Resting at Peava

Peava village

Along the shores of the lagoon, lays the tranquil village of Peava. This place is not far from paradise. No crocodiles there, so can swim anytime and such nice people!!!!!

KUNA was very welcome in Peava (that’s why still hasn’t left!), but one shall not expect the village to support any rubbish disposal, repairs, etc. Heard some bad stories of previous yachties coming in and expecting services like in Australia, all for nothing (scrungers!) and they gave a bad impression! Peava is never short of water and villagers are happy for visitors to use the taps and wander around. It is good practice to go and find the young community leader Cyanna, to introduce oneself and ask for permission to go visiting the surrounding islands.

There are many great characters, who have initiated some good projects which give villagers jobs and a bit of purpose. There is a great community feeling in the village, whose is under the influence of the Seven Day Adventist Church, a mission which I found being very productive in the Solomon Islands (and I am not religious for two cents!). One day, we found everyone on a big weed picking mission (photo weed picking day) in the main single track road of the village (there are of course no cars here).


Weed picking in the main street of Peava

The Wilderness Lodge (check www.thewildernesslodge.org ), at the end of the wharf in the middle of the lagoon, is warm and inviting. Yes this sounds like a tourist advertising but that was so true the peaceful feeling given by this special place!


Four local great chefs run the kitchen for the guests who get to sit all together on a large table to share a meal. Some of the ladies did kindly bake extra bread for the KUNA and one may order some extra fruit and vegies for the yacht in advance. It helps the ladies picking no more than what’s needed from the garden! Many villagers work on and off for the lodge, and the manager Corey, (an Australian who elected domicile in Peava and married a local girl) makes some effort to keep a balance between introducing cash to the villagers and keeping them living with their subsistence gardens.


Corey has adapted a local dug out canoe and tracks well out of a big rain downpour with a cut down version windsurfer's sail!

A brief visit to Mary Island, onwards to Ngatokae!

Mary Island...


En route for Ngatokae Island, the KUNA had all intentions to stop at Mary Island (Mboroko) for some diving on the steep walls of this inhabited island, 22 nm of the Russel islands North shores. There is no anchorage there, except on a small patch of reef on the north west side of the island, which apparently is OK in constant SE winds. The bay to the South offers no protection from the SE swells but may be explored in NW weather season.
Also called Mboroko, Mary is uninhabited and covered in dense rainforest but pigs were once upon a time introduced on the island and have had a very destructive impact.


A private mooring is there, but unfortunately it was occupied by the dive charter boat Bilikiki (buggered up the timing, they come once a week!)
… Talking to divers from the Spirit of Solomons( the other ship that uses the mooring), I later found out that a medium sized saltwater crocodile lives out there, they encountered it while diving in a fairly open area, even that far out and with cliffy volcanic shores that really aren’t croc habitat!!!


So KUNA continued on to Ngatokae Island, hoping to make the remaining 32 miles in time before nightfall.

Ngatokae is located at the extreme South East of the New georgia group and faces the South easterly weather. Strong winds got KUNA fast in sight the cliffy shores on the weather coast. As A tall swell grew, compressed between Mbulo Island, Malemale Island and the reef shore of Ngatokae and KUNA was soon surfing down 3m waves in this passage bordered by a reef on the South West side of MaleMale.


It was tight to get inside the lagoon at 6:30 PM as the night was falling behind the 1000m Mt Mariu, and for once the traditional Solomon navigation marks were quite useful in marking the 4m deep passage: two very large buoys are to be lined up and not confused with the yellow mooring buoy and the red cone beacon (yes red!) that indeed marks a very shallow reef. Leave it well to starboard when going in.


Here is another view of the passage from inside the lagoon looking out



Well, best is not to enter this lagoon at dusk but that was all right! Some ships do it in the peach dark!

KUNA at rest in Peava lagoon
S8° 47.172 E158° 13.872

The best anchorage is found in 20m of water to the north of the lagoon. With 60m of chain and the anchor dropped slightly more towards the reef side, KUNA had plenty of swinging room in every direction, mostly for SE trade winds. Cherry on the cake: the bottom is SILT!!! The lagoon is incredibly protected and only a slight swells rolled the KUNA at high tide, even when 2-3m runs through the channel outside!

This Google Earth photo was a blessing to get in late in the day!!!!

Sail and other repairs at Nukufero

A peaceful quiet spot with a bit of a breeze was ideal to conduct a bit of maintenance at Nukufero in between kayak trips.


Don’t fix sails with SIKAFLEX and adhesive patches- if you can!

The main had suffer a big rip in transit between Tikopia and Anuta: the stainless metal shackle attaching the sheets broke, and as the sail flogged heavily in the squall the sharp metal edge ripped 60cm at the base of the headsail in a T shape, one width of sail material! Without a zigzag industrial sewing machine on board, hard to fix the sail with a proper window patch so I did a band aid patch with thin material and sikaflex over the adhesive repair patch.

The job held well for a couple of months, but with the heavy forces of beating, the patches recently started shearing away because the adhesive on the patch did not stick to the sikaflex! I should have used clean sail cloth rather than adhesive patch, and now here I am: spent 6 hours removing the sikaflex from either side of the sail to reapply the patch!! See how it holds this time



The usual wear and tear on the galvanized rigging needs a bit of attention, sanding back to remove the rust in every spot and re-paint with a metal priming paint. It worked out a few days later that even after the rust removed, a decent metal primer was the go as rust reappeared through the paint!

Other jobs that were neglected before the charter due to lack of time: some stainless fitting were not insulated properly from the aluminium, creating galvanic reaction between dissimilar metals. This one needs soaking for a week or more in freshwater and vinegar!

Second visit to Nukufero, North West Russell

KUNA anchored at Nukufero -


West Bay



Nukufeo inlet map -

S9º01.719 E159º04.830 marks the passage through the reefy entrance of this deep inlet. The Garmin electronic chart above is not very exact (the paperchart is not rectified for WGS84), this is why the waypoint sits on the reef! The reef extends on either side, and has very shallow spots so enter in good sunlight. The village side is marked by a stick, but stay well clear as it is for canoe draft! One can anchor in the bay on the northern side of the inlet in about 15m , opposite Samata village, but the holding, on hard rubble, was pretty average. This spot is pretty protected, though so it still would be safe in light NE- SE winds.



Having been in and out of this reef guarded inlet during the BBC crocodile project, it was easy to revisit it, this time with the excitement of sailing the flat waters all the way to Nukufero, and the joy of finding deep mud and all round protected anchorage!! While it was very stuffy there in May, the August tradewinds reached all the way, providing a fresh breeze and no mosquitoes, yay! This pristine mangrove anchorage with views over the rainsforest of Pavuvu is most peaceful, surrounded by bird and frog calls at night and it would be a good cyclone hole too.

looking for crocs in May!

S9º03.212 E159º05.218 is the Nukufero anchorage.
Any further south into the inlet, the mud bank rises rapidly to a depth of 1m, don’t go too far!

Conveniently placed between the village of Nukufero and its gardens, a traffic of canoes constantly comes in and out of a mangrove creek at the end of the inlet. Intercepting them to trade some foods is easier than going to the market! There is a market to in NUkufero on Saturdays and Wednesdays. It takes place in “the club” an old corrugated shed, at 7 am, just after morning prayer, so hurry up as soon as you hear the prayer bell and you may get a chance to buy some fresh bun cake (bread)! Other goods, apart form betelnut, are rare and generally intercepted and sold half was through the football field before their seller reaches the market! So I found easier to send the children to hunt of some fruit and vegetables and trade pencils!

A lot of people friendily visited the KUNA in their outrigger canoes, offering coconuts, etc.. none of them as timid and reserved as their melanesian counterparts, a friendly trait that I found even more on Tikopia!


going out with the girls!



Young girls even dragged me into their play area in the bush for eating germinated coconut and to teach me how to make Tikopian baskets-



Tunnelled by tall mangrove trees, a magic shaded creek extends 1.5 km inland from the end of the inlet and is a great dusk trip. With night guides on dug out canoes, we explored it for the BBC croc hunt, and it is certainly croc infested as every one we passed gave us a warning for crocodiles. In the next inlet East (Kukunaon Inlet) a young man who was diving at night on the coral to catch fish, was killed and they only found its legs, which they buried.


Later, a walk further up the river to a waterfall was guided by David and Muriel, a local young couple. Muriel is 26 and has not got any children yet (this, I was surprised about), which leaves her the time to come on strolls, unlike many other women.

David and Muriel




The waterfall is locater in between the two main hills of Pavuvu. There is very little gradient there, so it is not so specky but refreshing!!!!

Walking up the freshwater end of the river was certainly a bit daunting due to crocs, but most obvious threat was this little freshwater snail whose nasty spikes quickly got into my feet before I could put on any shoes.


A freshwater snail with a nasty spine!


The people in Nukufero are Polynesians, and very different from their melanesian neighbours in Samata village or Kukunaon Inlet.




so are their canoes, melanesian canoes do not have an outrigger, as below, a lot more dangerous in crocodile country.




People settled from Tikopia in the 1950’s when there was a lot of work in the coprah plantations. Although so remote from their mother island (800 miles away), they keep a close contact and their Tikopian customs. During the KUNA’s first visit, all were mourning the loss of their older chief number One, Late Kafika, on Tikopia. They keep contact with the mother island by HF radio, message are relayed via Lata in the Temotu Province. People from Nukufero rarely get the chance to visit their mother island, because transport by ship is virtually inexistent. People from Tikopia who come to Nukufero, rarely go back there either. The same tribal lines are present in Nukufero and Tikopia and I found fair resemblance between this Tafua man, Tomas, and Chief Edward so I asked if they were related and of course they were!

- Thomas in his house -
So, having visited Tikopia myself for two weeks, it was great to come back to Nukufero and bring them some news and photos. I burnt a DVD of pictures and a music CD with the sing sings I recorded on the beach with the Ipod and gave it to the community, which was well appreciated. The trick was for them to organize viewing sessions of the DVD and sharing generator fuel costs for this very purpose. I was amazed at how many DVD players were in the village (Tikopia has not even a CD player!)

a village house, on high posts

The negative impact of exposure to modern customs was problematic for Chairman Andrew, the community leader: whilst any alcohol is banned on Tikopia, and it is also in Nukufero, but young men found a way around by using Cava (the traditional Vanuatu root drink) and fermenting it into alcohol, sometimes adding quinine or other drugs to make the mix more explosive. Now the community is all getting off on it: in May, there was not a sound to be heard at night, but this time, party music was doofing in the distance every night the so called “Cava” was available and we’d sadly hear of sore heads the next day.

Lingattu Cove, Russell Islands

S9º07.265 E159º09.691 Lingattu

The sunlight passage made for a nice sail in dead flat water, even in light winds, though the breeze gets flueky trough there. Along the passage many settlements with people always greeting the few yachts that come through. The narrows at the south of the passage did make for interesting navigation in between coral reefs shaded by mangrove trees! The passage, extremely deep, has very few shoals, some of them being marked by the adequate navigation markers

Lingattu is a Cove at the South of the Russel group, an inlet at the end of the sunlight passage. One can anchor at the entrance in about 6-7 m on sand and rubble (position provided) or aim for the harbour at the end of the channel that is more protected from the winds. The waters are clear and the bottom is covered in world war two relics and other wreckages.

An old plantation village, Lingattu has only a few families. The children there are accustomed to trade with visitors because the dive cruising vessels Bilikiki and Spirit of Solomons anchor there to dive the wreck of an old freighter. To dive it, it was easy enough to ask the locals to point it out: it is 20m straight off shore, opposite the last house of the settlement to the south in the main channel. The stern of the wreck, 15m deep, can be seen snorkelling from the surface and its bow sits in 30m. It is a nice little dive with lots of large fishes (midnight snappers, blue fin trevally, angelfishes) swimming in and out of the portholes. The wreck is covered in curtain blue sponges and lots of red fire fishes (lion fish type) inhabit the top. An easy and rewarding shore dive!

The main community is along side the shore, 1km further in the cove, a kayak ride away. A "pikinini project": with swarms of the buggers running to the shore like flies to greet the kayak with abig hello and a big smile. The population is increasing at a rat eof 5% in some places in the solomons, with 80% of people under 25 years old, a scary statistic, reflected in this vision!
All were very surprised but happy to be visited and summoned for market foods in pidgin and soon canoes brought over pumpkin, pawpaw and bushlimes to the KUNA. With a bit of effort, I could even find bread, commonly called “buncake”. At first, hearing “pancake”, it took me a while to workout that it was the usual fresh buns sold for a dollar a piece and they had just been baked in half a 44 gallon drum. Yum!

Children come to sell fruit and vegies

With the KUNA safely anchored in Lingattu, it was easy to go and explore the islands south of the sunlight passage.
Taina Island was the first one: it was a very tempting lagoon for anchoring but only for centreboard yachts! The entrance (off position S9º07.930 E159º08.695) is shallow and sparsed with bommies. A quick check at mid tide (on a neap tide) yielded no more that 1.5 m of water. Though possible, it would have taken too much effort to get the KUNA in there and hard to catch the next tide to get out. Taina is inhabited and has a small hospital for the communities of the southern Russels. The victim of a centipede bite in Lingattu was only a short canoe ride away from medical help.



The above mentioned wreck is marked on the map

On the Western side of Hoi Island, there is a logging wharf. Lots of activity was going on when passing by with the canoes with two tug boats towing a barge full of large rainforest tree logs. Industrial logging operations are now taking place on Pavuvu, the main Western russel island and a large red road cutting the forest to the West (village of Liosoleme)

Northern Russells
Returning via the sunlight passage to the Northern side of the Russels, the KUNA took a meandering passage in between the reefs, in search for more exciting lagoon anchorages. The large area of shallow lagoon in unfortunately windswept by the SE trades and chop builds up over the 2 or 3 miles of unprotected waters. Of course there are a few crocodile infested inlets to have a look at but no shoals were deemed exciting enough to anchor so the KUNA continued on to West Bay and Nukufero via the northern protected shores, rounding the cliffs of Marualon Island. Should one need to stop, Kiolen Point offers a bit of a protected shoal (app S8º59.635 E159º07.815), though the sad sight of the logging camp nearby is not appealing. Logging roads also cut the northern side of Pavuvu.

Later explored by kayak, the bay between Marulaon Island and Pavuvu actually holds a possible nice anchorage on its Eastern side, off a small low-key resort man aged by a local man, Oliver. Trained in hospitality in Vanuatu, this entrepreneurial businessman was very welcoming and intend to re open the resort after he builds a couple of bungalows in 9 months. The anchorage (approximate location S8º 59.6 E159º 06.332), in 5-10m sand in between some coral heads -which can be avoided-, is nicely vented in the SE trades. It would give close access to the white sandy beach of Pipisala Bay, lined by coconut plantation and to the northern cliffs of Marulaon.

Hanasivi Cove too close to the coral and crocs!

S8º 59.026 E159º 13.606

A croc was laying on the bommie in the background. This photo was taken the time before when snorkelling here.




This lovely cove provides a windless shelter from the S to SE tradewinds but if the wind turns any N of East, be prepared to get out, as we learned during a night squall which was enough to put the rudder above the reef flat, luckily at high tide. The exit is broad and deep so no problem there, especially with a GPS track


The light marked on Lagholon Island(easternmost on the pic) of course does not work and is a rusty remnant of the old colonial times.

Let’s face it, this anchorage itself is really to steep to be an anchorage but good for a lunch stopover. Drop the pick off the marked position in 35m to 25m of water and run a stern line to the coconut tree directly off the position. That’ll put you a boat length away from the reef.

Kuna with sternline to a coconut tree


Assume sand and rubble with a few coral heads, but again didn’t check that one because as the KUNA approached, motoring slowly, a crocodile was watching, unfrightened, laying on a coral bommie, in bright daylight!!! They are everywhere and I found more footprints on small coral islands to the extreme north of the lagoon.





Though wild, all these islands are imprinted by traces of human occupation: small camps, now abandoned are noticeable from the time Beche De Mer was harvested.


From there, a lot of the northern lagoon could be explored by kayak. Mangrove trees grow in the middle of crystal clear coral waters!



A good snorkelling spot with shallow nooks and crannies is just 500m NE of the anchorage spot. Hanasivi Island is thickly wooded but with some windy openings (the anchorage spot is windless) and the sound of a chainsaw resoned during the day: a small camp with four people harvesting timber with a portable saw (small scale initiative). It was interesting to hear that they are also opposed to the large logging companies, which are currently opening large roads in several places on the main Russell islands but small bribes that the village chiefs receive from the loggers makes them helpless to prevent the damage.


Mangrove growing on coral everywhere...

Koemorun Island, getting in the lagoon is worthwhile!

Koemorun Island lagoon
S09º00.894, E159º16.012 ,



By far the best anchorage in the Russells. If you are looking for a wild tropical paradise looking island bordered with rainforest tree full of birds, surrounded by a reef lagoon, this is IT! And to my belief, no crocodile lives here. No people either, just the occasional motor canoes come to fish the reef edge. The KUNA was safe there and could be left for the whole day.

The lagoon is large, 10 to 5 m deep in sand and sparse small bommies and the choice of the location is yours, but the trick is to get in!


To get inside the lagoon, the KUNA had to go over a very narrow passage in between bommies, which yields 1.8 m depth (that’s not at Datum, that’s with the tide!). The tides in the Russells are diurnal (range varying between 20 and 80 cm), which means the high tide occurs only once a day, and unfortunately, high tide does not conveniently happen at the time of the day when reef navigation is at its optimum light wise (between 10am and 3pm). Studying the tide tables tightly, I found late in the neap tide week seems to be the highest water level at the best time, towards 4pm. Low tide occurs right at 12 noon during spring tides, and high tide in the middle of the night!!!


The entrance in oriented East West so neither the early morning nor the late afternoon are convenient as one always looks into the sun, bugger!


So there is basically no choice but going in blind, so to get around this problem, several kayak and snorkelling reccies were necessary to get to know the 5m narrow passage properly, checking that a person’s height worth of water was over the ground at every point. The safest way to proceed, while shorthanded for crew, was to actually mark the edge of the bommies (not visible in the available light) with fenders and fishing buoys, so the passage could be followed! It takes a bit of time to set up the buoys and the morning tide was dropping rapidly: 20cm DO make a difference here, and to get out, we just made it before a rain squall.


The passage marked by fenders and buoys, crossed in a squall, not so dodgy with good markers!

The passage through the reef is directly East of the GPS position S9º00.682, E159º 15.407 and is to the north of a large round flat bommie with a defined edge. There is a break in the vegetation on the island, which is good to aim for from this position, bearing 87ºT, though the course for the passage itself is about 80ºT. I must say, didn’t have time to check the exact course, I was too busy squeezing between the bommies for 50 meters! After that it gets deep again and navigation is easy.


The snorkelling and diving are pretty good all around the very steep walls of the reef, vertical walls with lots of caves.
But the lack of large predatory fish such as coral trout, cods, trevallies, snappers was remarkable and the explanation has yet to be found. They either may have been intensively fished for the Esky market (canoes take them to Honiara for selling) or eaten locally during the beche de Mer harvest (now closed). Or the wall coral is just not the right habitat, despite the numerous caves ? ON the NW and SE corners, a reasonable amount of current occurs (2-3knots), making for a lot of large gorgonians and a lot of zooplankton reduced the visibility to 15-20m. Some eagle rays were spotted and some babay black tip sharks under the trees along the beach, along with a few land dwellers



Kingfishers hover in the trees above the lagoon at dusk


A goanna visits the picinic place, attracted by the grilled fish smell?


Hermit crabs are fierce competitors of my shell collection: they virtually inhabit every shell on the beach, except cowries...



Early sunset in the tropics