Commodore
August 18, 2025

Tuesday 19 August – Checking out of the Solomon Islands

In the morning we headed into town to do provisioning. We have been in a big dilemma as to where to check into PNG, as there are certain areas that are pretty lawless. Buka is on the extreme end of an island with a terrible reputation. Just yesterday we heard from a yacht that most probably was the last yacht to check in there about 4 days ago, they had a pretty awful time, they are on a tiny boat and have two young kids on board. They were messed about at Buka by the officials, they had to move anchorage in the dark with a huge current (some people say up to 8 knots) as they were told it was to dangerous to remain where they were. Rowan has put out messages and a few people have had ok experiences. We could check in at a reasonable place much further up the chain of islands, which had been our initial plan. But there are a couple of magical islands along the way we want to visit. A few people just visit without checking in, but there seems to be a bit of a crack down recently, Australia and NZ have been active in trying to stop drug smuggling, so the Belgian Luc said it is best not to chance it, but suggested we email the authorities and ask if it is alright to stop. Rowan did this and the response was we had to get permission at Buka. So we’ve decided to brave checking in at Buka, otherwise to visit the islands we have to backtrack into the wind, never pleasant. We plan to get into Buka early morning so we don’t have to overnight there, it is a two night passage. Basically we wont be able to get much in the way of provisions for another two weeks at least, so we need a good stock up.

We first tried to visit the port to confirm that the dock was free for us to use tomorrow morning as our fuel is booked for 9:30am. When we got to the dock, there was an enormous ferry in, heaving with people and taking up the entire dock, we were never going to find the port official with all the commotion so we went back to the Market jetty. We dropped off our dinghy petrol tanks at a waterfront petrol station which was interesting, plenty of them as there are many more boats on the water than there are cars on the road. Our first stop was to stock up on supplies to hand out as presents to local villages, plenty of rice and tinned foods, books and pens for kids, soap and knives for the ladies, plus lots of biscuits! We prefer handing out biscuits to the kids than sweets. Oh my we have seen some very young kids, maybe around 3 years old with red teeth from beetle nut, so incredibly sad. Then back to the market which had loads of good fresh veg and fruit. My big success was finding passion fruit, it lasts so well and is a treat in our fruit salads. Got lots of snake beans and aubergines, plus various kinds of bok choy. Rowan in the meantime had to go to the one and only atm, as we have to pay for our fuel tomorrow in cash, we will be needing about 500 litres.

Back to the boat to unpack and cool down, it is absolutely sweltering with no breeze to take the edge off the heat. In the afternoon, Claudette came into town with us to check out. First to Immigration, who were upstairs above our Chinese restaurant. Two lovely ladies working there with such good english, just delightful to deal with. It is the usual endless form filling, photocopying, stamping passports and endless bits of paper that we then had to take to customs. Customs was about a 10 minute walk away, in a brand spanking fancy new building that they moved into a week ago, with aircon and amazing big conference tables and furniture. A stark contrast to Immigration. Only Martha was in at customs, everybody else was sick, once again she was delightful. She was very curious to know about the plane that circled over us 3 times in the Marovo lagoon. More form filling and stamping and we were done.

Back to PolePole and an early night as we have two long days ahead of us.