Vona Vona North

The southern half of Vona Vona lagoon (Noro to Lola Island has been described in a previous post (XXXX 2008). Travel through the Vona Vona lagoon is well described in the Sieling cruising guide too and the google earth picture below testifies of the guide’s accuracy.



From Lola to the Northern exits, some very shallow bits (2m depth) are encountered so this path is more recommended for shallow drafted vessels! Little damage can be done though, apart from a few bommies (which can be spotted in good litght), the very shallow passages are sand. Of course when the Kuna set off, it was overcast and cloudy. Not recommended to navigate is these conditions, but the light winds were a great opportunity to silently cruise up the lagoon at 3 knots with plenty of time to stop. Good holding is found anywhere along the way.



The first part of the track is the trickiest, one has to wind their way leaving four islands in a row to their right (waypoint S8° 17.543 E157° 08.064), then turn directly north and leave a set of three small islands again to the right (Waypoint S8° 16.594 E157° 06.996). Thereafter, the large island of Vona Vona can be kept to port at reasonable distance and lightly greater depths are found (5-10 m).




Once turned the NE corner, start heading west towards snake island. The channel has a reef on either side. Quite a few anchorages can be found along the North coast of Vona Vona island and people are quite friendly such as in the village of Orokolo (Anchorage 15m S8° 10.951 E157° 01.003). Nosing in towards the beach allows good protection from the SE trades (anchoring in 15-20 m)


Finally the last stretch west to exit the lagoon between the two reefs tongues may be done carefully, heading to the W-SW to round a couple of shallow patches (see photo), rather than going across them like KUNA did on the map below. Waypoints Flags mark the two patches with depths up to 2m: (S8° 10.493 E156° 58.726 to S8° 10.526 E156° 58.526 and from: S8° 10.506 E156° 58.223 to S8° 10.517 E156° 58.135, I marked those on the GPS as we were going along and it was a cloudy day, so take record with a grain of salt but the aerial photograph below shows what can not be seen from the water!


Of course, the Vona Vona lagoon is full of crocodiles but it’s worth the look due to its myriad of small islands, some inhabited, some only visited for hunting.




The larger island of Vona Vona is heavily logged but sediment run off is not obvious because the island is mostly flat rainforest.




Follows a number of cool lagoon creatures found near Lola island

anemone


annelide polychaete


disguized urchin


beche de mer

Munda Harbour: threading a path into the Roviana lagoon

Lavata Island and Munda Bar in the background of this photo

Despite a lot of boating traffic, Munda reefs are snicky for the novice and the marking is not necessarily obvious to the visiting yachtie so best to get guided by a local canoe if possible. However, once established a good GPS followed tightly at the largest scale possible will be a safe navigation help, especially if some of the green or red markers go missing with the storms (happens regularly).



Approaching Munda from the Blanche Channel, one has to round shark point (bottom of the map). wpt S8º 23.39 E157º 13.35 and then wpt S8º 22.73 E157º 12.65 enable to round the point at a reasonable distance from the reef.

Then , cross the Munda Bar, which raises up to 4m (waypoint : S8º 20.874 E157º 12.728). There is sometimes a nice surf break on the right when going in and the island Lavata Island is a nice anchorage, the more one goes around, the less rolly… A nice dog live son it and enjoys visitors. Shark point reef offers pretty good diving with seagrass beds and clear water gentle coral slopes inside or a mix of sandy patches and corals towards the point.


From Lavata island anchorage, one can head straight for the first leading light marker (there is no leading lights either of course and turn for an easterly course at wpt S8º 20.26 E157º 13.58). From there, the green markers are discernable, make sure to leave them to stardboard all along as they mark some very shallow reefs. Follow the easterly course until rounding a small island to port. Threading a couple of tight bommies (marked) leads to the Lambete Anchorage (S8º 19.894 E157º 16.250) opposite Agnes lodge (good for security, especially if you feed the security guy a bit of spare pig pig) and nice sticky mud (9m).

Munda is not a very exciting town but it has an airport, a dive shop and a somewhat well supplied paintshop (EC Trading).



It has an irregularly supplied, slightly expensive market and the Agnes lodge for a draft Solbrew (great sunset watching one’s boat 100m away from the lodge’s wharf).



It is the office for the Tetepare Descendants Association. Most western supplies can also be found there, scattered between the chinese shops (cheese, tins of tomato, etc..)





Indonesian bottled water is imported in this pristine country which the best quality 'skyjuice'...sad but true!

MPA's in the Morovo Lagoon

MPA stands for Marine Protected Areas. Such concept is no novelty to us in Australia but what may seem a relatively simple undertaking in our country (despite the strong lobbies of recreational and commercial fishermen, for example on the Great Barrier Reef) is much more complex in the Solomon Islands.

Marine protected areas in fact are no novelty to Solomon Islanders either, but the islanders have mostly forgotten this. Traditionally, the chiefs were also closing certain reefs areas to protect them from fishing for periods of time and let them replenish. In older times, the chiefs had more power than nowadays and their will was respected. Recently though, there has been a drop in leadership quality within many communities and the push by outside initiatives is necessary to help conservation. As part of its water quality monitoring of the Morovo Lagoon, the University of Queensland team found out that fishing practices were the predominant threat to the coral reef ecosystems and that there was a need to reduce harvesting to help the reef recover. So they pushed for the communities to create a number of MPA’s. A tedious work undertaken by the UQ team with local boat driver and community educator Morgan.

Most people live on or by the water and use the resource



Though very traditional, fishing by a growing population pressures the reef



Morgan is helping the local villagers marking their MPAs with rope and buoys. Lots of buoys are needed shaping a very well defined line, says Morgan, because if only one or two mark the corners, they are likely to get stolen. This is one of many other difficulties and oppositions to the establishment of MPAs. Jealousy and greed are crippling the process, with some community members gossiping that Morgan is personally benefiting from the MPAs. Many of these MPA projects do not have their own dynamism: too often, an NGO comes in, provides all materials and does it all. As a result, people do not appropriate the project fully and if the NGO resigns activity in the area, MPA does not continue. The lack of good leadership is often the problem.



If no longline fishing buoys are available, a clever way to make some floats is to use bamboo stick, ballasted with cement at the bottom. A small flag is strapped at the top.



Morgan conduct underwater monitoring training sessions


In each MPA, regular monitoring is conducted by trained locals. For fish and coral census transects, a simple exercise for a marine bio in Oz, takes a bit of patience to train the locals. But they have the advantage of knowing their reef perfectly.


In particular, the overharvesting of grazing fish, enabled excessive algae cover to impend on coral growth, leading to coral death and the loss of habitat for other species of fish.


Together with excessive nutrient and sediment input from erosion caused by logging, macroalgae are getting a boost to invasion after every major rain event. With Morovo lagoon being very enclosed, with its double barrier, plumes get trapped inside, covering the coral with layers of mud.


Of course this is intermittent and in dry periods, the rivers are pristinely clean


Going up one of the rivers on Vangunu with driver Morgan



But the damage created by large ares of clear fell land is obvious in heavy rainfall. This reef is straight of the oil plantation of Meresu on SE Vangunu