Boang to Tabar to Kavieng

Canoe race in Takuu

After Boang, we spent a few days in Tabar. The villagers were very welcoming but were somewhat used to yachts coming and bringing lots of goods.

A big yellowfin (Matt's straining under the weight)

After engaging in some trading for very welcome grapefruit, the 'askems' started snowballing. It started as some lopsided trading (the villagers got lots of much-needed and relatively pricey clothing and we got lots of inexpensive produce--mostly cheap and plentiful sweet potatoes) and ended up with outright requests for just about anything they could think of, including cigarettes and whiskey. At a delicious celebration feast/potluck, which featured music and dancing, we were somewhat inundated with requests which sort of left a bad taste in our mouths. It's hard to tell whether we are helping or not by visiting these places and participating in/ donating to the economy.

Canoe biter in Nuguria

Traditional clothing during the Takuu Book Week Celebration

Currently, we are in Kavieng. The resort we are anchored off of is relaxed and welcoming and has all manner of birds (talking and non-talking) running about the grounds. The kids are very impressed with the avian life. We may be here awhile as we wait for a new anchor chain (our old chain has badly rusted in less than half the lifespan of better quality links). In the meantime, we are enjoying a bit of civilization. Now that we have Internet, we can show you some of the pictures we have been taking in Papua New Guinea.

A fun tree in Nuguria

Fish smoking in Boang (Tanga Islands)

A pet lorikeet in Boang.  This picture is also notable for the fact that
both kids are actually wearing pants.

Giant clam--the diving has been good in PNG.

Dancing in Tabar.

Takuu to Nuguria to Boang

Our friends on Field Trip have a knack for making connections at the villages. Sarah, an elementary teacher in her former life, visits the schools and offers help. Mark on Field Trip usually offers assistance to fix whatever needs fixing. We were lucky to piggyback on their efforts in Takuu and Nuguria. Both of these islands have been extremely welcoming and generous. At Takuu, we were the honored guests during a "Book Week" celebration where the whole village turned out to watch the school children perform modern and traditional dances and stories. In Nuguria, Conrad and Mark enjoyed helping to give a joint presentation about American culture and our boat travels to the whole school. We were inundated with gifts of lap laps (the local version of a sarong), necklaces, food, and other local items. We made new friends and got a deeper connection than we normally do when spending just a few days at a place. Both places are more Polynesian in culture and are part of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.

Leaving Nuguria, we used a period of favorable wind to head east to the Tanga Islands. Our short overnight trip to Boang netted us a 50-lb wahoo and 60-lb yellowfin tuna. We broke our streak of Solomons doldrum fishing and actually landed both fish (and without losing a gaff!). Matt struggled a bit to fillet the fish because they were too long to fit on the transom. Boang is a more traditional Papua New Guinea Melanasian village. The villagers have been very welcoming but they don't get many cruisers that visit (only 1 boat in the last 20 years or so), so we have had a lot of canoes that want to just hang out around the boat. With no television and no Internet, we're apparently the most interesting show around for the moment. We chat with them as well as our limited Pigin and their limited English allows, but eventually we leave them to go do other things. This doesn't deter them and they simply continue to hang out around the new 'water cooler' in the area (a place to meet and chat).

Solomons to Takuu

After almost nine months of motoring through the Solomons (the longest we have been in any country while on the boat, by the way), we finally got our parts installed, made the last minute dash to the market to buy as much produce and fruit as we could store, checked out and headed for Takuu. We saw every kind of sailing, from perfect beam reaching through flat seas, to downwind in heavy seas, and upwind into waves and rain galore (to say the forecast was a bit off may be a bit of an understatement). We made some rookie mistakes: Mark's hatch wasn't all the way closed so his mattress was soaked with sea water--first time we have had that happen in 4-1/2 years of sailing. Conrad tossed his cookies inside the cabin and didn't make it to a bucket right away. We also lost a lure to something huge that about ripped the bungee cord in half, let alone snapping the 150 lb test line like it was nothing. Ripe bananas from the humongous stalk that Matt couldn't refuse (less than $3 US) started plopping down as the boat moved from side to side (a la the Pacific crossing), so it's lots of banana bread for the next while.

Takuu (Mortlock) is an atoll that is technically part of the Bougainville Independent government (which is itself nominally part of Papua New Guinea), though they get almost zero and are basically left to themselves. The inhabited islands are only a meter above the sea, so rising sea levels are a real concern facing the 200-300 residents and during very high tides some of the houses get inundated. The government wants the islanders to relocate, but many are reluctant to leave their home to move to a place with a different culture (Takuu is Polynesian in origin, while the rest of Papua New Guinea is Melanesian) and way of life. Our friends on Field Trip have been here for over a week and have making friends and fixing boats. We are enjoying the nice calm anchorage while we dry out Mark's bedding. Conrad turned 11 today (Matt made donuts to celebrate) and is itching to try out the new camera his grandparents got him.

Chillin' in the heat yo

Rescuing gobi fish

We had a fully sunny day for the first time in almost a week and we spent it exploring Rokana Nomana Island, near Lola Island.

The kids explored the huge low tide area and rescued stranded gobi fish. They walked around the island and reported seeing a yellow-spotted monitor lizard stealing some bird eggs. Matt and I (mostly Matt) caught a bucket full of mantis shrimp, with about a 50% success rate for each hole located. Mark and Conrad (with cries of "It's just a baby!" ) wanted us to let the smallest ones go.  Not gonna happen, the shrimp were way too hard-earned for that. Not to mention delicious. Especially the tender babies...

The next day we took the dinghy to Noro to stock up on fresh produce as we've managed to deplete it all hanging around Lola. Not sure if it's because of the resort, but no one comes up in canoes here to trade/sell produce. We almost didn't go as we hope to be back in Noro in a few days anyway to check out, but decided that the kids need a vegetable or two in the meantime, despite the clear nutritional value of shrimp, squid, and the Muzi Boko brownie mix. On the way back, we caught a decent-sized kingfish. It almost made up for the 5-footer that escaped with the lure a couple days back.

We're still in a holding pattern waiting for the last of the parts for the furler.  Fortunately, our contact at Wichard/Pro-Furl was very responsive and we should have the missing parts we need by early next week, dependent on Customs and the vagaries of  'Solomon Time'.

Many days Conrad takes hundreds of pictures.
A few of them are not bugs even.

 

Adventures in wildlife

Grainy footage of black-tip reef shark

Zipolo Habu Resort's sweet spot is fishing and their skilled guides know where to find them. Most days end with the clients' catch being cleaned and the scraps being tossed to the abundant black-tip reef sharks that frequent the beach. The following shots show some of the action. The pictures are a bit grainy because the sharks and fish kick up a lot of silt, plus they are just screen captures from an older Go Pro unit.  Oh, you want 4k clarity?  Go watch the National Geographic channel.  We also don't have David Attenborough on retainer, in case you were wondering.  

Tommy, one of the kids staying at the resort, was kayaking in the shallow water near the feeding sharks with a string of bait trailing behind him from a rope wrapped around his waist. As the swarm of sharks around his kayak got more and more excited, one grabbed his line and jumped right next to the kayak. Tommy's expression suddenly changed from 'this is so cool' to abject terror. The shark was pulling Tommy's kayak backward so strongly that he couldn't paddle away. He quickly undid the rope of bait and paddled back to shore, none the worse for wear.

 

 

You talkin' to me?





 

This fellow was about 8' long

We got our furler part. We were so excited! Unfortunately it didn't include everything we need so we need to sort that out. Sigh. My parents had also sent a package with all kinds of goodies that we ordered. It's like Christmas in July. So we have that to entertain us.

Red sky at night

More of the waiting-in-paradise game

Tuna in the can...

The good news is that our roller furler finally arrived at the rigger in Australia. Woohoo!

Unfortunately, once the rigger opened up the furler, he found a lot of corrosion and couldn't just replace the bearings. Which means the furler was toast. Our fantastic contact at ProFurl/ Wichard in Australia helped us locate a new unit that didn't dent the pocketbook too much (but it did leave a mark!) and would work with the rest of the system. It's currently en route from Oz.  Now, we play more of the postal waiting game even though we've already had our fill.

...and out.

All in all, we're in a pretty good place to wait. The 'dry' season isn't too dry so our water tanks are full but our solar is performing poorly, so our generator is getting a healthy workout. The cooler weather and water and breeze makes for better sleeping weather. We have made friends and been able to slow down and explore more.

Safety first. Putting on labels.



 

 

 
 

 
We finally got our tour of the SolTuna factory, which was fascinating for all of us. I thought it might put the kids off tuna but instead it made them like it even more.



The tasting. Everyone's new favorite was Spicy Tuna Delight.

We're back at Lola for a bit, hanging out with friends old and new and killing some time jigging for tasty mantis shrimp.

These weird-looking dudes are as long as your hand.

Offerings of the Solomons, good and bad

Stuart was nice enough to let Matt tag along on one of
his fishing trips. Blue fin trevally.

We have now been in the Solomon Islands for over seven months. For most of our stay, we have barely seen any other cruising boats except for the one (and sometimes two) we travelled with. As the season comes to an end, more boats have been popping up for short stays in the islands here but we are still mostly on our own. That's why yesterday was unusual.

Long tailed snapper. They live at about 900 feet below the
surface so if you reel them up too quickly, their eyes pop out.

Matt was out on an all-day fishing trip on Stuart's tricked out fishing boat. In the morning, I answered a distress call from a boat that had recently checked in. It was stuck on a reef a few miles from our anchorage. Since I was alone with the boys, I dinghied around to inform the other cruising boats and Joe, the owner at Zipolo Habu resort of the situation.  The 2 other boats in the anchorage went over to see if they could help, but there was nothing much they could do except lend some moral support and wait for Mother Nature to bring the tide back.  Luckily the lagoon was dead flat and there were no waves to bash the boat around.  The boat waited about nine hours for the tide to come up that evening and then were able to float themselves off.



The tips of black tip reef sharks feeding on the fish guts

Later that afternoon, another recent arrival to the Solomons (just the evening before) called to ask whether they were on the right track for coming into the anchorage. Unfortunately, a local (who probably only had experience with the shallow draft long boats in use here) had given them some bad directions.  They were in the middle of a very shallow area with shallow coral heads strewn about. Most boats take a longer route, skirting the shallows. Fortunately, they were able to pick their way through slowly and safely to the anchorage. And then, to prove all things come in threes, the following day, Matt got on the radio to warn another boat that was also getting into similar dangerous territory.

The resort that we've been anchored near (Zipolo Habu) is really a fishing lodge at heart, and it attracts anglers keen on catching both the inshore and pelagic species that abound in the area (but have mostly been eluding us).  One of the benefits of all the anglers is a good supply of fresh fish.  Matt made sushi for everyone at the resort with fish donated by Chris (another resort guest) and Stuart. It was definitely the most sushi he has ever made (more than 30 rolls) and every last piece was eaten.  Matt was also lucky enough to be invited to join Stuart on one of his marathon all day fishing trips.  He caught a couple of good sized fish, so we have a decent supply in our newly rewired freezer (which seems to be behaving for now).

A big orb weaver. I had no idea of the variety of these little guys
until Conrad started taking these pictures.

Of course, just because the freezer seems to be working, it doesn't mean the repair fun has stopped.  Right after we started to breathe easy about the freezer, the generator decided to start spewing sea water out of the coolant reservoir. Without getting too technical, we can assure you that this is A Bad Thing. Ultimately we figured out that the stainless steel mesh in the raw water strainer had corroded, allowing sea grass and other contaminants to plug up the heat exchanger. The plugged up heat exchanger blocked the flow of  sea water, which had to go somewhere, and ended up bypassing the hose clamps that would otherwise seal the sea water from the coolant system.  After flushing and refilling the coolant, Matt fashioned a new strainer using no-see-um netting and we have a new (non-metallic!) one on order to be added to the boat load of items that my parents are shipping to us.

Within the next couple days we will head back to Munda to provision up and pick up our frozen goods from Muzi Boko. Then we plan to head out to some good diving spots while we wait for our various packages.