It was an early start to the morning, with a visit from the guy who we met at the anchorage we left yesterday, he brought bananas and coconuts to trade and a book to sign. After he left a couple of lads arrived and jumped on board, always a bad sign, Rowan told them to get off unless invited. They claimed it was their island and we needed to pay, Rowan smelt a rat immediately and told them we had already spoken to Joaquin, who we knew owns the island. Rowan mentioned a few other local people we had met and another chief we met yesterday. Rowan said he was so glad he was wielding his machete at the time, opening some coconuts! They left and made themselves at home on the idyllic little island right in front of us. Four guys in canoes, they built a couple of fires and looked like they were settling in which was a real shame. About half an hour later old Joaquin arrives, in a much better canoe that did not have such a serious hole as last night’s canoe! Rowan had glue for him to fix the other canoe and said we would come to his island to help fill the hole. Joaquin then told us we could not leave the boat unattended with the men on the beach, he said they were trouble. Rowan tried to find out why as chief he could not get them to behave, or tell the police, he just shrugged. I guess he has lost power. It was very unnerving, Rowan kept saying he was sure it was alright as he had taken a bottle of juice and biscuits over to the men on the beach to make amends for chasing them off our boat. But Joaquin just kept saying don’t leave the boat. Rowan wanted to snorkel from the boat and I just lost my nerve, it’s so remote here, they have nothing and we are sitting on this big expensive boat. Joaquin departed very grateful for everything we had given him. We contacted Elijah where we had anchored in Conflict bay and decided to go back there for the night. We had coordinated with the yacht Lella to join us here in the Sound, so we did not want to leave.
Back at Elijah’s anchorage, Rowan went in and found his wife and guys who work for him, Elijah had gone to the capital Honiara. Rowan negotiated with them that we would pay them to be our security which they were happy to do. This meant we could go off in the dinghy and do a bit of exploring. We went back to the beach where they were transporting the pig, we had met the chief Michael there, Rowan went and found him and told him about our unpleasant experience with the lads. He was furious as they are known baddies, and in fact he had sent a boat to check up on us. A banana boat had pulled into the little island as we were leaving, but of course we were not to know who they were. He apologised and promised that we would be safe, he had much more stature and gravitas than poor old Joaquin. It was reassuring to get his response. We had a snorkel along his beach, loads of fish, plus the highlight was a giant clam, that they are very proud of. I also spotted a lobster and some very interesting different coral, however a lot of the coral looks battered. The water was full of plankton like bits and stingy things, so we didn’t hang about too much. The drop off was really steep and a surprisingly strong current. I guess the tide roars in and out between the islands. We took a little dinghy trip around the islands, passing the closed resort, what a shame.
We were back at PolePole mid afternoon to greet Lella in. The Tsunami messages were beginning to flood in from the Russian earthquake. Vicki our kiwi lady running the rally we were on to Vanuatu, kept us up to date, plus all the WhatsApp groups, and Rowan had ChatGpt giving us updates. We decided to pick up our anchor and move a bit deeper and away from the land and reef. It was due to reach us about 8pm, with .3 to 1m waves.
Lella managed to sneak into the bay on their electric motors without us noticing, we had blinds down it was so hot. We invited them over for drinks and were surprised they had picked up another crew member, Kruno from Croatia. Clif and Melody have decided to return to Thailand for a couple of months, and Kruno will take their boat to Port Moresby the capital of Papua New Guinea on the South Coast. They will fly from Honiara which is only sixty miles away, they leave next week. This is sad for us as we were hoping to buddy boat with them on our route north. We enjoyed our drinks and nibbles with them, the tsunami wave came and went unnoticed. I do think I noticed a bit of unusual bouncing around the time but nothing dramatic. Phew glad the day of high drama all ended well!
Our idyllic beach we had to leave
The water colours are unbelievable
The rainy mountain range of Guadacanal. There are no roads inland, just totally wild land
We could not believe this smart looking ferry zooming by, making a terrible racquet, it looked infinitely more sea worthy than any of the ferries we saw in Vanuatu
The beach we snorkelled off, my favourite kind of sandy, shady beach under big old trees
The main town in the Sound called the Station, Lever brothers had a lot of coconut plantations here, owned by an Australian family now
Further along a rather sorry sight of a wrecked yacht, this place requires serious eye balling navigation, charts are unreliable and reefs everywhere
We wondered if this was an old plantation house
This was one of the more useful charts we got today of the tsunami amplitude. Solomon Islands is north west of the red square of Tonga, so we were most probably just on the edge of the green zone
A gorgeous sunset and everything looking pretty peaceful
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