Commodore
July 27, 2025

Monday 28 January – making our way to Guadacanal Island, full of WW2 history

We got going early as we knew we had a full day ahead and not much wind. In fact the wind never got above 10 knots so we motored the entire way. We are slightly reassured as we know we can refuel further along the islands before we head to PNG. We briefly got Ginger up, but as soon as we did the wind dropped again to 3 knots. It was a long steamy passage. We got to our destination around 4pm.

Rowan had worked out the easiest anchorage was to go into Conflict Bay, just inside the reef of Marau Sound. As charts are not that reliable here and the Sound is tricky navigation through the reefs, we wanted an easy anchorage at the entrance that we could do in good light. Rowan had managed to contact Elijah who owns a Homestay here, he confirmed it was a well protected and sandy bottomed anchorage, easy to get to and as a bonus he does good food. We got into the bay which was disappointingly murky, but we got a good holding on the anchor. It was so hot on board, we were wilting, so as soon as we were ready we went in to see Elijah. There was a great jetty for tying up to, a very quaint place, but typically looks run down. Elijah junior met us, we said we would just sit on the beach until supper. We asked for a cold beer, while we had a little look around. A lovely garden, must have been a fun place to stay but looks very empty. We were presented with two coconuts, they have no beer or drinks, just water. The coconuts were very welcome. Just after 5pm a banana boat arrived with Elijah and some construction poles. He has been chopping them down in the forest further along the island, for repairs to his buildings.

Once again the older generation have such eloquent English, while his son spoke a lot less. Poor Elijah apologised for not being here to greet us, he also said because of the late notice of our booking, he couldn’t provide the lobster feast he normally produces . He said his chef had prepared reef fish for us, which we gulped at, but he assured us they all eat it and nobody gets poisoned by ciguatera! We had a long chat with Elijah while the food was prepared. He was very interesting and well read, sadly for him tourism has died as they closed the airport down because the two landowners could not agree on payments. It has killed tourism to the area, including closing down the only posh resort on a nearby island, which was where Prince William and Kate stayed in 2012. So sad as the resort has been plundered and will take a lot of money to repair, and no visitors while there is no airport, there is no road here. All the locals who were employed are out of jobs, there is no other work out here. We are only the 6th boat passing through his bay this year.

We asked him if the name Conflict bay was from WW2, he said it was from the 1800’s when the Australians came Black Birding, sounded horrific, the boats came into this sheltered bay and captured locals making them slaves. He sadly said the Solomon government is totally corrupt only two honest politicians amongst the lot. He was also very anti the Chinese, he says they have poured in and treat the locals terribly, likening it to apartheid (I was surprised he knew the word). He does not think the Chinese are giving anything back to the economy, the country is in debt to them with huge loans, which they have no way of repaying especially with all the corruption. So very sad. They will have to repay with fishing and mineral rights.

We had a lovely table out on the jetty, very magical, it was a huge bowl of reef fish and white rice. I felt bad as it was way too much for me, I could only manage about a quarter but Rowan manfully ate all his fish! Lets hope he isn’t feeling a little strange later on. We left very quickly as we had a birthday call booked in with Luke, he and Milly have the week off, and are staying with Han overnight, who just arrived back from Sri Lanka yesterday. They are going out to dinner tonight to celebrate his birthday and Han’s engagement. It sounded great fun. Luke and Milly are spending the rest of the week in Wales doing lots of walking, which sounds great.