to help us fix it. We owe them a bunch of new needles that snapped under the strain of all the material being sewn together.

We hung around this curious cuttlefish (bigger than a football)
for about 1/2 an hour, until we got cold.

We also experienced our first major earthquake. We awoke at 4:30 a.m. one morning to a heavy rumbling noise while the boat was getting pushed and jerked about. We were sure that the anchor had failed and the boat had gone up on the reef. When we figured out that the boat hadn't changed position, we slowly made out that there had been an earthquake. We found out later that it was a 7.8 magnitude quake that happened about 40 miles away. Fortunately, it was deep enough and had an island between us and the quake that there was no tsunami. A coconut tree or two fell down at the village near us and a couple of buildings in Kirakira collapsed, but no one was injured.

It is miserably hot and humid, especially when it rains and we need to shut the hatches and choke off the little air movement there is. We kind of minimized the warnings we got about the heat and humidity here, but it is the worst we have experienced in our four years on the boat. I'm sure that about half an hour in Chicago's subzero temperatures would make me appreciate the warmth, but right now I am just hot and cranky.  Unfortunately we still need to get even closer to the equator before we get to the Solomon's "main" cruising grounds...

We're greeted by a lot of teeth
reddened by betelnuts.

Conrad helping to grate cassava.

Cubs win!