Saturday 26 July – day hops up the chain of Solomon Islands

The plan is to make our way slowly up the chain of islands until we get to the capital Honiara. We can do this in day hops of sailing. We set off early this morning with very little wind, we had 60 miles to cover which would take us most of the day in light winds, so we needed to get moving. Rowan decided to get our other new sail out, which I had forgotten all about! This was given to us as a replacement for our enormous parasail which had come apart at the seams. This is a lot smaller, the makers really were not happy about making it this small, but with our success with Baby Spice, Rowan insisted on a smaller one. It really was the right decision, Rowan and I can manage it no problem, it’s not going to move us fast, but in light winds it keeps us moving. We started off with about 8 knots of wind and the red Parasail (Ginger Spice) was pulling us along at around 4 knots. As soon as we got up to 10 knots of wind speed we were doing a good 6 knots of boat speed. We had about 12 knots of wind the majority of the way, so it was a lovely comfy gentle sail not far from a big island. The only problem was squalls which made us hurriedly pull Ginger down inside her sock, a couple of times.

We finally got to the anchorage that Rowan wanted to go to, he had a waypoint to a boat’s anchor spot, but the warning was it was a deep bay with not much shallower water before getting to coral. We tried looking for a sandy patch in clear waters but could find nothing, the wind had picked up and in the evening light it was difficult to see much in the deep water. We knew the charts were not very accurate, and in the end we gave up, it just looked too risky. Very disappointing as it looked an interesting bay.

The next anchorage was just under 10 miles away, so we could make it just before dark, we knew a boat that was currently there, so Rowan could get good info on where to anchor. The wind had picked up and was now over 20 knots, we got the main sail up and had a quick sail across to the other island. We got into the bay, late afternoon with plenty of light and a very easy anchorage, lots of space and good sandy holding. The American boat Alma Feroz who checked in with us at Lata were there. They head off first thing tomorrow morning. A very rusty old red boat was in the anchorage too, with a salty sea dog on board, looks like a solo live aboard. We had some heavy rain but turned out to be a calm night, really hot with no wind.

Ginger Spice our new smaller parasail (still 160 square meters!)

The clouds from a squall chasing us from behind

The lovely bay we never managed to anchor in

Huge fire on the island, look at all the reef around us, and not properly charted!

We finally got to our island Uri, rainbows and rain everywhere on the big island

Clouds over the big island

Our bay had gorgeous evening sunshine, it wasn’t long before the kids were out to greet us in their canoes. This lot were so polite, Rowan didn’t have to give them any guidance in manners!

Three brothers, they deserved their chocolate biscuits