Sailing, Living and Exploring on our Catamaran

Solomon Islands

Part 1

11 September 2023 to 19 November 2023

On arrival we spent a few days anchored in Graciosa Bay, Nendo.

We explored the little town of Nendo on our first day. The main road was pretty much a few shops, a hospital, police station, prison and a small market and that was pretty mcuh it. We saw a couple of football matches in progress at the local field and saw several well built homes and nice gardens. We bought a lovely fresh coconut to drink from the market and made our way back to the anchorage on the other side of the bay.

THE MARKET AND THE HOSPITAL

The homes here, even in the villages are different to what we saw in Vanuatu where they pretty much had a sleeping room and a cooking room, some in the towns were bigger, but here the houses are larger and have several rooms and often a decking area too. In the villages there is still a separate cooking room. In the towns like Nendo, Gizo and Honiara some of the homes are quite large.

At the anchorage in Graciosa Bay there was a small 'technical college'. I say that loosely, as while there was definitely carpentry, electronics and other skills being taught the facilities were very old and rundown and several students still hadn't made it back for the term due to not being able to get transport from their islands, so not a lot of learning seemed to be going on. There were however a few talented musicians amongst the students and we often had the pleasure of hearing bamboo music accompanied by makeshift drums and a guitar. In fact even the bamboo instruments were makeshift. Instead of being made out of bamboo they had made the pipes out of pvc plumbing pipe! The sound though was still very impressive.

One of the teachers Hilda Joe told us that many from the college go on to jobs in the main towns like Honiara doing building, electrical and other work.

Hilda Joe had paddled out to greet us on our second day and welcomed us to the bay. She bought us a lovely gift of vegetables and flowers to welcome us to the Solomon Islands and Lata. She then invited us to share a meal with her family which we did the next day. I showed her how I made a green papaya salad and she showed us how she cooked the various 'cabbages' - this was amazing to watch - the stones had been heated in the fire and were then removed dipped in water added to the pot of cabbage steaming and cooking the cabbage. This process was done several times and then fresh ginger, tumeric and chili were added with some coconut milk. Hilda also cooked taro, kumara and pumpkin for us. The pumpkin was delicious - cooked with ginger and coconut milk.

Hilda Joe is quite an incredible woman - She has 6 children. A son and daughter who are away at college, 2 boys who school in Honiara and return home in the holidays and a special needs daughter and a son at home who she teaches until they can go to school. As well as teaching electronics at the college she sells produce from her garden at the local market and is studying to further her own education, and takes it upon herself to greet the yachties that arrive in the bay. Just your average superwoman really! Her husband helps look after the children and catches fish. He is also building, with the help of some of the carpentry students, a new house for them near Hilda Joe's village in Lata. When Hilda Joe is teaching at the college they live in one of the college houses.

Our welcome gift from Hilda Joe

Isis in Graciosa bay

One of the local men visited the boat offering us a pumpkin if we could charge his phone for him. Dave got chatting to him and talking about fishing and the weather. Dave showed him the Windy app and how he could use it to see if the weather was ok to go out fishing in his canoe. When he came back later to collect his phone Dave downloaded the app for him and spent time explaining it. Of course he can only use if when he can afford data but hopefully it means one fisherman is a little safer out there! In saying that though these guys travel miles in their canoes, really quite incredible.

After 4 days of slowing down in Lata we decided to make our way to Santa Ana. We got up early the morning of the 16th to a thunderstorm. We checked the weather forecast and the storm was meant to pass so we decided we were good to go. At 6am we upped anchor and set off. Going out through the pass however the storm instead of lessening was following us! We were literally surrounded by lightning strikes, clapping thunder and lots of rain. It was no better where we had come from so no point turning back and no better ahead so we literally stopped hoping it would pass, eventually it did and we carried on. It continued to rain, the sea state was awful and I was seasick, again!!! Unfortunately I didn't really come right for the entire 36 hours and had to lie down or else I was sick. I did manage to get up at 2:30 am and give Dave a break, even though I had to throw up on the back of the boat I was able to keep watch and give Dave about 3 1/2 hours of much needed sleep. We were both very happy to arrive in Santa Ana around 1pm the next day.

Santa Ana was just lovely. There are 3 villages on the island. The village we were anchored near was very friendly and the children paddled out to the boat every day. Our first 2 visitors were JayZ and Chester. They came to see us everyday and Dave played Jay-Z on the stereo for them which they thought was great! JayZ dropped off the scene after a pair of sunglasses went missing off a tender when the guys were out surfing. The glasses were returned to Olivia but it seemed JayZ was the culprit - temptation in temptations way!! Chester however came every day until we left and kept asking when we were leaving as he wanted to come with us!! The children were all asking for chocolate which we didn't have but I had baked some chocolate cookies which they were very happy with. We did get inundated with children and so started bartering with them giving them a cookie for a coconut. Some days we had to disappoint them as we already had enough coconuts and I didn't want to be baking cookies 24/7.

We got offered 3 lobsters one morning which we traded for a couple of pair of jandals and a couple of tops. Dinner was so good that night! We also traded for paw paw and limes but there was not a lot else being grown and our vegetable supply was getting very low!

This village had some well built dwellings made of timber and iron, it had a nice lay out and most houses house had a small garden. The day we went ashore for a visit I was quite taken with a couple of boys who were playing with pull along cars on a string. On closer inspection I saw they were made from biscuit packets, bottle lids and lollipop sticks!! Who needs a toy shop!

Genius!!

and this!! So Flinstones!!!

Some of the village houses

We visited the second village to go and see the Kustom House. This village was on a huge sparse space, with a massive church building and bamboo and thatch huts, quite different to the other village, and there were so many children! From toddlers and young ones, who followed us around like we were the pied piper, to teenagers playing football and volleyball in the clearing. Our friend Olivia got a group of children singing for us which was really lovely. They are very very cute! We did have to wonder where all the adults were as apart from a few here and there we only saw children. The chief was very proud that they had so many children in the village and so going by the lack of adults we think there is a prolific birth rate per female!

The kustom house was pretty amazing. Women are not allowed inside but we could stand at the edge and look in and take photos. The men got a great tour and history lesson from the chief. The 'house' is full of skeletons of past chiefs and skulls of warriors. The chiefs bones were encased in a canoe carving and the warriors skulls wrapt in leaves, many of which had come undone and so there were a few exposed skulls. This Kustom house is one of the few still remaining in the Islands. These go back many years before the missionaries arrived and christianity was introduced. Now there is a cemetary and the chiefs are buried there.

We were with a few other boats here, Tess and Brett from Australia on Complicité and Magnus, Olivia and Graeme and Jane and a guy from Picton, Alistair who had also sailed up from Vanuatu, and a couple from Austria Chris and Daniela on a boat called El Toro! Chris is sponsored by Red Bull - hence the name and is a big adventurer who has done many many endurance races and has written a book which he kindly gifted us before they left for Vanuatu - they are going in the opposite direction and have been going against the wind since they left Europe!! Chris is quite the story-teller and one night we had sundowners with everyone on our boat and he definitely kept us entertained with his stories.

Dave got out for a couple of surfs in on a nice wee break with the other yachtie surfers. He was very happy to be back on his board! But it was time to move on and hopefully get somewhere where we can get some vegetables and eggs as supplies of these are gone!

Dave having a bit of fun and enjoying some music with the kids

We will miss this beautiful spot, our daily visitors and the smiling faces!!

We headed to St Cristobal next and stopped over for the night in Star Harbour. we went ashore and met Chief Alfred and were shown the spot where Queen Elizabeth stood when she visited! There is a concrete slab on the ground, no plaque or anything just a slab of concrete 😂

This wasn't a great anchorage and wo we moved on the next day to Kira Kira. We had a pretty tough trip, losing all our instruments! We motor sailed with me at the helm hand steering while Dave tried to fix the instruments including the depth finder. The conditions, weather and visibility was not great so I was getting heading updates from Graeme on Kalimera who was ahead of us to make sure I was still heading in the right direction, using the compass to navigate. Dave came up from below a couple of times looking a bit green, it is not fun having your head down in a bilge trying to sort out your depth finder in rough swell! After 3 hours I wasn't feeling too good either so Dave came to relieve me at the helm and I had a lie down. I re-joined Dave at the helm and was complaining about being over feeling nauseous constantly when we are on the move, when suddenly I needed the bucket and promptly lost the 3 crackers I thought I'd managed to keep down. Jane on Kalimera and Tess on Complicité were also sick! No one enjoyed this sail!! However once we got to Kira Kira we were very happy to see fresh produce at the market and find some cold beer for sale. Kira Kira was full of rubbish, a lot of which was in the stream. There are no bins around the town and so everything is just dropped on the ground and a lot of it ends up in the sea. 😒

Stocked up with fresh produce and beer we moved on the next day to Uki Ni Massi Island and anchored in Selwyn Bay, a really lovely anchorage and we had several canoes come and greet us. After cleaning up a bit all the boats decided to go ashore and meet the chief and seek permission to anchor. None of us had locked the boats and once ashore I noticed several of the canoes hanging around the yachts. We decided we would be quick as we could. The chief wasn't available but we met his son, introduced ourselves sought permission to anchor in the bay and made our way back. I noticed a couple of people running around our boat and so we boosted it to the tender and on the way back to the yacht we saw them in their canoe. It was a couple of teenage girls and Dave gave them a telling off. They denied at first they had been on the yacht but one had a very distinct green t shirt on and so we knew it was them. It was harmless and they hadn't been inside but Dave made it very clear it was not ok to go on the yachts and he would be speaking to the chief. We didn't see either of them again while we were there, I think Dave put the fear of God into them, poor things!

Sadly the next morning Jane and Graeme realised that 2 phones were missing off their boat. They went ashore and with some help from the chief's son and a couple of village boys one of the phones was returned that day and the other would apparently be back the next day. Jane and Graeme weren't hopeful but the second phone was returned, without it's case but they were happy to have them back. One story went a local village boy had taken them and given them to one of the students from the college near the village, another that it was the college students who took the phones and they were trouble, who knows? But the outcome was good in the end. It also made us all realise that we have to be vigilant here and lock the boats up whenever we leave them. Despite all this it was a lovely bay and I had a lovely walk ashore with Jane and Graeme and we were allowed to burn some rubbish on the beach. We were quite shocked at the sea erosion on the island - a lot of coconut palms roots were exposed and some were in the sea. The local lady who was guiding us told us this was getting worse.

Exposed coconut roots

Beautiful orchids growing on the palms

Graeme overseeing the fire

We moved on on the 2 October. Next stop was San Cristobal Island - Maro'u Bay. It was a 26nm sail and it was fantastic! We had the Assymetric spinnaker up and the Genoa, wing on wing. We also caught a Mahi Mahi so there were smiles all round! Fish for dinner that night

Then the next day we were off again heading to Marapa Island at the bottom of Guada Canal Island. This was a slow 8 hour sail with not a lot of wind. We had the Assymetric up and then the main and genoa. Not a great sail but better than motoring!!

Marapa was a beautiful anchorage, we were in gorgeous turquoise water and had a small village on one side of us and a closed down resort on the other side. Dave was rather disappointed the resort was closed as he had planned for us to stay at this anchorage until my birthday and go out for a birthday dinner but it was not meant to be. It's always the thought that counts right! We had a lovely relaxing time here and one of the family elders visited us a couple of times bringing Taro cake and flowers from his wife. We also went ashore to meet his wife and family and we took her some baking and a pair of jandals as a thankyou. She was rather shy and didn't sit and chat with us but her husband sat on the deck and showed us his carvings and told us about the village and his family. There wasn't a village here with a chief like other villages but families together on the island. We loved watching the family right in front of us fishing every morning off their fishing frame.

Kalimera anchored in the distance with an approaching rainstorm and joining us in the bay.

After a beautiful few days we moved onto Rua Sura, a stop over on our way to Honiara. This was my Birthday sail and it was a lovely sail until we anchored. The anchor engine failed and the chain was feeding out and we couldn't stop it. Dave had to put his hands on it to stop it so he could lock it off manually - Eeek! I couldn't watch. But the anchor was down and we were safe for the night. The next morning we had to bring the anchor up by hand, the bonus of buddy sailing, we had Graeme from Kalimera on hand to help! With me at the helm and Dave and Graeme hauling the chain in we got the anchor up, whew! It took an hour but we all breathed a sigh of relief. We sailed about 30 nm towards Honiara and then motored the last 10 when the wind dropped. We were hoping to get on a mooring buoy in Honiara but the one that is there was taken and so we tied onto a very large buoy which the police sometimes use. It wasn't ideal but at least gave Dave a chance to try and fix the anchor motor. Being on this bouy was a bit of a problem as it put us slightly in the chanel and every time the barge wanted to move out we had to move. Dave did a temporary fix on the anchor motor and we decided to move off the bouy. We anchored our main anchor and Graeme helped us to put in a stern anchor also as there wasn't room to move around on the anchor. We felt pretty solid. That night thankfully I couldn't sleep. I was reading my book and wondering why our security light kept coming on. I went outside to turn it off and saw Complicite' right in front of us!! They had arrived tied onto the police mooring buoy earlier that day after we had moved of it. We had been anchored quite a way away from them - we definitely shouldn't be right behind them now! I woke Dave and we got investigating and realised the stern anchor had dragged. We quickly lifted it in and then shortened the amount of chain we had out on the main anchor to keep us from hitting Brett and Tess. Watch was kept for the rest of the night and we had to shorten the chain a couple more times as we moved less than a metre from them. We couldn't re anchor in the dark - there was way too much reef around for that. Brett and Tess got a bit of a shock when they got up in the morning and saw us right behind them. Luckily we could all laugh about it! Brett and Tess moved on that day and so we anchored again and stern tied to the police mooring bouy, but the very next day we were asked to move again for the barge. We'd had enough by then so upped anchor and moved around the corner to another bay. Jane and Graeme had moved their the day prior as they had also been asked to move for the barge. They also had problems lifting anchor as they were wrapped around a shipwreck - Graeme had to dive on it to release the chain. Honiara and its surrounds - Iron Bottom Sound is full of wrecks from the war.

The history of WW2 her is quite amazing.

The blue is American ships/planes and the red Japanese!

Despite what we had heard we actually quite liked Honiara. We managed to do some great provisioning which was fantastic as we had Sidnie, my daughter, and our friend Gav arriving very soon.

Provisioning in Honiara

Eggs, Anchor butter, cheese including blue vein - whoop whoop!!

We got to watch the AB"s play in the 1/4 finals which was fantastic - we had managed to catch a couple of other World cup games with Kalimera as they have Starlink and we could get the games delayed 24 hours later. But to watch a live game was pretty great! We watched it at the local "yacht club" and I say yacht club very loosely. We had a couple of locals join us at 6am and cheered the Ab's onto their win. We then had breakfast at the Breakwater cafe which is owned by a South African /Australian. Such a treat to get really good coffee!! Fred who owns the cafe is very yacht friendly and even let us use his washing machine which was such a treat. It was outside on his deck - a twin tub job so it wasn't just throw it in and let the cycle happen, but way better than hand washing! He wouldn't let us pay him so we bought him a bottle of gin! We were busy getting the boat ready for Sidne and Gav, moving around our trading items and extra food we needed to store - Daves shower was the perfect spot for everything! He now had to share mine, oh the hardships of having 4 showers 😂 but a small price to pay to spend time with family. The boat was getting stocked up with goodies, rooms cleaned and beds made up. Fuel was topped up, we were ready and very excited to be have Sidnie and Gav arrive.

We had a break from the boat a couple of days before Sidnine arrived and decided to explore. Dave Graeme and Jane went out in the morning to a war museum and I joined them, after a bit more cleaning, for lunch and a visit a waterfall. We drove along a very bumpy, steep gravelly road. Up and up we went until the car was skidding backwards in the gravel. We tried pushing and Dave did several runs at it until we could smell the heat of the engine, it was not meant to be. The wee Nissan March just couldn't make it up the hill. This is definitely 4 wheel drive territory! We ended the day visiting the American war memorial which was really interesting and gave us a great view over Honiara. Honiara is quite populated and many homes are built close together and are rather slum like. Living conditions for many here look very hard and the cost of living is very very expensive compared to the incomes.

Little roadside stores on the way to the memorial up the hill from town and a couple of the larger homes.

Sidnie arrived on the 19 October. It was so good to see her. We spent couple of days with her in Honiara exploring the town and visiting the war museum while we waited for Gavin to arrive. The road trip to the war museum was a great look at life outside the town of Honiara. Lots of road side stalls selling food, plants, bettle-nut and fresh produce. The War museum was fantastic. It is set outside amongst the native flora and is full of relics from the war plus some memorials to the countries who fought in the war, including NZ. We also went back to the American memorial. A full day of war history!!

There was another Ab's game happening the night after Sid arrived and so we got up early again to go to the yacht club. Unfortunately the TV was broken and so we boosted it to the heritage in the hope they would let us watch it there. Not only did they let us but we also got to have buffet breakfast while watching! La de dah!!!

Very happy to see my girl!

Sid and Dave having a roadside sausage on a stick

Gav arrived a couple of days after Sid and we spent one more night in Honiara. We had cocktails to celebrate. Sidnie had just done a cocktail course so was more than happy to practice and we were more than happy to participate!

We did a last minute fresh produce shop and we were off making our way to Roderick Bay.

Flowers and shell fish at Honiara market

Things always sound fabulous but it's not always smooth sailing so to speak. We had had a smell of diesel in Gav's room before he arrived. Dave thought a bit may have spilled when we filled the tanks. We had aired the room out and Dave had lifted the bed base and cleaned around the tank. While it was better there was still the odd whiff of diesel in the room. On our first day of travel Dave lifted the floorboards in the room to get something out and found diesel in the hull under the floor - the diesel had seeped into everything in there, no wonder we couldn't get rid of the smell. So poor Gav on his first day ended up helping Dave lift the bed and search for where it was coming from. Finally they found the problem, thankfully we didn't have a diesel leak but there was an issue with where the diesel goes into the tank. That now fixed there was a bit of a clean up to do. Everything had to come out from under the floor and be cleaned and washed. Diesel is the hardest smell to get rid of but we got there eventually. Poor Gav thought he was coming for a holiday!and he'd spent his first day fixing and cleaning!! That's boat life!!

We had a wonderful time in Roderick Bay, where we met up again with Jane and Graeme again. We were made very welcome by Joe and his family who live there. Joe arrived with a lovely floral arrangement for us that he had made himself. We went ashore and explored the Island and had a wonderful walk up the hill to view Emily's garden and take in the view. The gardens are grown on the hills here as this is where the soil is good, as is the drainage. Emily's garden was very impressive and we got to trade for some of her produce. After the walk Joe had prepared fresh coconuts for us to drink which he had decorated with Hibiscus flowers. He really makes you feel very welcome.

We did some fantastic snorkelling at Simons Bay, where Simon is trying to preserve the reef. The coral and sea life was fantastic.

We also visited the "World Discoverer" shipwreck, snorkelling around it and having a go on the flying fox that has been set up on it. It is quite a sight and has been here since 2000 when it hit an object and started to sink so the captain grounded it here. It was ransacked by locals and not salvaged due to the civil war in the Solomons at the time and so here it stays.

First I flew and then I flew and then I walked on water 😂😂 Bad exit strategy!!

We had a lovely night ashore having drinks with Joe and his extended family and some other yachties that had arrived in the bay. Sid made a cocktail of Rum with coconut and limes supplied by the village to take over and share and I made cookies and popcorn for the kids which they loved. We then shared some traditional taro and sweet potato with them. It was a nice way to end our time at Roderick Bay

We continued to move North having a lovely sail with the screecher and manisail to Buena Vista. We had the added bonus of catching a fish on the way - great excitement, the boys were frothing!!

We had a lovely shallow anchorage and a great snorkel, the fish life here was great and we saw a turtle too. A nice couple of relaxing days eating fish and drinking cocktails, oh the life!

We visited the village and watched these guys carving a canoe and Sid played jacks with this little cutie

Next stop the Russell Islands where we anchored in Suun Bay - we renamed it fly bay! They were just relentless. Lots of pigs on land we think! Thankfully Dave and Gav found a surf spot nearby and so we anchored out there through the day. They had a great time surfing with another yachtie from the states Todd. The first day they went out Jane came with us too and us girls had a great snorkel and a lovely day relaxing on the yacht. We returned to the bay before sunset and Sid and I were having a drink on the front of the boat when a few of the local teens came to chat. They wanted to sing us their national anthem which was lovely, then they wanted us to sing ours!!! Sid and I did our best but I'm not sure we did it justice, the aperol definitely helped! We got a round of applause all the same. All the canoes that visited were really interested in where we were from and our life on the boat.

We headed to the surf spot a couple more days and did a bit more snorkeling and explored the wee island. It was pretty to walk the shore but it was also very littered in places with rubbish that had washed up, so sad to see.

We also had another Rugby session on Kalimera watching the final of the World Cup. We were 24 hours behind but no one had seen the result s it felt like it was live! It was hot and there were flies and a lot of angst!! Shame about the result!! Poor AB's we all felt they were a bit ripped off.

There were some very happy boys after 4 days of this!

Rugby watching on Kalimera

The faces say it all!!

Beautiful sunsets and calm mornings

Kaliera mirrored on the water

After one last morning surf we headed next to the top of the Russell Islands where we met up with Mel, Scott and Stu on Salty. We had originally met them in Fiji. We had a lovely evening with them and shared a roast dinner -Stu had brought a piece of lamb over from NZ for Dave as he knows there isn't much meat eaten on our boat. Dave was in his element! As much as he says he doesn't mind this no meat diet I know he really misses it. If we could get good quality meat I think he would have it on board - mind you we only have 2 small ice boxes which wouldn't hold much meat! Might be time for new fridge freezers soon. Ours are getting old and the ice boxes need defrosting about every 2 weeks! Another thing to add to the wish list!

We had an amazing dive here at 'The Cut' it is basically a gap in the cliff and the colour is amazing! We dived and snorkelled it, really fantastic. We went out on Salty with Graeme and Jane too and we all had an amazing time.

How many boys does it take to dirve a boat 😜

Looking up from the water

We left the next morning for Mborokua where we had read there was great diving. Gav, Dave and I had an incredible dive, the visibility was just amazing. We dived down to about 25 metres and could still see clearly for at least another 25 metres. We were on a bit of a dodgy mooring here, the dive boat that was here when we arrived told us it had broken recently, so the Gav dived on it and we tied extra lines on to secure it for the night. Dave and Gav did another dive in the afternoon and then we all enjoyed listening to and watching the bird life on the island. This is when you really do feel like you are in paradise! The next morning Sid and I snorkeled, which was fantastic - so many beautiful fish and quite a different snorkel as we were snorkelling around rocks. Gav dived for fish and caught a couple so we were all very happy!

We continued on to Sumbulo in the Western Province, it was a beautiful sail and we got the spinnaker out!

We did another great dive the highlight of which was having an eagle ray swim right up to us and show off his belly. That night we got on the cocktails thanks to Sids amazing skills and played cards against humanity. A lot of laughs!!

Morovo was next and we did some serious trading. One of the negotiations lasted about 2 hours. We ended up trading tools for 2 carvings, an outboard fuel container for another carving, and a blanket and some clothes for a beautiful shell shaped wooden dish. We also traded for lobsters and crabs. There was so much negotiating going on I lost count of what we gave, but we were very happy with our trades. We also visited a plane wreck from the WW2 while we were here. It was quite surreal all the pieces just sitting in the bush. You could totally picture the plane crash landing! Amazingly a lot of it was still quite intact after all this time including a wheel which still had a fairly good conditon tire on it.

Amazing that the rubber tire was still fairly ok after all this time

Let the trading begin!

Joe here stayed aboard for several hours as it was raining hard and he had paddled a very long way with his carvings. We didn't buy anything from him as we had already bought enough the day before. Dave however made him a rather stylish black rubbish bag rain cover to paddle home in.

The lobster and crabs were not only delicious thanks to Gavs cooking but also quite amazing in colour and markings.

Round 2 of lobster - eating like Kings!

Of course a cocktail to go with doesn't go astray, thanks to the cocktail Queen

Next stop was Vangunu Island, we had the lines out on the way but only caught a baby shark which we quickly threw back!!

We anchored in a quaint wee bay and were inundated with kids on canoes again. We got some fresh produce which was fantastic as we had completely run out. There was a fair bit of negotiating done on the trading front, but we got there. The boat seemed to be constantly surrounded by canoes and when we got the cameras out the kids loved it. We did have a peeping tom however! Poor Sid got a bit of a fright when she stepped out of the shower and a young man was standing up in his canoe staring through the small window. She banged the window and yelled at him and he took off quickly! We were a bit more on guard after that. We had a tour of the village before we left the next day. There had been quite a lot of rain and it was pretty muddy underfoot but the kids were all running around barefoot without a care. We had quite the entourage of followers as we were shown around the village.

Took a while to get a smile out of this guy!!

These two were not worried about their sinking canoe!

We moved onto the most incredible anchorage - Sasaghana. It was like being in the Amazon, the mistiness when we arrived added to the vibe and the bird noises were incredible. We were sure we would see a crocodile here, we even took the tender up a bit of a river in the hope of spying one, but alas we didn't. There are definitely crocodiles here in the Solomons but to date we haven't seen any.

We left here for Rendova heading further north still. We'd been having such an amazing time and apart from the diesel leak things had been running smoothly. But we got into a bit of bother on this sail.

We got caught with a bit much wind in the sail and while Gav was getting the preventer line on, all would have been fine but a line attached to the boom broke and the boom swung wildly in the wind. Gav and Dave got it under control but it was a bit stressful there for a bit and poor Gav got a mild dose of rope burn!! We found later as we brought the sail down that the top 2 sail cars had broken with the pressure. Thankfully we had spares. It was all a tad stressful at the time and I was very glad Gav was on board, as if I had been holding the preventer line it may have been a very different scenario. There is something to be said for male strength!

Yet again we found a lovely anchorage surrounded in bush and palms. We had a few locals visit and traded for some fabulous produce. The children were just lovely and hung out with us for quite some time.

We did a plane dive here which was pretty cool. The whole thing was totally intact and as I swam along I almost thought I could see a skeleton in the cockpit! It was just the remains of the back of the seat but it gave me a fright for a minute. There were a lot of fish in the cockpit though.

Dave and Gav got into one of the locals canoes and had a race with the kids, of course the kids let them win ;-)

And we were blessed with a couple of beautiful Sunsets

We visited the Island where President Kennedy's Platoon had been stationed and heard the story of President Kennedy's brave mission to save his men. It is quite an incredible story of survival and bravery and is definitely worth a google. We also did a lovely snorkel here and saw some very cute clown fish on high alert as an eel was stalking them from between some rocks.

Spot the eel between the rocks!!!

As we left this island to anchor around the corner we could smell something burning. Sidnie and I had been smelling this hot or chemical smell on and off for a couple of days but couldn't pinpoint it, but here it was again only stronger. Next minute we noticed smoke coming out from under our solar panels. The wiring was literally about to go on fire. Sid grabbed the fire extinguisher - her yacht training coming through. Dave yelled for me to grab towels and we threw big towels on top of the solar panels to stop the heat coming through. This seemed to do the trick but we knew this was not good.

We got anchored and Graeme came over to look at it and basically the wiring had got so hot it was melting and all needed rewired. So that was the boys job for the next few hours. Thankfully with Graeme and Gav's help it all got rewired and working again. Whew!! This may explain why we had started having power issues again - hopefully it's not the batteries!

So that disaster averted we then planned to do another dive the next morning before we headed on. Dave wasn't feeling 100% but decided he would do the dive anyway. Well it wasn't meant to be! Heading out we hit some reef and the tender engine stopped. Graeme and Jane came back and towed us back to the boat. We decided to dive and Dave stayed back to see if he could fix the engine, but alas no it was well and truly kaput! When we got back from the dive Dave was feeling even worse and we were a bit concerned. We did a Malaria test, which came back negative, but something was wrong. The next day we decided to boost it to Munda where there is a hospital and get him checked out. We got to the hospital, and when I say hospital, apart from a recently built small portacom lab everything was very old, rundown cramped and dirty. But Dave got his blood tests and it came back he had Dengue fever and Yaws (a skin condition caused by cuts that get infected) They gave Dave some meds and told him he would need to get injections in Gizo for the Yaws as they had none there.

We headed for Gizo and the hospital there the next day. Graeme and Jane came with us and Graeme took us took us to the dock near the hospital. Silver linings - right here there was a mechanic who serviced the hospital boats and they agreed to take a look at our broken down tender engine. But first priority was to get Dave to the hospital. This hospital was bigger and in better condition than at Munda. We saw the doctor who looked at the blood results and the meds Dave had been given. He threw the meds in the bin saying we shouldn't have been given those -Eek!! He then went on to give Dave antibiotic shots for the Yaws and told him to rest and the Dengue symptoms would pass. He ordered more blood tests but as the lab there had no staff at present the bloods would be sent to Munda.

We left Gizo and headed around the corner to Fatboys Resort. A really nice anchorage right by the resort with beautiful snorkelling. With Dave being sick and no tender we couldn't do much with Sid and Gav for their last few days but this was a good spot where we could go out for dinner and a drink and do some nice snorkelling, paddle boarding and swimming. The snorkelling was so good, we went most days. There were giant clams, heaps of clown fish, the most I had seen in any one area. We saw a lion fish, longfin batfish that just cruised right by us and a weird looking puffer fish - they have the oddest faces!

The beautiful Lion fish

We said our goodbye to Gav on the 18th November. We were really sad to see him go - it had been great fun having him on the boat even with diesel leaks, sail cars breaking, solar panels burning, tender engines breaking and Dave getting Dengue, we'd had so much fun and so many laughs. Then there were tears as we waved Sid off on the 19 November, it had really been a fantastic month with both her and Gav on board.