Commodore
August 6, 2025

Thursday 7 August – day sail to the Russell Islands

Rowan was up and engines on by 6am, very sweetly there was a farewell wave from Chief John and various members of the family. It was very calm in the bay where we found that Lella had left before us, they are also heading to the Russell islands. We got out the bay and the with was below 10 knots so we had our new parasail up, we were averaging between 4 and 5 knots speed. Just as well we left early. Luckily by mid morning the wind picked up a bit, we spotted a squall and decided to get the parasail down and get the main sail up. The wind had picked up to mid teens, we turned into the wind to get the main sail up and wondered why it was straining, Rowan went us to the mast and discovered the winch handle up there had got caught and in that short time had stripped about 10cms off the outer layer of the main halyard (the essential rope for getting the main sail up). Ugh what a horror ! The halyard is pretty new and these ultra technical ropes cost a fortune! Luckily we have a spare somewhere. In the meantime Rowan did some good tight binding which did the trick, it got a bit stuck going through the clutch but at least the sail was up and the damaged area is very accessible and not an area of great strain. Not up to the top of the mast or any where difficult.

The good news was the wind really picked up to low 20s and we were whizzing along at 10knts which reduced our passage time from 5 hours to just over 2 hours. We arrived into the Russell Islands, which looked amazing in the afternoon sun, but a good wind was blowing. We had planned to anchor where the boat Profasea was anchored but it looked rather exposed to the wind. Rowan had seen a mooring ball near a recommended Dive site, and discovered the ball belonged to a dive company in Honiara, he contacted them and they said we could use their ball. We decided to go there as it looked a bit more sheltered. We found it easily at about 4pm, but getting on was another thing in this wind. We could not see the leash on our various passes so decided to pick it up from the back of the boat. That too was proving difficult. We spotted a guy paddling in his canoe some way in front of us, so we beckoned him to come and help us. He did not look that willing and it took a bit of persuading to get him over. Then I had to try and explain what we wanted him to do. His leaky canoe had to be continuously baled out. He finally got the rope but tied it onto the wrong thing as it was all a bit too bouncy with him careering into the hull. With that he fell overboard and his canoe was full of water. It was all turning into a nightmare, his flip flops and seat were floating away and he couldn’t get the water out the canoe, meantime he had a tied a knot onto the ball, rather than threading our rope through the loop on the leash. As it was getting really fraught a young lad canoed out from the village in front of us to help and promptly capsized too. At that point, Rowan jumped in from the front of the boat with all his clothes on, to thread yet another rope through the leash. It turned out that the the leash was a huge thick rope that is so heavy that it sinks, Rowan had to dive down to find the loop in the leash and finally got the ropes threaded through it. Meanwhile the first guy has got back into his canoe which was half filled with water and was baling out water like crazy. The young guy then explains that the other guy can’t talk, he is mute, they say dumb! No wonder he didn’t answer any of my questions! The young lad also got safely back into his canoe after rescuing his flip flops and paddle. Rowan was back on the boat and we were trying to undo the knot the guy had tied onto the ball, somehow in the process Rowan managed to pull out our second line. We always have two ropes, one from each hull to balance the boat. Rowan had to get back in the water, I was so worried about the two guys, Rowan was shouting at me to hurry up as there are salt water crocs …….that galvanised me! Luckily he just said it to get me focused on bringing the boat forward to release some tension on the ropes. The salt water crocs lurk around mangrove swamps and not here on the reef….supposedly! We managed to tell the two guys we had some presents for them and piled up some food and clothes for them, which they seemed very pleased with. It was a very stressful couple of hours that needed a good stiff sundowner to recover from! At least we were finally very secure.

John in the bright red, on the right, waving us off

Passing Lella in the bay, they have to crawl when they have their electric engines on

I had to rearrange John’s flowers into a big jug so they could get more water, all the frangipani and hibiscus flowers had wilted overnight in no water