Solomon Islands, Vona Vona Lagoon

Ringgi Bay

Our first stop in the Solomon Islands was Ringgi Bay. After a hot hot hot passage from Vanuatu of seven days and six nights, I was very excited to pull in and have a shower, a cocktail, a dinner we could eat off of plates on the table (most meals on passage are eaten out of a bowl you hold in your hand while bracing yourself somewhere in the cockpit) and a full night's sleep. I know some people say they love the passages, but I much prefer the arrival to the journey.




There isn't really a town in Ringgi, and we were not able to clear customs there, but it was a good anchorage that we could reach before dark, so we stopped there and spent our evening resting up. The next day we motored about 15 miles over to Noro where we thought we were going to be able to clear in, even though it was Sunday, but alas, that was not to be. Apparently, just as we reached town, Billy, the customs guy, was leaving for Gizo, where he was going to clear in a large ship, but he said we could clear in first thing Monday morning. The Lonely Planet guide we have said there wasn't much in Noro other than a fish canning operation, and Fred, who had gone ashore to find Billy, agreed with this assessment when he returned. He did, however, say there was an ATM, a few small stores, and a place that sold fuel and a market near the dinghy dock. All of this was good news, since all of our Solomon Islands cruising guides are so old that all their info about onshore facilities is completely out of date, so we weren't sure what we could hope for.

Noro

Later that afternoon a gentleman and a young girl paddled over in a canoe, and we first assumed that they had carvings or fruit for sale, since this is a common practice here, but instead it was the Quarantine official who had heard from Billy that we had arrived and decided to paddle out so we could complete our paperwork with him. Curbside service - nice. The gentleman had Fred fill out a couple forms in duplicate because he didn't have a copy machine and this way both he and Fred could have a copy.



The next day we planned a three pronged attack into Noro which was designed to get our check-in and provisioning done in the morning so we could leave Noro and head for a resort in a lagoon that we had heard good things about. The plan was for Fred and Jeff to go to the ATM, then Fred to go to customs to check us in while Jeff hit the stores and the market while Ashley and I filled some of our jerry cans with diesel and returned to the boat to empty them into the tanks, then returned to shore, refill the cans, collect the guys and be on our way. However, when we got to shore we realized that Fred didn't have his shoes (and hookworm is common here so shoes ashore are advised for visitors even though many locals go without regularly), so I hopped back on the dinghy, got the shoes and came back and was tying up the dinghy wondering where on earth the gas station was, since that was where I was supposed to meet everyone. I'm looking up the hill trying to see some kind of Mobil or BP sign up in the air when I see Fred standing in front of a shack about 20 feet away, that has a big sign saying "Petrol Sold Here". Apparently, it's a fuel shack, not a fuel station, that I should be looking for. The guy here had fuel in 50 gallon drums with a handpump which he used to fill up two stainless steel containers that looked very much like very large measuring cups, which is apparently what they were. He filled these up to a certain line, then poured the fuel into our jerry cans.



For those of you who are interested in the entire fueling processs, I'll say that the following steps are to lug the jerry cans to the dinghy, get them into the dinghy without dropping them in the water, dinghy out to the boat, lift them up onto the boat without dropping them in the water, find the baja filter we use to filter out any water or foreign materiels that may be in the fuel, put this into the fuel fill hole, then lift the jug up high enough so the fuel goes into the top of this foot tall filter and try to pour the fuel into the filter without spilling it all over the deck and make sure you pour it in slowly enough that the filter does not overflow. All this while the boat is bobbing around in the waves, sweat is literally dripping off of you, and some flies are buzzing around. It really makes you appreciate a normal fuel dock when you find one!



Noro is also notable as the place of our first encounter with betel nut chewers. This is a very common practice here. It's apparently a bit of a pick me up, but if you chew lots of it your teeth are stained first red and eventually black. There's also a lot of spitting that goes along with the chewing, and in many places the dirt on the ground is stained red from the spit. The betel nut itself is mixed with mustard stick and lime (not citrus ime, lime from crushed coral) and it apparently tastes awful. I'm not sure I'm adventurous enough to try this one, but apparently lots of people like it because a lot of market stall space is taken up by people selling it.

Diamand Narrows

Our three pronged Noro approach was successful, and later that day we pulled out and headed down Diamand Narrows into Vona Vona Lagoon. Diamond Narrows is aptly named in that it is in fact quite narrow. It's a skinny passage between two islands, but it felt more like going up a river. There were houses near the shore which were built only about a foot above water level, which we saw right in Noro as well, but I don't understand what happens to them in a storm. Now mind you, some people would call some of these buildings shacks, and say no big loss if it got washed away, but others looked like fairly well constructed buildings with big covered porches.

Diamond Narrows houses

After Diamond Narrows we turned into Vona Vona lagoon. The other "lagoons" that we have visited prior to this were areas inside of a coral atoll which usually had only a few small islands inside, but with lots and lots of coral heads scattered all about. Vona Vona lagoon was an area of fairly shallow water with lots and lots of small islands inside. The water inside was three or four amazing colors of blue, depending on the different depths. This lagoon was bounded by two fairly large islands with some reefs across the entrance on the remaining side. As with the other lagoons, the area has not been well surveyed so the charts show no depth measurements and just have words saying "numerous coral heads" in certain areas with no attempt made to actually show the individual hazards. We did have a hand-drawn map that had been sent to us by Joe, the owner/operator of the resort we were headed to. He emailed it to us while we in Vanuatu, and it was VERY helpful since route we needed to take in the sailboat was definitely not anything approaching a straight line, or even a very direct route. we'd heard about this map from the blog of our friends Randy and Hideko, on Swingin On a Star, who passed this way in the fall of 2008. We were then able to find the resort's website and email to ask for the map before we left Vanuatu. That internet thingy really is a handly little invention.



The next two days we spent diving with the guys from Dive Munda. They came by and picked us up off the God Spede each morning and took us to see some amazing reefs. I'm not sure how to say how great the diving is here without just gushing about it. The reefs we saw were all huge and healthy. Our dives ended only when we ran out of air, the reefs appeared to just go on and on and on. One of the dives had some of the most amazing soft coral I've ever seen. One coral had little green flowers coming out of it. They looked exactly like someone had brought some little plastic green flowers down to decorate the place, but if you waved your hand near them they would retract into little buds, so I'm pretty sure they were real. Another dive was along a sloping wall of coral and there were big schools of small fish. One school was swimming down the reef in a skinny but long grouping - they looked very much like a fish waterfall cascading down a coral mountain. Gorgeous.



Lunch with the Dive Munda guys



The dives themselves were all outside the lagoon, but close enough to it that we came back each day to have lunch on one of the lagoon islands. Lunch consisted of bread, crackers, canned chili tuna, peanut butter, slices of pineapple so sweet it tasted like candy. The chili tuna was new to us. It came from the cannery in Noro, and was just like our canned tuna from home except that it had thin slices of spicy red chilis marinated with it. It was served drained, but without mayo. I liked it quite a bit, but not as much as the guy we met later who was headed to Noro to get a case of it to take with him.



Also notable, Ashley walked out onto a nearby sandspit on our lunch break one day and saw 3 or 4 reef sharks swimming around off the beach. There were also a resident gang of 3-4 reef sharks that hung out off the dock of the Zipolo Habu Resort. Luckily, these reef sharks are not very aggressive, so they wouldn't necessarily prevent us from swimming, unluckily, the salt water crocodiles who also like to hang out in the lagoons here do prevent us from swimming off the boat. This is kind of a big bummer here, because it is really hot. This is definitely the hottest place we have been, except for maybe Savu Savu in Fiji, which was only so hot because they were having a spell of exceptionally light winds while we were there. Here, this is the normal hot, and it's hot. Temps in the mid 90s are the norm and we've measured 100+ a couple of days. Our normal response to this kind of heat would be to swim frequently, but I think the fact that the locals term for the cruiser who recently got bit by a croc while swimming to check his anchor was "dim dim" kinda says it all.



After our diving days, we spent a relaxing day enjoying the Zapolo Habu resort. The resort's dining room/bar area is right near the water, and raised up a bit, with open air walls and a thatched roof. It is a very relaxed and relaxing spot. We enjoyed all our meals there immensely and Fred got to watch the Patriots trounce the Jets live via their satellite TV, which lives in it's own thatched roof hut separate from the dining room. Very civilized. We all enjoyed their satellite internet connection and their huge pile of magazines along with their cheerily lit up Christmas Tree. I'm having a hard time believing that Christmas is right around the corner. I hadn't realized until recently that this will be our first Christmas spent on the boat, or in the southern hemisphere, and I'm just having a hard time believing it's going to be here soon. I've never sweat this much in December.

Zapolo Habu Resort dining room and Christmas tree

The next day we did a provisioning run into Munda on one of the power boats from the resort along with another American couple who had arrived on their boat a few days after us. It was great fun zooming along in the lagoon with a driver who knew where all the reefs were. We could just sit there and enjoy the breeze and watch the islands go by. Later in the afternoon Jeff, Ashley and I took the dinghy over to a nearby snorkel spot. Since we'd just learned that a crocodile had been shot on the resort's island earlier that day, I was a bit concerned about one biting us while we were snorkeling. I mean we really weren't that far away. But then again, we were in the resorts snorkel spot - surely if people got eaten there they wouldn't send you, right? Yes, that sounds quite reasonable - right up until you're actually in the water. Then all I can think is that I may be the next one the locals are calling "dim dim', which doesn't make for very relaxing snorkeling.



Munda market



The day after that we took the dinghy over to have a look at Skull Island. Fred initially assumed we were going to an island shaped like a skull, but actually, it's a very small island that has been used to store some people's skulls. Ashley read somewhere that the skulls were from warriors and powerful chiefs. I assumed that we would be required to take a guide with us to visit the island, and that the guide would explain it all to us, but we were told we could go on our own, we just had to pay a Kastom fee, which we could tack onto our bill at the resort. Very convenient. I'm not sure exactly what I expected, but I was surprised that the skulls are just there sitting in some rocks. I suppose it's a reflection on me that I'm surprised that they haven't all been stolen. Certainly if they were left unattended like that in the US somebody would come take 'em.



Skulls on Skull Island



That afternoon we left the resort and went halfway up the lagoon. The water got cloudier and cloudier as we went up into the skinnier part of the water. Ashley was on croc watch (we assume the murkier the water the more likely that there will be crocs), but she did not see any.

Vona Vona Lagoon

The next day we left the lagoon and came over to Gizo, the capitol of the Western Provinces, or the Wild West as the area is referred to affectionately by those who live here. Today was our first day in Gizo and we went into town to arrange some diving for tomorrow and take a look around. There are lots and lots of very small shops, many of which sell the same stuff. There is one main street that follows the waterfront and we walked along it past the huge construction site that will one day be the new hospital out of town to a place that seemed to be public water access spots where people were doing their laundry in the spigots that were provided. WE walked back through town and poked our head into a couple of the shops and then had lunch at PT 109 (which is named after JFK's boat the little island he and some other guys landed on after their boat was torpedoed is right near here) with some other cruisers then headed back to the boat for a swim after being assured by the local dive shop operator that we'd be safe from crocs here. Hooray! We got out the shampoo and the soap and jumped in, then onto the boat to lather up and then back in again, and repeat. Jeff got a big cheer from some locals passing by when he jumped in off the rails as they went by, and Fred and Ashley were both brave enough to do back flips off the rails, which fascinated two very young local boys who were passing in a dugout canoe that kept sinking on them.



We'll probably be in the Giza area for a week or so while we do some diving and some provisioning, then we'll wait for good weather to head up to Micronesia, where we hear the average temps are in the 80s and swimming off the boat should be the norm again - Hurray!!!