Velella Cruising Log

We must admit we haven't been overly excited about the Solomons so far. Whereas most countries we’ve fallen in love with almost immediately for various reasons, we have yet to develop a fondness for this one. Perhaps it has been due to the fact that we heard many disturbing things prior to our arrival. Lots of people have gotten things ripped off although we have been lucky so far. Some yachts have been asked for fees to anchor even though full access to all waters is covered by the fees we pay the government. Most yachts report being inundated by visitors at all hours in most anchorages. Perhaps it is due to the extreme heat and lack of breeze.

The heat and humidity is unbearable! Only 8 degrees south of the equator, the temperature here is in the 90’s with about 80% humidity. Our clothes are drenched with sweat within minutes of putting them on and our skin is constantly coated with perspiration that won’t evaporate; Sunglasses, hats and clothes are sweltering. Prickly heat rash covers our skin and we find ourselves unable to function at a level approaching normal. Crocodiles make swimming impossible in some places. And when we do swim, the water feels as warm as the air. A steady stream of canoes with locals trying to sell us carvings means that clothes are not optional while in the “privacy” of own our home. Locals boldly look in the windows as they pass by. Mosquito bites accompanied by the fear of malaria, flies and a perpetual threat of infection of the tiniest scratch have kept us from relaxing. Food spoils quickly in the heat and we continually have the smell of fermentation and mildew assaulting our nostrils. Sometimes it’s rotting vegetation; sometimes it’s just our own BO! We try to catch as much rain in the squalls as we can since fresh water is not as readily available as we’ve found before and our water needs are higher in this heat. We spend a lot of our time adjusting the awning to catch the faintest breeze or to shade the sun or catch water and other than that we have little motivation to do much of anything.

In the city of Gizo, people chew betelnut, which turns their teeth and gums red and then spit bright red saliva on the dusty streets. Litter abounds in town and floats in the harbor. Buildings have the air of disrepair and neglect, with rusting corrugated metal roofs and faded paint. We have walked the dusty streets of Gizo checking out the various Chinese shops to see what goods are available. We can barely move before needing to stop for a drink in the shade so it’s a good thing we have found cheap “Sol Brew” beers as well as various tasty fruit sodas made in Honiara from mango and pineapple. Drinking coconuts offer another cool respite for only pennies. We have little interest in cooking since the process heats up the boat, so we eat little and have little energy. We’ve found an terrific inexpensive Chinese restaurant and occasionally fuel our bodies with more than a salad or tinned tuna.

The town of Gizo is right at the water’s edge. Fortunately the Solomons encounter little to no tidal or wave action and water levels rarely rise to threaten the streets that lie just inches above the water, although most buildings and houses are built on stilts. Across the water a village of leaf houses perch over the water on coral, home to one of the many Kiribati populations that were relocated here after WWII.

Gizo harbor has a steady traffic of canoes plying the water, people calling to friends and family across the water for a lift across and hundreds of canoes and speed boats lined along the waterfront each day. The sound of outboard engines is constant. People regularly travel 20-50 miles from outer islands by canoe or by fast open boats powered by often reluctant outboards to bring produce to the Monday and Friday markets, to purchase goods for their remote villages or to bring their carvings to sell in town. Such journeys are possible since there is little to no wind or swell. Remarkably thin, lightly carved canoes (without the outriggers that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing across the Pacific) glide past nearly silently except for a little singing or whistling of their passengers, either the slender midnight-black, nappy haired Melanesians or the more solidly built, lighter skinned Micronesians with their straight hair. We find people passing so closely and quietly to be very eerie, especially when we hear that something has gone missing on a nearby boat in the night. Sleeping is difficult in the sweltering heat with noises throughout the night yet, surprisingly, things can still disappear without us noticing.

The produce market offers some treats such as avocados, peppers, green beans, eggplant, watermelons, in addition to the typically available fare of taro root, kumara (sweet potato), bok choy, cabbage and bananas. Carvings from a variety of hardwoods (kerosene, rosewood, and ebony) and stone are very fine usually featuring inlaid mother of pearl from the Nautilus shell. The carving quality rivals the extremely expensive pieces we found in the Marquesas. The carvings include bowls, marine animals (like turtles, rays, shells, fish, dolphins and crocodiles) and Nguzu-nguzu’s, a traditional war god consisting of a human head, shoulders and arms holding either a head in honor of former headhunting traditions or more recently a dove to signify peace, and Kesoko, a fish god to bring luck in fishing. We’ve heard music from pipe bands floating across the water late into the night. The rows of pipes traditionally were made with bamboo but the ones we’ve seen are often brightly colored PVC pipe and are struck by rubber thongs to create their steel drum type sound. We’ve enjoyed watching to graceful dance of the Kiribati people.

Pidjin English allows people to communicate across the many diverse languages that distinguish each village. Few people are educated beyond the most basic level and the country has one of the lowest literacy rates in the Pacific. Education in the Solomons is neither compulsory nor free. So, school age children are often finished with their education and sometimes hang around in the towns with little to occupy them. They often come out to the yachts expecting us to entertain them. The "Wantok" communal system - people that speak the same language are of the same settlement and the communal nature of land ownership and ethic of sharing goods and property between relations - means that people who are prosperous take care of the others in their family/village - to the point of extremes and that means individual ownership is a foreign concept and discourages personal initiative/hard work. Foreign aid has reinforced this idea of getting something for nothing and buildings are largely funded by donations. Consequently white people are usually regarded as very rich and as sources of gifts. One grandfather told me his grandchildren “needed” balloons and “lollies” (candies).

Most Soloman Islanders are Christian and very devout. Seventh Day Adventists (SDA) have a stronghold here and many villages carefully observe the traditions of the faith, including worship from sundown Friday to Sunday morning (a scheduled respite for us from the continual stream of canoe visitors!) and refrain from eating shellfish and drinking coffee or alcoholic beverages. We look forward to trading for lobsters, shrimp and crab in those villages. Religious infighting has created tensions between villages in some areas. One SDA man told us that his house and several others were burned by nearby villagers of another religion.

People refer to “the tensions” to describe the lawlessness (mostly in Honiara) that many of us heard about on the international news which was finally reigned in by a peacekeeping force made up of countries in the region. The phrase, “the tensions”, has been aptly noted by our friend Fred Roswold (from our own home yacht club) to be a “euphemism for anarchy”. RAMSI (Regional Assistance Mission for the Solomon Islands) forces have been visible on the streets of Gizo but not in an obtrusive kind of way and we have seen an Australian Navy ship periodically anchored in the bay. Yachties have called their attention to any thievery or incidents with hostile locals. Variations in the uniforms worn and the ethnicity/build of the RAMSI officers reflect the many countries that are represented in this effort.

Exploring outside Gizo, we anchored in a bay on the volcanic conical island of Kolombangara where there is an agricultural training center funded by catholic brothers that teaches young men how to grow crops and raise animals and fish efficiently. Since we arrived during a school holiday the school and bay were quiet, and we enjoyed exploring the grounds with the staff collecting fresh limes, avocados and other vegetables for our meals. They had recently slaughtered a pig to package for the stores in Gizo and so we bought some fresh meat. One of the staff caught us some shrimp for one night's dinner and a couple of the staff joined us on board for dinner. The annoying flies from dawn to dusk finally drove us out of the bay, although we otherwise enjoyed the peace and quiet away from the constant traffic of Gizo.

We sailed on to an island called Vella Lavella, where we joined friends Fred and Judy on Wings. We joked about ‘Velella at anchor in Vella Lavella’ and the locals thought we’d named our boat after their island.

We briefly visited the primitive village and arranged to hike up to see the Volcano in the Upi River thermal area. With two guides in our dinghy, we motored up a muddy river into the jungle, following a young boy in a canoe with a machete. Soon our passage was blocked by fallen trees and branches and with a machete gradually we broke through the impasse and continued on, surrounded by calls of jungle creatures and keenly aware that we were in crocodile country. Finally we pulled to the side of the river and tied off the dinghy next to a dugout canoe. As frogs flee from our path, we made our way through the thick jungle, tromping through deep mud, sometimes sliding up to our knees. We passed several areas where villagers were cultivating Kumara, taro, bananas and other items and we were impressed by their hard work in the extreme suffocating heat. Eventually we came to a dry mud plateau where we saw areas of boiling mud and steam and noticed a strong smell of sulphur. We were afraid to step off the narrow trail, as we could often feel the heat of nearby vents on our legs. Our guides pointed out the many deep holes filled with dirt, where megapode birds lay their eggs in the warm soft ground and showed us one of their elongated eggs slightly larger than a typical chicken egg. Megapode birds are the only bird that does not hatch its young. Villagers regularly collect the yolk rich eggs to enhance their diet or to sell, although in some communities egg collection is forbidden during various times of the year to protect the future of the bird population. Following our lengthy hike, we washed the mud off ourselves with a snorkel, but didn’t find the water cool enough to be very refreshing or much fish/live coral to look at. After returning to our boats, villagers asked Fred to show them a movie and he set up the laptop in the cockpit while villagers gathered in their canoes to watch “The Matrix”. Other than action movies and outboard driven open boats, it seems that village life has changed little in hundreds of years, despite the interruption of WWII. The following morning we fled the exhausting flotilla of visiting canoes from this and other nearby villages for a quiet anchorage where there was no village.

The Solomon Islands abound with WWII history, as some of the fiercest fighting in the Pacific occurred here. The heat, malaria and infections create a challenging climate to survive in and we can understand how so many soldiers died of disease. Countless bases that were strongholds of one side or the other sprinkle the island group. Wrecks of planes and ships are visible on land and sea. We sailed by the island that Kennedy swam to after his PT boat was sunk. We recently snorkeled over a Japanese freighter that was sunk while unloading, although it was a little deep to see much from the surface. Diving would be even more rewarding for a closer look and friends told us about the sake and medicine bottles still at the wreck. Most other cruisers are avid divers and we have often joined them on expeditions where we linger on the water surface and keep and eye on the dinghies as they lurk in the depths below. It is amazing how warm the water is and we find it only a mild relief from the heat. Further below the surface we sometimes find cooler water and are always searching for an upwelling to cool off. Visibility is limited by coral bloom at present.

Our visit to the Solomons has been tarnished a bit by some serious equipment problems. We’ve recently toasted most of our electronics items on board with a voltage spike that happened while we were motoring when the battery switch got jostled. We’ve lost the depth sounder, speedometer, one of our two GPS units, stereo, SSB and VHF. What took us so long to pay for and install took only seconds to ruin. We might feel a lot better if we'd gotten a little more use out of our investment in this equipment but many items are still so new! We're trying to think logically even though our emotions are on a roller coaster after losing so much expensive equipment when our budget is already so tight. We know that Garth's family sailed around without all these electronic items but they've been nice to have and let us be a little more adventurous in our explorations. Have learned all the ways that if things were slightly different we wouldn't have lost all this expensive equipment, but that's not much help to us now. Everyone we talked to had a horror story of similar close calls or worse. Other cruisers have been very sympathetic and have generously offered to lend us an old back up depth sounder, GPS and handheld VHF to help us function more comfortably and safely. We are eternally grateful and appreciate the great community of cruisers that we find out here. With their support we don’t feel nearly so alone even though we suddenly have little means of communicating with the outside world.

We plan to do a little more exploring in the Solomons until after Christmas, then head on to Micronesia, Guam and probably Japan. May need to consider getting jobs and that may give us the chance to figure out if we want to/can replace or repair these items and what we'll do next. A little income would take lots of pressure off and these losses have increased our incentive to look for work.

Cheers,
Wendy Hinman and Garth Wilcox
S/V Velella (Wylie 31)