Wednesday 20 August – leaving the Solomon Islands

We were off the mooring ball by 9am, and off to the Port Dock. What a relief to see the dock empty. It is always a bit hairy coming into big port docks to tie up, they usually have big bumpers that are pretty savaged by use. We had loads of fenders out, Rowan was in contact with the port authorities, a couple of guys came to catch our lines which always helps, although they often drive Rowan mad as they always want to do something different to what he wants. The Chinese guy from the fuel depo arrived at 9:30 and unlocked the fuel. We had 5 jerry cans for Profasea, she also hates going up on big docks so she asked if she could fill her jerry cans from our boat order. She took her fuel back to her boat in her dinghy and will be following behind us. It all went very smoothly, with us only taking on 400 litres, Rowan thought we would take more, so we had drawn loads of cash, as they take no cards. We will leave another country with a lot of local currency!

As soon as we were topped right up we were off, into the rainy cloudy distance. We got the main sail up as we had a nice wind to get us out the channel, once out of the shadow of the big volcano, the wind died and the sea got very choppy. It was a pretty unpleasant sail, having to motor a couple of times when the wind died completely. Once the wind came from behind us as predicted, we got the main sail down and got the Parasail up, slow going but so much more comfortable. Poor Profasea had a very uncomfortable time, making Jen her crew very seasick.

It’s either no wind or squalls, and it is boiling hot. We had left all our windows open in our cabin to keep it a bit cooler, of course when a squall came with an enormous downpour we forgot about the windows. I felt this enormous draft as the wind picked up and realised too late, our bed and bathroom were soaked! I had to strip the bedding, luckily as soon as the squall passes it is boiling hot so I managed to get everything out in the sun to dry. Never a dull moment!

We had a very early supper and Rowan headed off to bed.  We don’t usually fly the parasail at night but it was so comfy and the winds were in the mid teens, perfect for us. We cant fly the parasail above 20 knots so I had to keep a beady eye on the wind and squalls, we really don’t want to get into a pickle with the parasail in the dark. It all went to plan and the wind behaved, keeping me on tenterhooks as the wind hit 20 knots for a few seconds. Rowan couldn’t sleep so he was back up at 10:30 pm, I headed off to bed. It wasn’t long before Rowan called me as a squall was coming and we needed to get the Parasail down quickly, it all went pretty well, luckily we have bright deck lights so we can see what we were doing. We just had one rope that went under the boat, which meant we couldn’t have the motors on, luckily it pulled on deck with a little effort and we were off under motor, to get through the squall. I went back to bed, but it wasn’t very conducive to sleeping, as once the squall passed, we had to get the main sail up, the wind was good for a bit of sailing.

We have to pass between two big islands, on the left is PNG and the right is Solomons, there is a lot of reef around, we had to follow a fairly narrow path through it. We arrived at the pass at 4am in pitch darkness, the current was roaring through at 3.5 knots against us, Rowan had to put both engines on full throttle for us to make progress. It was like being in a washing machine the water was so turbulent. It would have been fascinating to see it in daylight. Rowan was exhausted so went to bed, while I made sure we were not being knocked off course. We were following a path with submerged cables, I presume they are laid on the deepest floor of the sea. As day break arrived I was just getting through the other side. That was way too much excitement for one day!

Cloud over the volcano next to Noro

The cloud lifts a little

Dolphins come to join us

These tiny dolphins seem to have such fun in our bow wake

Sunset and not much wind

We keep the parasail up for the night

Rowan caught the lightning in the big squally clouds

Our narrow deep water pass between the islands with 3.5 knots of current against us

The chart looked crazy with all the shallow water marked out, we are only managing 5.5 boat speed with full throttle of both engines

PNG on our left, this is the notoriously dangerous Bougainville island, it has a big copper and gold mine that was abandoned by the big mining companies and is now lawless, the government has abandoned governing it. It has 3 enormous volcanoes on it, you can see the brown areas of the mines. Yikes, we check in at the northern tip of this island!