So Yandina wasn’t even worth anchoring there, the town is in a sad stage of dismantlement so a trip by kayak was enough to try and buy some vegies. Market there is on Wednesday and Saturday, but don’t hold your breath, it may not be more than just a bit of betelnut and banana!!! A chinese tradestore in a large corrugated iron shed is well supplied for various dry good (biscuit, washing powder, etc…) and sells bread (say “buncake”) if one turns up early enough in the morning!
To be fair to Solomon islands tourism, I am showing the equivalent coprah operation of Honiara, That's what Yandina would have looked like a few years back. Imagine an old rusty burnt down structure now...
Most of the Russells are covered by extensive coconut plantations for the exploitation of coprah and Yandina was the centre for processing the coprah. Since the labour dispute with the company owning the plantations started four years ago, causing the work to stop, most plantations are now rapidly becoming bush, with an impenetrable understorey of young rainforest growing in between the coconut trees. To collect the coconuts, the understorey normally has to be clear. And all the large sheds, diesel engines and other machinery of the coprah processing plant in Yandina have been pillaged, destroyed or are now rusting away. A huge waste and a sad sight, walking around town so I didn’t even take any photos.
Yandina has not much else to offer there, The Telekom office does not have internet (which is why I am so late updating this blog!)
Due to its spreading use as biofuel, the price of coprah is now increasing again (to 2.6 SID/kg), quite a few private initiatives continue and the owners reckon it is more profitable for them to work the coprah privately with small drying houses instead of being labour for the company.
Small coprah drying shed, they are in many places in the Russells
Drying Coprah
The Russells have a lot of settlement with people from other islands, who came to work on the plantations (Bellona, Malaita, Tikopia, etc..) while the local Russell people continue working in their gardens and live a self subsistence life. Though one hears that the dispute can cause problems if white people wish to visit the islands, no resentment was felt anywhere the KUNA stopped. The people are generally friendly and reserved.
