Update on Kolombangara Island- A trip up to the rainforest lodge

Kolombangara island is located directly east of Ghizo. Villages are spread all around the coastal slopes with quite a few harbours which can be used for anchoring after carefully crossing reef entrances. The larger township of Ringgi offers a harbour with a deep entrance and and some deep anchorages.

Kolombangara is the large round volcanic island with Ringgi Cove located to the South East of it.

The summit gets rapidly covered in cloud through the day's heat build up and drowning rains generally follow. Looking forward to get to the top!! :)


The harbour was well surveyed during WWII so the bathymetry on the chart can be trusted. Be careful of the fringing reef in the middle. The harbour is very protected and even a squall can barely build up much waves. There has basically been no wind in the last month, and only I hope that the trades would pick up eventually but at least, it meant leaving the KUNA in the harbour was pretty safe from weather if not from theft.
The brand new infrared battery door alarm that makes a lot of noise probably was a good enough a deterrent. If not, parking in front of Rocky’s security house and slipping a 50SBD note for him to look after the boat was!

Ringgi is a company town, dominated by the timber company KFPL buildings and houses. It has a couple of stores, a public phone and the store even sells mobile phone cards. Market on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday is sometimes well supplied, sometimes only offers betelnut. Supplying for a rainforest camping trip was a challenge, as only a couple of manioc roots could be found!!! For dry stores, best is to go to Noro, 5 miles away on New Georgia Island. Basically, do not count on the local stores except for some tuna and rice.




Kuna on a stopover at Noro Wharf



A year after having first landed on Kolombangara island during the BBC shoot (see blog archive may 2009), another visit was arranged to collect media for the newly formed Kolombangara Island Conservation Association.


View of the crater and its opening to the South East.


In December 2008, with the support of the local timber plantation company (KFPL) and the Solomon Island Community Conservation Partnership (SICCP), the local community agreed on supporting conservation of the upper part of this large volcanic island, ie the zone above the 400m elevation contour, which includes the deep crater and ridges up to the summit, 1600m high. To encourage and stimulate donations for conservation, the KFPL supported the construction of a rainforest lodge with stunning views on the crater slopes and truly the best rainforest bird watching observatory conceived. Our role was to bring these stunning view to the outside world, by collecting some imagery that would help encourage donations for conservation.








The lodge is located at the end of a logging road, at 380m height, 15km drive away from the coastal company town of Ringgi. Walking tracks will also progressively be cut into the rainforest for visitors to access the crater, the summit and the river banks. This tourism project aiming for high-end customers to visit this very special place will create jobs for the community for guides and lodge carers. For example, the track along the Vila river, which runs out of the crater, takes the adventurous trekker to heritage sites, where skulls from the times of head hunting are kept. Indeed, a large portion of the wet river banks inside the crater have been terraced by the people who escaped the head hunters by living in the thick and wet rainforest.




skull...




From a photographer’s point of view, the rainforest environment is spectacular but challenging. The climate up at the lodge is milder than the stuffy heat of sea level: temperatures only a few degrees lower (25 instead of 31!) seem cool due to the high humidity. The Sony EX1 camera held up to the task, even in dripping moisture, which often destroys video equipment. Portable and light weight, it was carried up and down steep gorges to capture the views of the crater and the deep and intense rainforest vegetation (an assistant was also carrying our Miller tripod daily). We rigged up a makeshift dolly and a jib made out of local timbers cut with a bushknife. The local production tools look a bit archaic, but there is no way to receive things into the country, so they did the job.


tropical timber jib

dolly filming tree roots



wet camp... glad about the rainforest hammock!


Walking between tall trees, it is very rare to get a really photogenic view from a vantage point, except where there has been a land slip or a tree falling. Wildlife is heard more often than seen, with hundreds of bird calls and dozens frog calls. The rainforest is also very wet, unpredictable heavy rain showers being nightmare for electronics and the terrain difficult: steep muddy slopes and slippery river bed rocks are common fare. Despite all of this, with a bit of patience, ingenuity and camera equipment holding up to the field conditions, lots of nice shots were collected.

April 2009 - An excursion to the Hele Bar

Back in the solomons...



After being back from a voyage through the pack-ice of Antarctica, a plane trip from Hobart takes one back to the 31C, equatorial stuffy climate of Marovo lagoon. The weekly plane was greeting by the welcoming committee and as usual I was the only whitie getting off at this stop.



There is no place to anchor a yacht at the Hele Bar so this filming trip required using the banana boat from the University of Queensland, carefully planning the fuel consumption for this 100 nm return excursion. Even the double kayak fitted in the canoe!



But unfortunately, there are no places to camp without a sworm of mosquitos and even a huge fire would not deter them. Couldn't even eat dinner in peace and ended up trying to retreat on the paddling the canoe out to sea. But for once, even being anchored 1km off the coast did not save anyone from the mosquitoes: the buggers followed!! This abbreviated the camping trip to a couple of days as hundreds of bites on the legs was unbearable !!




The Hele bar is a line of small low limestone islands outlaying from Marovo lagoon and marking the entrance into the Blanche Channel, a protected body of water between the islands of Tetepare, Rendova to the South and New Georgia to the North. The light marking the island furthest south of course is not working, so, with a yacht, careful night navigation is required to get around these islands due to the few shallow reefs. It is apparently the best camping spot. The Hele passage is shallow (4-5m) but safe when the swells are small.






The Hele islands are not inhabited and kept as a reserve managed by a ranger, who needed to be interviewed for the Conservation DVD. To arrange any meeting or interview in the Solomons, one has to come and meet the interviewee in person, because a message sent by HF radio is never guaranteed to reach its goal. So it may take 3 to 4 days, or more: weeks, to organize anything, Solomon time… Indeed, to access these islands, it was necessary to obtain prior official authorization from three different land owners, all living at various places through Marovo lagoon, and that also took months.



The wreck of a tuna boat just sticks out a meter or so at the edge of the reef on island. In the night, 8 years ago, the deckie was at the wheel on the maiden voyage while the rest of the crew was celebrating the launch and missed the Hele passage altogether, aiming straight for the reef!!! It is a nice dive now, when the water is clear. Wait for the westerlies to have stopped for a few days.







From the diet of a Russian icebreaker back to Solomon bush diet of ‘burnt fish and potato’, there is a big gap! Fruit were rare that time around but luckily the guide Stewart is a keen spear fisherman.



The fish with the thickest skin (like sweetlips) always ended up on the fire. His young assistant Malakai gave lessons in smoking fish, another local delicacies. All meals accompanied of sweet potato, the lowest GI food you can find. It’s got to be healthy!

Christmas time!

OK everyone, end of this year and end of the KUNA blog posts for a little while while it's Christmas here in Peava. In the new year, I will fly back to Oz for a short Antarctic trip to cool down before returning to the Solomons and resuming blog and project in feb!

MERRY CHRISTMAS and a GREAT NEW YEAR TO ALL READERS!!
fred:)

Some eye candy from Uepi

Finally KUNA had the opportunity and a good reason to sail around Vangunu Island through Morovo lagoon: go to Uepi Island, 37 miles from Peava. Taking a trip inside the lagoon was definitely easier after two banana boat rides but overall there are only a few shoals to avoid, the entrance to the Mbili passage is easy to negociate, staying right in the middle of the channels and the waters directly around Vangunu island are quite deep. Any shoal above 9m become a milky emerald green color and when it gets yellow brown, start worrying!! I will later post a track.


As a contribution to Morovo conservation DVD project, Grant and Jill, who manage the resort on this private island invited us to film on their reefs, which, despite many challenges, have been protected for more than 20 years. Grant and Jill have worked very hard on educating the local villagers to avoid fishing, and explain that in return, the tourists who come and look at the reef bring in business, which is good for the community. The concept of tourism and investment in the future has yet to grow a lot more in the Solomons.

Uepi reefs are the oldest MPA (Marine protected area) in Morovo, a testimony for what fish life may have been not so long ago on all the other reefs when fishing pressure was less. Morover, Uepi has been a diving resort for so long that the fish is really accustomed to divers, great for those who like to have a close up look. It is definitely easier to film reef life and fish behaviours where fish are plentiful and not afraid of humans, who are predators elsewhere. Grant and Jill are a wealth of knowledge about the marine environment there because they dive everyday.

Uepi is also a fantastic diving resort, with excellent facilities, very helpful staff and delicious local food. Great place to stay for a diving holiday!!


The accomodation side from the water. Do NOT anchor THAT close!!

I later will post a track on how KUNA got through the lagoon and to the anchorage behind Uepi island. Really the Uepi anchorage is not so well protected from the S- to NW and it can get fairley choppy if waves build up during squalls or more systemic winds but the holding ground is about OK (sand and rubble), and it would be well protected in the trades season, though stinking HOT!!!!. If you go there, take care to anchor with sufficient swinging space in between all the bommies to prevent damage from the chain. An amazing number of animals live on these small oasis. Also anchor far away enough from the island to not impend on guests privacy and report to the office on arrival to get advice on what you can and can’t do.

Freshwater eels of Ngatokae Island rivers

Since the conservation DVD project deals mostly with water quality, a good look at the freshwater creeks, where it all starts, was necessary. One may think eels are boring but th eons we found in the creeks of Mbiche village and Kavolavata are rather interesting and easy to film.

Mbiche creek, eels live where women wash the dishes!


At Mbiche, in the middle of the village, the eels cohabitate with the women doing dishes, the pikininis playing and enjoy a fish gut cleaning session, as they get a good feed!

Men clean the fish...


and the eels jump out for a feed on fish guts!


The Mbiche mob has turned their kastom eels into a tourist attraction, so they feature in the tour that they offer to the lodge dwellers, but in Kavolavata, the eels peacefully rest under huge tree roots and curiously came out to eyeball the camera



The shade is good for them. Without true shelter, I noticed the eels at Mbiche all suffer from cataract:
Along with the eels a number of freswater prawns live in the crystal clear waters of the creek.

Where to find these characters?
Here is an overview of the lagoon


At the extreme SE end of the island of Ngatokae lay those two villages, with Peava anchorage in the middle