Escape in Marau sound

Tavanipupu Anchorage, 15 m, sand
S9º 49.690 E160º 51.184



Guadalcanal has more possible anchorages than one would first expect at first glance, and all are better than Honiara! 60 miles East of the capital, in Marau sound, a number of small islands bordered by extensive fringing reefs provide shelter and nice sandy patches for yachts to stop. The resort of Tavanipupu island, which always was famous within the yachties community is soon to be re opened by it’s new owner Pamela Kimberly who recently bought the island (watch www.tavanipupu.com, I designed this start of a website and detailed pages are soon to come). As anywhere in the Solomons, transport is a challenge and it takes 2-3 hours and 100 liters of fuel to get to and from Tavanipupu in a fast boat (twin 115s) so Pamela is currently negociating with Solomon Airlines to re open air transport to the Marau airfield and will be looking at chartering the plane to get customers in. She’s also just acquired a very fast fuel efficient and clean boat to wiz to and from the resort.



An old friend from a few years ago, Pamela welcomed the KUNA to park next to Tavanipupu Island in a tiny little sandy horseshoe lagoon to the south of it. The lagoon is not very vented as it is protected from all directions and there is a bit of traffic from the village on the island to the South but all up pretty safe, people and weather wise. Stern anchor desirable as swinging room is limited and there is a fair bit of current through the lagoon. More information about good yachting practices with the resort will be also posted on www.tavanipupu.com.


Marau sound has a fine network of reefs and plenty of anchorages East, good for light SE trades. Watch the squalls!


Tavanipupu is highlighted here

map showing the path to Tavanipupu lagoon

details of the anchorage (more waypoints to be added later!)



The resort was the only one of many on Guadalcanal, which was not burnt and destroyed during the tensions, in spite of being located right in an area reputed for its extreme violence and fights. One of the previous owners, Dennis, had to barricade himself once or twice, but he had gained enough respect from the locals to remain safe-…ish.



The sturdy buildings were designed by Dennis Bellote, while his partner Keith, trained the chefs, who I must say, provide the best of restaurant meals on Guadalcanal and even know how to make chocolate profiteroles!! More details can be found on www.tavanipupu.com


The sumptuous dinner settings of tavanipupu
Wouldn’t such good food make you want to sail 60, well even 200 miles ? Sailing certainly, but unfortunately, the KUNA made it there after 14 hours of tedious motor-sailing right into the easterlies trades. Despite travelling at night to benefit from calm seas, there was enough of a breeze for her to slow down and katabatics strong enough to be sailed lasted for one hour! The Kuna was heavy too: a cargo load of booze (yes!!) and electric fans were delivered to the resort in due time the next morning!!!!



The marine environment around Tavanipupu island and other islands in Marau sound is very different form that of the Western province: these islands are small sandy mounts rather than uplifted coral platforms and are surrounded by seagrass beds.I can't upload all pics from here today, sorry!

Because of the current, the visibility can be average but there were a lot of new creatures to eyeball whilst snorkelling such as pipefishes, etc

On the tribulations of visa renewal

The process of extending a visa in the Sols will require the patience of a crocodile!!

Here it goes a bit like this:
- First, go door stopping the minister of Immigration in his office.
Easy, you just walk in the building, and wait! 15 hours may suffice...
- Before that, you, of course, collected a bunch of letter from
influent expats and locals to help push the process
- Once you waited long enough, they may come out with the paperwork
for the visa. That's after you told them that the current visa is
expiring tomorrow, so they have to do something about it.
-Don' t let your passport disappear into the darkness!!!!!
- Go queue at the Treasury for an hour. Pay the visa money (280). Pay
the police clearance too (90). Make sure you get the yellow and green
official receipts!
- Go to the police for clearance. Unfortunately, the guy has ran out
of forms and can't photocopy them until monday.
- Try to accelerate the process: grab the form and take it yourself to
the copy shop in town.
- Bad luck: there it a power cut in town, so no copy shop!!!
- Good idea: go back to the ministry of Immigration, they have copy
machines there and a generator. Queue up again. Interrupt cake eating
sessions if necessary to get the copy.
- Go back to the Police. Bad luck: it's friday and the guy was too
hot, so he went home!!
- Of course Doctors surgery also emptied out from their doctors during
the power cut, so no medical clearance. And anyway, it's friday and
the start of sabbath for other Seventh Day Adventist doctors.

....the saga will continue monday!!!!!º

Cava in Honiara!!

Now I don’t even have any pictures of Honiara and Point Cruz, because the place is all so familiar now, and photos would not render how sweaty and hot the place is, such as piling up in small bus vans or walking in the dusty crowded streets and the traffic jams! As usual the yacht club was a real heaven and really, not much happened during these few weeks.


Being parked next to the Vanuatu Police boat made life interesting: a few invitations to share the cava (traditional Vanuatu drink containing an anaesthetic drug extracted from the root of a pepper type of tree). Really I didn’t need to try it again!
In Honiara, the cava is not freshly ground root but powder imported from Fiji or Vanuatu ( for info: available at Pidgin Holdings, in Ranadi for 200 SBD / kg) and it’s not really as good as the real stuff, plus the terrible after effects (yes, cava hungover!!) which I don’t remember getting in New Caledonia. Though the drink was served in the coconut shells, the cava session on the back deck of a police boat with ships generator running in the background and heavy lights hasn’t got quite the feel of tradition but the Vanuatu men were very peaceful and we had nice conversation. They are in many ways very different from Solomon Islanders.

Accompanying the cava, sometimes was also a nice barbecue with lots of fresh stuff imported from Australia, like steak, apples, and the rest!! A feast for the scrunging yachtie!! Explanation: the Vanuatu Police boat is in fact a RAMSI posting (Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands, I don’t remember having mentioned it before in this blog). RAMSI gathered police forces from all pacific countries, including NZ and Oz in large numbers to assist reinstalling law and order in the Solomons after the tensions. RAMSI decided to import most, if not all foods, in order to prevent creating inflation and a false economy relying on the presence of a large number of expat policemen in the country. Though the Ozzie taxpayer finances flying all the fresh food weekly, the false economy has not really been avoided and house rental in Honiara compare with those of Chicago!

Crowded Honiara

Oct 14th

Honiara. After 4 hours of motor sailing in calm weather the last 20 miles that separate Tambea from Honiara, it was a surprise to find a crowded Point Cruz anchorage with a total of 10 yachts squeezed along the seawall! Once the KUNA found her perfect spot just near the police and navy wharf (dropped the anchor in 15 m of soft muddy sand on a slope, good holding!), it was so crowded that it would be hard for any new vessel to park. Two stern lines are a must to prevent shifting side ways in strong N-westerlies, which seem to happen daily at this time of the year. The Vanuatu police guys were quite helpful in helping getting the lines in, as it was rather tight to reverse the KUNA in and their police boat is made of glass ☺!!!

Safety.
The rest of the anchorage at Point Cruz is windy and exposed with poor holding and the three moorings already occupied. It’s not unusual to see some largish fishing boats dragging anchor as they don’t park so carefully, ans sometimes right infront of yachts so watch out!!! The police wharf provides good light at night, so additional safety to the first few yachts on this side along the wall.

Recently ( as I write this, Nov 6th), Black Billy had the bad luck to anchor out in the open, in the middle of the canoe passage for only a short time and after dark got robbed all their electronic gear. So stay aware, it’s Honiara after all, as benine as the place may feel, it is not always safe!

Sailing against the trades PART 2 and Where to clear customs in the Solomon Islands??

After going all the way to Lola Island (Vona Vona lagoon) thinking clearance and visa extensions were going to be possible in the nearby town of Gizo, Lisa, the very helpful and informed manager from Lola island resort, said that the only immigration officer recently retired, leading to closure of the Gizo office!!! Except for one small piece of advice a local friend later gave: if you don't intend to go in and out of the country, you can lodge your application in Gizo. It then sits on their desk and nothing is really done about it because of the communication problems. Whilst waiting for the application to be processed, you go travelling and come back only when it's time to clear out!!!

To deal with just a short three month extension to a cruising visa, it may also be possible to do it from Noro, but for an application for a temporary residence permit, there was no way around going back to Honiara.


A long fun two days of tacking and beating to go back to Guadalcanal in the SE corner of this pic: boats aren't meant to go upwind!!!

Meaning 115 miles from Peava, and because the SE trades have decided to have a relapse, after a month of calm weather in September, it took 2.5 days going in great zig zags into the swells and winds!


Interestingly enough, a lot of the very strong SE puffs were generated by squalls and lots of squalls hit the KUNA all the way! As the Kuna reached Tambea, in 20 knots of wind and large chop due the current running between Savo and Guadalcanal Island, the radio weather reports were claiming 3 knots of wind in Honiara, 20 miles further East.


Tambea Anchorage
S9º 15.380 E159º 39.840 Tambea offshore WPT
S9º 15.641 E159º 40.233 Tambea Anchorage

10 m in sand and coral But one could go a lot closer to the beach.
Once more, maybe Sieling’s cruising guide coordinate aren’t quite accurate. The Tambea resort was burnt down during the tension so it is hard to see which beach to anchor off and there is now a large logging camp to the NE of the resort. Given the hawling winds, the passage between the reefs/shoal provide good protection in anything but N to W. The shoals are not very obvious so best to approach carefully on a 120º True course from Tambea offshore waypoint.

After a decent night rest Kuna motorsailed the last 20 miles in early morning glassy waters, only to find the Point Cruz Anchorage absolutely packed full with 12, yes TWELVE yachts!! A tight sterna parking spot was

Lola to Honiara: sailing against the trades PART 1!!

105 miles and 24 hours of motoring from Lola to Peava, on the SE of the Western Province, back around the north of New Georgia, all of this to have a meeting with two researchers from University of Queensland to plan for an educational DVD project.


Flat windless waters and a dismantled light north of Noro. None of the lights charted are functioning as their solar panels get stolen, but they make good day marks!

There was no wind but it was possible to catch a light katabatic of the gentle slopes of New Georgia for most of the night, until the SE trades decided to pick up by 5 in the morning, right on the nose as KUNA was rounding the last double barrier islands outside Morovo lagoon!!!!! The poor 24 HP Bukh of KUNA was struggling to keep 3 knots of headway and I wished I had thoroughly navigated Lumahile passage and through the lagoon before, to be able cut inside in protected waters despite the low light. Next time…


The cliffs from the outer barrier islands of Morovo

Meeting new science folks was great: Simon Albert and Jame Judy from UQ have been enthusiastically running a community based monitoring and conservation project in the Morovo lagoon. The main reason why they originally came to the Solomons was to investigate water quality issues related to logging activities on Vangunu Island. After several years of conducting a research study using similar methodologies as those used with nutrient/eutropication issues on the Great Barrier Reef (my old trade!), they found out that the impacted state of the reef inside Morovo lagoon is probably due just as much to unsustainable fishing practices as it is to logging. The study has produced a lot educational material in Morovo language (booklets, etc) but the use of a very powerful media such as moving pictures is needed for further awareness raising, which will lead to the production of a DVD. What a nice excuse to order a whole bunch of underwater video/photo gear and stay in the Solomons and but now, visa becomes an issue!!!

Forest Trends Brainstorming…On carbon credits and deforestation

The sad thing about this post is that I have no photos...hope you enjoy the reading!


At the low key, yacht friendly resort of Lola island, a workshop was in progress, gathering an eclectic group of managers involved in various aspect of forest exploitation and conservation. All these executives from a fundation called Forest Trends (check website www.forest-trends.org) were here to observe the forest situation in the Solomons and discuss global carbon credit strategies. They were extremely welcoming to outsiders, which enabled me to witness some of the discussions, that were going on. With the state of the planet changing rapidly, the Kyoto protocol is up for review in Copenhagen 2009, before further agreements.

The Kyoto Protocol obliges the 35 industrial states that have ratified the document to cut emissions by 5% below 1990 levels by 2008-2012 but there is a severe dispute about who of the developed and developing countries should bear the burden of the restrictions imposed. A German man involved in the preparation for the Copenhagen agreements chaired one of the meetings at Lola and described the excuse for China’s refusal to abide by the thresholds imposed by Kyoto: Chinese have to catch up with development first before restricting emissions: the other developed countries have had their share of carbon emissions for a century already!

Now a global market of carbon emission credits is growing and, with it, the need to re-think the world economy in environmental terms. Conservation has become a business. To be able to continue operating whilst compensating for their excess carbon emissions, developed countries will have to buy carbon credits from developing countries (some of which remain low carbon emission countries) Developing countries that still have trees standing are in a strong position in the carbon credit market. And conservation agencies may make the price of standing trees attractive to compete with logging companies and acquire conservation power through this market.

Where do the Solomon Islands’ forests fit into this ? Well, there is still a long way to go and unfortunately, the slow process by which conservation NGO’s can release cash to pay the communities to refrain from logging can not beat how fast the Malaysian logging companies bring cash in hand to pillage the forest. The Solomon islander’s culture is such that cash TODAY wins over everything else.
The – inexistent- land tenure structure is such that, even when a village community is willing to protect an area from logging, a few corrupted individuals can decide to split and register as a different tribe and sign off with the loggers under their names, and sell the people forest assets for their own benefits. Corruption and lack of control on the ground. Such cases are innumerable and explain how the country’s forests assets have been pillaged.


Whilst preparing to go up filming at the top of Kolombangara Island with Chris Filardi from the New York Museum of Natural History, we learned of a few initiatives combining expertise from local forestry companies (KFLP), communities and even schools are currently growing, such as the Kolombangara conservation project (see Post in May). Such project aims at protecting corridors of canopy from the summit to the shore to support diurnal migrations. Some rare species of birds roost at the top but feed on coastal fruiting trees and benefit from the continuum of forest habitats, which is threatened by loggers from all . Gathering footage from the top of Kolombangara will help with raising awareness of potential private donors, accelerating conservation process.


And I have no pictures because we never made it to the top of Kolombangara because Chris was too busy with the board of forest but learned a lot!! The KUNA will later return to Kolombangara