As I’ve said before, our cruising plans are written in sand at low tide and the impending Super Blue Moon was an omen that the tide was turning on our time in the Solomon’s. Sick and tired of being “canoed’, constantly harassed by hordes of villagers, leeching off the contents of our boat, coupled with the unrelenting weather, sweltering heat, boat maintenance issues, bacterial infections, and general fatigue from lack of exercise, we opted to depart for Cairns a month earlier than planned. Once the inkling of the possibility was set into a firm decision, we couldn’t get leave soon enough.
Elmo, our deckhand, was excited about the possibility of exploring the Great Barrier Reef while I was looking forward to a bit of civilization with proper shopping, medical attention, and a decent leisurely walk. Garry was looking for a bit of stress release from the constant juggling of his Captain’s duties as chief navigator, ship’s engineer, tour guide, fishing guide, and logistics agent. We all were looking forward to some better fishing and nicer weather.
As we worked our way towards the departure town of Noro, Elmo snagged his first GT (Giant Treveli) while poppering along one of the numerous reefs in the area. A nice Red Bass followed shortly after. It was a bit of irony that we were finally catching the fish we came for, but now leaving it behind.
Noro, a town of 5,000 and notable for its’ tuna cannery, was the recommended port for yacht clearance, supposedly friendly to cruisers with some limited provisioning options. It boasts a small airport, which is handy for yachts taking on crew for passages to Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, or Australia. Garry had been sorting out fuel logistics for the past week over the phone with a local distributor, arranging for a tanker to deliver 2000 liters to the shipping wharf.
The passage into Noro is narrow and tricky, a long, thin channel that resembles more an Amazonian River tributary than the coastline of an island. Several islands within the reef system are so closely clumped together, that the waterways appear to be rivers, rather than tidal areas. Fortunately, the area is well charted with hazard markers, bamboo sticks serving as ATONs. When Garry visually lined up the ranges to cross the Munda Bar, with a depth of only 4.6 meters, edged by reefs, he found our ship’s Navionics charts to be off by more than a few meters. Time Zero charts on our phone apps were accurate, correlating with Google Earth maps. It pays to have multiple options for navigation, including traditional aids such as sight ranges and cardinal markers.
A half-dozen large exotic birds soared overheard as we passed through the Swinger’s channel. Bird song filled the air as we motored past small homes along the “riverbank”, reminiscent of a scene in the movie, Apocalypse Now. Small longboats, loaded with commuters going about their daily lives, passed us, seemingly uninterested in us, a refreshing change from the constant attention of canoes from the previous days.
After weeks on our own, we shared the bay with four other yachts; one, a permanent resident named Hilde, who manages the Solomon Island Cruiser’s Facebook Page and is a good source of local information. The other three boats were waiting for seasonal weather windows, which would be a couple of months away, given that they were sailors. There are definite advantages to having a few ponies under your deck to drive away from your troubles.
After launching the dinghy, we had a quick squiz with a Dutchman on the back of his newish 50’ yacht. He’d picked up the vessel in Hong Kong last year, and been sailing ever since, save a trip to the Netherlands for hospital care to treat persistent cellulitis on his leg, a small cut gone wrong in the tropics. He had left his boat on anchor and had paid a local man to sleep on board every night while he was in hospital on the other side of the planet. I could sense Garry looking down at my own bandaged foot and I could see his wheels turning. A small grain of sand between my flip-flops and foot had festered into a nasty infection, in the two days since we left Honiara. I had managed to knock it on the head with the last of our antibiotics but needed a resupply. Elmo’s persistent ear infections had a dent of our medical kit as well. We were not surprised to learn there wasn’t a pharmacy in Noro.
The Dutchman gave us a general layout of the town, as well as recommended a safe place to land but failed to warn us about the hazards that land-mined our approach in the dinghy. A few near missed with coral heads, but the water was crystal clear, and Garry was quick with lifting the outboard’s prop. We did get to enjoy a “dry snorkel” of the coral reef as we crawled over it in 200 ml of water.
We rocked up to the jerry-can fuel depot, a ramshackle, open-faced shack that perched on muddy stilts at the water’s edge. A Solomonese man happily greeted us and agreed to keep an eye on our tender, helping us climb up onto the landing and tying the dingy up for us.
The small town is centered on a muddy main street, partially paved in places with an open-air central market. There are two or three Chinese emporiums in decaying, moldy concrete buildings, one waterfront bar, a very sad-looking bank, and an outdoor food stall. Mangy dogs roamed around looking for scraps and a few taxis were idling in front of the market. The town’s trash dump was in the middle of a field, next to the market. Further afield, in the distance, stacks of shipping containers dripped rust onto the wharf, semi-secured by chain link fencing and uniformed security guards.
Our first order of business in town was to touch base with Immigration and Customs and organize the formalities of clearing out of the country. We had to pay the country’s entrance fees that weren’t collected in Lata at the same time as paying our exit fees.
Garry was after an official customs document that would allow him to purchase duty-free fuel for our departure. In Vanuatu, he had wasted a full day chasing down the proper forms and expected similar bureaucratic fiasco in the Solomon Island. He were pleasantly surprised to find he only had to present our inward clearance paperwork to qualify for the 20% discount. The Immigration Officer was surprised that we had organized fuel with a mob on the outskirts of town and recommended that we use the depot located on the wharf itself, negating the need for a tanker. She got on the horn and organized it for us, saving us on the price as well. Given that we no longer had to run around town and chase down fuel and forms, we decided to clear out the following morning.
A wander through the market showed the usual fresh goods with a surprisingly good selection. Closer to the waterfront was the fish market. In the full sun, a couple of dozen reef fish were haphazardly displayed on a wooden table. The fish were peppered with buzzing flies, no ice to be found. Baskets full of large clams looked to be a better risk, but we passed on them as well.
There was a third, smaller market, separated by a chain link fence from the fresh and fish markets, this one catering to the vices; small tables displaying betel nuts, cigarettes broken out of packs into individual piles for 10x the cost of betel nut, with local take-aways tables serving fried donuts and hotdogs. A small tavern hung hovered above the muddy shoreline on stilts. Two giant hogs, vigorously enjoying their slop out of silver dog bowls, crated in wooden pens, right outside the doors to the bar.
Garry, Elmo, and I wandered back to the fuel depot to collect the dinghy. By this time, the tide had gone out dramatically (super moon) and the front of the dinghy was hanging in the air off the pilings, the weight of the 9.9 HP motor locking the dinghy’s painter into an unbreakable knot. We tipped the shop owner $SI 20 for his fine watchman-ship of the dinghy and got to borrowing a knife to cut the painter, dropping the dinghy back into the water.
As we snaked through the reef back to our boat, Garry spotted a canoe change course, moving away from November Rain when we approached. Suspicious behavior for sure and reiterating our reluctance to leave the boat unattended at any time.
Elmo returned to town to explore its vices, returning a couple of hours later with a good buzz and empty pockets, but filled with insight into the local culture. Elmo explained to us how he discovered a shipment of ski helmets displayed in a shop, which he found odd, especially since we were in the tropics. The shop owner was convinced that he was selling motorcycle helmets. Elmo educated the owner, who was excited to share the new information with his customers. Garry and I are now living vicariously through Elmo’s excursions, afraid to leave the boat for fear of thieves.
The next morning, we fuelled up at the wharf and had lots of congenial help from the dock workers. One of the men asked if Elmo was his son, to which Garry replied "No". Elmo disappeared inside for a few minutes, then reappeared on deck, the same man asked if the new guy on deck was Garry's son. This gives credence to our belief that all white people look alike to the Solomense.
Immigration and Customs agents were happy to meet us on the wharf for immediate clearance, saving them a wet ride in the dinghy to November Rain at anchor. They were friendly and helpful and one of the officers provided the contact details of yacht cruisers who had left a few days earlier. Perhaps we would run into them on the way to Cairns? The Lola was waiting for a weather window at Bagaman Island in PNG. Garry had already earmarked the reef as a safe place to wait for the wind shift and he promised the agent we’d look out for Lola.
As we were officially checked out of the Solomons, we were instructed to leave the country immediately. This is the law, but not practical in a country with 992 islands, atolls, and reefs, many lying between your departure port and next arrival port. We motored over to a small island a few hours away, to overnight with our AIS turned off. We had no plans to “check-in” to PNG, the clearance port was hundreds of miles off course, yet another reason to run stealth. As I’ve outed myself to breaking the law in both the Solomons and PNG, it’s safe to say I won't be returning to either of these countries anytime soon.
The forecast for the crossing of the Solomon Sea was to be rough but November Rain can handle it a lot better than her crew can. The winds were from the SE at 25 knots, putting the 3-meter swells on our aft port quarter. Watches were rotated every 2 hours between three people, which worked out that you never had more than 4 hours to sleep, but sleep was difficult, no matter how exhausted you were. Garry bore the brunt of the driving during the day. A couple of us were feeling queasy from the unrelenting seas. When a luxury cruise liner, the Seabourn, passed within 3 miles of us around midnight, I fantasized about sending signal flares up. Do you think they would treat adrift mariners to spa days and fine dining or would we be tossed in the brig for a false alarm?
By the time we reached Papua New Guinea, we were physically and mentally shattered. November Rain, perhaps in retaliation to the punishment she’d just taken, complained in her usual way. The boat’s toilet pump had stopped working, the fridge was on its last legs, the bilge alarms were randomly firing, and a drawer had broken its latch, refusing to stay shut with each toss of of the unrelenting waves.
Two yachts were anchored in the bay, one of them being Lola. Within minutes, we were welcomed by Brian And Sue. They had been alerted by the Immigration Office in Noro of our impending arrival and were waiting to welcome us. We made plans to visit the 54’ Amel Super Maramu the following evening for cocktail hour along with Steve and Belinda, who were on the neighboring yacht, cruising the past 3 years with their kids, Hannah and Hayden, ages 12 and 15,
We spent the first day at Bagaman Island in recovery mode. While Elmo and I power washed the boat and did laundry, Garry fixed the fridge, toilet and about eight other things, spending most of the day hunkered down in the sweltering bilge. Elmo took the afternoon off to fish out of the kayak and managed to get blown away a couple of times, most likely GTs.
We were still being canoed in Papua New Guinea, a couple of boats offering to trade inedible bananas, but the majority just asked for stuff outright. Moses, a young man, with three children under the age of 6 in his canoe, approached us first. Moses wanted to trade properly, not beg, which we respected and encouraged. He offered to bring us lobster, and we agreed that would be a fine trade. He returned the following morning with 4 crayfish. Moses asked for drugs to cure his wife’s “stomach” ache. Garry suggested maybe she was pregnant again, given the youngest of the three kids in the canoe was about 18 months. Moses laughed, not disagreeing. The best I could do was provide some Mylanta and Panadol as well as $50 Aussie dollars for the crays.
We later heard from the other cruisers that some of the villagers were complaining that Moses was getting more than his fair share from the yachties, but Moses was always ready to do the work, i.e, cleaning hulls, or providing actual value with his trading including some very beautiful wood carvings and necklaces. There seemed to be a bit of jealousy within the village and without a chief to manage it, everyone was bickering between themselves.
As we we going to be clearing into Cairns in a few days, we, as well as the other two yachts offloaded all our excess meats, flours, and anything else that wouldn’t clear through Australia’s strict biosecurity. Garry was starting to get a bit short with the canoes, telling them we had nothing left to give. Five minutes later, they would be back again, asking for more. The villagers were sharing information on shore as they knew what the previous canoe had received. We gave out money, clothes, used motor oil, fishing gear, cooking oil, flour, medicines, biscuits, rice, fishing gear, yeast, meat, and UHT milk. One guy returned the following day, wanting to trade the UHT milk back to us for something else. Garry about lost his rag on that one, refusing to trade back for something we had already donated.
The other cruisers were expressing the same level of frustration about the constant barrage of requests. The alternative was to pick up anchor and move to a neighboring bay, but a new village was always around the corner, and it would be like starting from ground zero again with the giving. Brian was donating a fair bit of his time as well, sharpening machetes and hatches with his electric grinder, as well as hauling drinking water ashore, from his ship’s water maker.
We enjoyed a lovely evening aboard the Lola, sharing stories with the two lots of cruisers. Brian and Sue had run a mothership out of Cairns for over 20 years and had ledgendary stories of living on the Great Barrier Reef. Sue provided heaps of information about Indonesia, where they had spent 6 months cruising. She shared contact details for reputable Clearance Agents and Visa Agents and had plenty of advice on where and where not to go. Unfortunately, a lot of the news was not what we wanted to hear. In one word, Indonesia was described as “Shit”; full of rubbish, corruption, bureaucracy, thieves and completely fished out”. Rat guards on lines were a must. When she described how every yacht in one particular marina had furry hitchhikers, the hairs on my neck were standing at attention.
Sue also recommended that we avoid dates that coincided with ARC rallies, when huge numbers of boats would overrun a port’s capacity for clearance, taking days to process everyone in. Indonesia was not a single clear-in/clear-out kind of country. You would be required to clear in and out of individual regions, requiring a lot of extra paperwork, time, patience, and money. She explained that they were hamstrung by a lot of the rules and wasted a lot of time backtracking to clear out of ports that they had left behind weeks earlier.
Garry and I read of recent mandates, introduced by the Indonesian government concerning yacht crew, which Sue confirmed. Essentially, a yacht is to have the same crew members upon exiting the country as they arrived. If a crew member were to jump ship, say for incompatibility or incompetence (on either the crew' or captain’s part), it would be difficult for the ship to gain departure clearance. Additionally, crew would not be allowed to join a ship already in the country. This new regulation is causing a lot of issues and concerns within the cruising community, but little information is available in English. We are planning on spending 8 months in Indonesia, but our crew is scheduled for only 10 of those weeks. We have a big problem to address before we leave for Indonesia.
Another concern was how to go about procuring fuel through the 3,181-mile-long archipelago. Garry was prepared that we might need to jerry-can diesel to the boat in 44-gallon drums, with up to a dozen trips needed to load 2000 liters. We learned this was a definite-not just a hypothetical scenario. We were also warned that we shouldn’t let our toy dog, Pipi, ashore. The local dogs were notoriously vicious and keen to attack intruders. Hookworms and rabies were endemic and Pipi would never be able to safely leave the boat. Indonesia was starting to be in the too-hard basket.
We picked up anchor from Bagaman Island before sunrise and headed south across the atoll. Just before leaving the reef, lures were put out and we immediately hooked a large Jobfish, followed by a very decent Spanish Mackerel. A shark got a little taste of the Mackerel but spit it out. It would have been nice to hang around and fish the reef all day, but we were on a mission to get to Cairns.
The 3 day/2 night crossing to Australia was somewhat better than our previous crossing from Noro to PNG, the winds were reduced to 15-17 knots, swells only about 1 meter, but more side-on, so it was still very uncomfortable. Garry keeps suggesting that the winds will shift around for the SE to the E “any minute” and it’ll calm down. With over 50 flying fish carcasses on the deck, the boat will need another good wash again. The toilet and the fridge have been behaving so far but maybe plotting with a yet unnamed system for a triple whammy at any moment. We are staying vigilant.
Meanwhile, I’m busy preparing for our impending arrival, tossing any questionable items to the deep, searching for weevils and other invaders with a sharp eye. Australia’s Biosecurity requirements are some of the most stringent in the world and the last thing we need is to be quarantined a minute longer than necessary. To add insult to injury, officials charge a hefty disposal fee for everything that fails to clear into the country. Safe to say that we need to arrive with mostly empty food lockers. The trick is not to dispose of everything too early, just in case we become adrift.
At 8:30 a.m., about 35 miles from the edge of the Great Barrier Reef, we picked up a small blue marlin, estimated at 60 kg. I fought the fish in my nightie and had it to the boat in 15 minutes. Elmo wired, pulling the hooks at the side of the boat for a fuss-free release. A small mahi-mahi went into the bin soon after. Things are starting to look up!
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Long term kiwi expat based in Bali, was following your blog 2 refits back and glad to see it up again.
Get intouch via petergmckibbin@gmail.com and I should be able to set you straight about a few things in Indonesia and help with refueling points.