Back in the land of internet

The kids got to be in the water with these guys.

In honor of our first 3G for over a month--pictures! We have just been hanging out with our friends on Field Trip and Rehua, visiting villages, seeing sights, and snorkeling. The coral is healthy and there is and we are seeing a lot of fish that we haven't seen before. We would love a more consistent breeze and fewer flies but overall we can't complain.

Jubilation--dolphins again!

After a long dry spell from dolphins, we saw a couple large pods on our way to Nggatokae Island, including new-to-us Risso's dolphins. We got to swim with a big local pod of dolphins yesterday and today. Now we just need to get over this fishing dry spell.

Nggatokae Island

This is our first blog post via email so hopefully it works.

We have been enjoying the peace and quiet of the anchorage near Peava village. The village has incredible carvers and make enough money from carving and logging. That might be why we have had very few canoes coming by to trade. The kids have been playing with the Field Trip and village kids on the rope swings. Conrad has gotten to use the carving tools he got for Christmas. A couple of local carvers gave him a piece of wood and some carving tips. Matt's leg has finally healed enough to do some diving and snorkeling. There are lots of turtles, sharks, and coral.

Still bobbing around in the Florida Islands

Four catamarans in Tulagi Bay

The heat has twice caused our windlass motor button to spontaneously start (they are triggered by air pressure instead of an electrical switch). It has been when the cover was lifted and the hot Solomon sun blazed down on it. Both times it was the 'down' button (which is good) and we were on board and stopped it by turning off the breaker. Another sign of the heat. And I think we've learned to keep that cover down!

Temporary crew and normal life

Poor man's drone photo: Matt took this shot from the mast
as he checked our tricolor light.

As we were leaving for Honiara, John (the leader of the village near our anchorage in Roderick Bay) asked whether we and our buddy boats could take some kids with us for a school event. We hemmed and hawed to ourselves and weren't thrilled with a number of considerations, not the least of which was the idea of folks we really didn't know being on the boat, even if only for 5 hours.  We ultimately said we could take 10 (our friends on Field Trip said they could take up to 15). We were on the verge of saying no and even 10 seemed like an awful lot, mostly because of safety.

So hot you can fry an egg...

Cooking an egg in the midday sun

It's so hot here...

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.