Savo

[Kyle]Moving further northwest in the Solomons, we had another two-night sail to the volcanic island of Savo, just on the other side of the channel from the capital city of Honiara.

Unlike the two-day sail to Malaulalo, this time, we crawled along in barely enough wind to fill the spinnaker, particularly when it was soaking wet, which was most of the time.

Dolphins on passage are ALWAYS a delight

On my first night watch, I decided to stop worrying about tracking water into the boat and to just stay outside and be wet. The rain was heavy enough that the noise drowned out all the other sounds, but it wasn't cold, and it was kinda refreshing to get a thorough rinse.

The rain stopped about half an hour before Maryanne's watch. Since I had only been wearing a pair of quick-drying running shorts, I was completely dry by the time she emerged to a bright sunrise in a very partly cloudy sky. She had slept through the din earlier and assumed I had spent my night watch enjoying warm breezes and stargazing.

As we approached the Sealark Channel, between Guadalcanal and the Florida Islands, all the forecasts said we would lose the wind completely. That would make our last few miles to Savo take a whole night to traverse, with the current doing most of the work.

Instead, the wind actually increased a bit. Maryanne woke me for my night watch and told me that she had just gone down to bare poles for the remainder, which she estimated should get us to Savo right at sunrise.

She was right. Savo has a steep approach with no hazards, so all I had to do was turn beam to the wind to hold us off until it was light out enough to approach the beach. We dropped anchor on a steep slope of black sand and volcanic ash, just off the village of Koela.

Savo was another one of those places where we were told to be vigilant about locking the boat at night and when we are gone and not leaving anything visible that we didn't want taken. We also read that occasionally somebody might come out and demand an ‘anchoring fee' because it might work every now and then, which makes it pretty easy money.

For our part, we saw none of that. While there seemed to be a lot of boat traffic going by, mostly dugout canoes being paddled, shuttling people between coastal villages, most seemed too focused on their commute to be interested in anything other than a quick wave to us from their route. The only boat that did come over to visit, late on our first day, was an outboard motor-powered shuttle full of people going from one village to another. The captain, who was wearing some sort of official-looking shirt that said something like “council representative" or “village committee", I can't honestly remember, but it seemed legitimate, asked us a few questions about our plans. We told him we were hoping to do the hike up the volcano tomorrow. He explained that was fine, but it is customary to give something to the village in return for permission.

We said that was absolutely fair and expected, and told him we were planning on going ashore to talk to Patrick, Koela's chief, in the morning to introduce ourselves and make the arrangements. He seemed to think that was an unnecessary inconvenience for us (Koela was the opposite direction to the volcano trail from Begonia) and that we could just handle the transaction now, with him. We countered that we would prefer to deal with Patrick directly, since it is ultimately his permission we would need and we didn't want any misunderstandings that could get anyone in trouble.

He knew we had him there. He then leaned over to me and lowered his voice so far I had to ask him to repeat what he was saying three times. Eventually, I surmised he was asking if we had any alcohol or tobacco on board. I whispered back that Maryanne and I don't like fun, so we had nothing like that - terribly sorry. He looked equal parts annoyed and amused, then bid us a good evening and sped off. We never did see him again.

Early the next morning, eager to start our volcano climb before the day got too hot. We rowed ashore and joined the queue of children commuting along the beach to school in Koela from the village of Reko, just the other side of the lava flow. Once we got into the village, several of them pointed out Patrick to us and wished us a good day.

When we told him we wanted to hike up the volcano, he told us we would need a guide and that there was a cash fee. (As far as we can tell, from subsequent investigation, Maryanne and I were the first people to be subject to this new policy.) We apologized, and explained that we have not yet managed to obtain any Solomon Island Dollars, as we had yet to arrive in any place that had a bank or an ATM, but that we DID HAVE a whole backpack full of quality/useful items to trade for the fee.

Patrick was adamant. It was cash only – no exceptions, he didn't even want to see what we had to offer.

"So then there's nothing we can do but leave?" Maryanne asked.

"Good" he said, and then turned to walk away.

Maryanne and I decided to be charitable and assume this was some sort of language/cultural misunderstanding and that Patrick wasn't trying to be as rude as his response seemed to us. We were disappointed, but decided to console ourselves with a 5k beach walk instead. Upon crossing the mouth of the lava bed, we even managed to convince ourselves that we were glad we didn't go. It was already getting hot and the steep lava bed did not offer any shade. We decided to go home after our walk and admire it from our sun-protected cabin. Despite not being able to complete our mission, we had to admit that the anchorage at Savo is really beautiful.

The beach walk, a friendly family that did trade for some veggies, and the view from the anchorage

The lava trail we never got to ascend

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Anchorage location >> On google maps

Malaulalo

[Kyle]Our next passage after clearing in at Lata was a two-night sail to Malaulalo Island, the middle of a group of Islands called the Three Sisters, just north of the Guadalcanal, in the Makira-Ulawa Province of the Solomon Islands.

We spent the first few hours of the sail flying the spinnaker in moderate rain. Then both rain and wind increased further, and we decided it would perhaps be more sensible to downsize to a reefed jib. An hour later, the wind was way past our limit for the spinnaker and still climbing. We were both glad we hadn't tried to hold out with it earlier.

We both had two terrible, wet watches, and then two much nicer ones as we sailed further west, away from Nendo. The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), the band of rising air pushed up by colliding trade winds from each hemisphere, has been parked over the eastern Solomons for months now, and didn't look like it was planning on wandering away anytime soon. Our westbound sail gave us a chance to but some distance between it and us and return to more typical trade wind conditions.

The extra wind made us fast enough that we never got a chance to use the spinnaker again. If we had, we would have ended up arriving in the dark, so we stuck with the jib for the remainder. We even got a long enough period without rain on the last day to be able to dry out the spinnaker before stowing it below.

Malaulalo is home to what may be the world's largest single single species coral outcrop (identical coral polyps). Discovered in 2023, it is of the species Pavona clavus, about the size of a third of a football pitch, and is likely several centuries old. The island is generally surrounded by coral, but there is one small, sandy spot off the beach to the northwest. That was our destination.

Although the weather was improving, the surf and the intervening coral made a beach landing unadvisable. We instead decided to swim to the beach, with a plan of finding a route across the island on foot to the side with the big coral.

The anchorage and visiting ashore

That started okay, but there is a large area of swamp/bog separating our side of Malaulalo from the big coral site. Skirting it, we found the edge to be mud and quicksand. A bad storm had caused much damage to the Solomons just five months ago. It was clear to us as we walked along the island that the beach had been eroded well inland, many, many trees were down, and the big swamp had been inundated with seawater, killing most of the trees within. The walk was hard going in spots.

By the time we finally got within long swimming range of the mega-coral, we were starting to lose interest. It still looked pretty rough out on that side of the island and we knew going in that the best we were going to be able to do while snorkeling is get a glimpse of it from above, as most of it is at depths better suited to SCUBA diving. We turned and started searching for a route back home that would hopefully be better than the one we took there.

We arrived at the beach ahead of Begonia just as torrential rain began to pelt us from a cell passing overhead. We both instinctively tried to shield ourselves from it, which we immediately knew was funny for a pair of people in the process of donning snorkel gear for a swim back to a boat. At the other end, we climbed out and dried off. Within fifteen minutes, all the water we had used to rinse ourselves with after climbing out of the sea had been replaced in our rain collection tub.

Snorkelling off the island

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Anchorage location >> On google maps

Lata

[Kyle]The two-night sail from Sola to Lata was another relatively unpleasant one. We were heavily reefed in beam seas that occasionally broke into the cockpit. There was also lots and lots of rain. That at least kept the salt from accumulating, and even rinsed the top of the mast of any remaining volcanic ash. Yay - I thought, as I peeled my clothes off at the end of my watches - free laundry!

A rough passage with a nice calm anchorage at the end

Then we rounded the northeastern corner of Nendo Island, of which Lata is the main population canter. The island blocked the waves, the wind straightened up behind us, and we were suddenly having a nice sail. A few hours later, we rounded the corner into Graciosa Bay and were in completely calm conditions.

Since Lata is on what is typically the leeward side of the bay, the anchorage for clearing in is actually two miles away on the windward, eastern side, at a little cove that is home to a vocational school (Luesalo Institute - Rural Training Centre). In the center of the cove is a ketch on a mooring that is owned by one of the school's teachers (an American that sailed in and never left). Other boats anchor here, the bottom was clearly mostly coral, with a few (small and deep) sand patches, but the only way we felt we would have enough room was if we made the assumption that it was going to be flat calm the whole time. While that seemed likely, we don't like taking chances, so we moved further south to a deeper spot with more room to swing, and alongside another boat that had arrived earlier.

Maryanne messaged George, at Customs. Within half an hour, he arrived to clear us into the Solomon Islands. Since most of the paperwork was done in advance and sent electronically, the whole process was finished within fifteen minutes, and the officers never ventured further into the boat than the cockpit. They did mention, however, that we might be better off in the school's anchorage, saying there was some opportunistic theft around and that we may get harassed where we were by locals demanding anchor fees. We decided to stay put and move if that turned out to be the case.

A few minutes later, Piko arrived in a dugout canoe, hoping to trade for some carvings. We told him we were more interested in local produce, which he promised to return with the next day. He never asked for a fee.

We are officially arrived in the Solomon Islands

Later, as were napping off our night watches, we were boarded by a teenaged boy. Maryanne was the first out of bed to confront him as he was coming up the steps. He told her he had brought us a papaya as a gift, which we suspected may be more of an excuse to get a good look at any of the goodies in the cockpit. Maryanne declined the papaya and explained that we would need to rest today. No one else visited.

In the morning, we rowed ashore to visit the school and introduce ourselves. Since we have read that there were factions arguing over who was supposed to be in charge of "caring" for the yachts, we were very careful about who we asked to see and in which order.

It turns out we need not have been. It was school holidays and none of the people whose names we knew were in attendance. Almost all the adults were in Lata for the day. Only a few boarding students remained who didn't have enough time to go home before classes resume again. Our tour of the area was given by a series of children from six to about fifteen years of age. All were very polite and very happy to be showing off their tidy little school/village. Maryanne even got to have some fun acting as goalkeeper against the local "team" on their soccer pitch.

We saw others in the distance and were surprised that no one else seemed to be too interested in what was going on, and instead just kept going about whatever they were doing. One of the kids in our expanding group yelled out, "Mom! I'm following the white man!" There it is again.

Ashore to check out the technical school

She didn't seem the least bit concerned. Solomon Islanders so far seem more reserved than their ni-Vanuatu counterparts. Once our lap of the grounds was complete, they seemed happy enough to go back to their lives as we rowed back home.

Later that afternoon, Junior, one of the older kids, came over in one of the school's three canoes with a gift of some of the best produce from their garden. He had remembered us saying how impressed we were with their skills earlier.

A few hours later, after the boat from Lata returned, we were visited by Dickson, the electrics instructor, and his son, Oswald. Oswald was one of the kids who had joined us on our tour earlier. Dickson added the biggest papaya Maryanne and I had ever seen to the big pile of fruits and veggies Junior had brought earlier.

Plenty of visitors aboard Begonia

When Dickson returned it to us the next morning, he was in the school launch with Oswald and six other children who all wanted to see the sailboat. We invited them aboard. I was a little worried about how the kids would react to the new jungle gym, but they were all well behaved, and I soon stopped worrying about one of them falling overboard or slicing their head open on something. They really liked stretching out on the trampoline and gobbling up the banana pancakes Maryanne had, coincidentally, just made for her and my breakfast from Emeth's recipe. Maryanne set up Toy Story on her laptop. That kept them entranced while Dickson told us more about the school, Nendo, and the Solomons in general. Maryanne gave Dickson a hard drive which might have been full of movies to entertain the kids for months to come.

Dickson traded/gifted us several big papaya (here is just one) and explained to us how the locals chew betel nut. It is a mild stimulant. Here it is as common as smoking was back in the UK in the 1970's. The nut is chewed with some slaked lime (made from burning seashells or coral and ground into a powder) and a bit of Pepper leaf or vine (here they used the catkin from the Piper betel plant). It stains the mouth and teeth red, and is known to cause various mouth and throat cancers, but most locals still partake. It is not swallowed but spat out when "done". Chewing betel nut conconctions is widespread among all of micronesia and south-east asia

We weren't expecting much but quite enjoyed our snorkel along the shoreline

Since we had told everybody we would be leaving the next afternoon, we were expecting more canoes to come calling. The extra distance and pouring rain seemed to keep everyone at bay. All except for Junior, who paddled out with a friend in the deluge to gift us some bush limes and bid us farewell. He said he didn't mind being wet. The rain was warm and there was no way to avoid it anyway. We saw a few people fishing from their canoes in the distance who seemed to have the same mindset. If you want fish for dinner, your stomach doesn't care if it's raining.

The concerns about our anchorage turned out to be unwarranted in the end. We were never harassed. No one came to shake us down for "fees". Everyone we met was very polite and respectful of our privacy, and nobody ever asked us for anything before we offered. So far all of the Solomon Islanders we have met have been quiet, friendly and polite.

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Anchorage location >> On google maps

Sola, Vanua Lava Island, Banks Group

[Kyle]Since arriving at Matanda Bay, on Gaua, Begonia has been covered in dirty footprints. We had been hoping for enough rain to wash them off, but all we got was a light coating that made it worse. Eventually, to keep from tracking the mess inside, we resorted to using buckets of seawater to clean the decks. Hopefully the drizzle will wash off the salt.

It did, but after the next morning's first foray on deck, the dirty footprints were back. As we were admiring Lake Letas a couple of days later, we realized why: The ash plume from Mount Garet was being blown directly toward Matanda Bay.

As we were preparing to leave for Sola, Maryanne asked if I wanted her to throw a few buckets of seawater over the decks again to get rid of last night's accumulation.

"Nah, don't bother."

Our departure went pretty much like a mirror image of our arrival. We left the calm, windless bay, and within ten minutes, we were beating into twenty-knot headwinds and a two-and-a-half-meter swell. Within an hour, we had taken enough waves and spray over the deck, and the cabin top, and the bimini, to completely clear the accumulated ash.

Our arrival into Sola Bay passed through the Maseunar Channel. As we entered, within a few seconds, the waves completely disappeared and the wind halved. We turned downwind and slid the last mile to the anchorage in front of Sola town.

Around Sola

The anchorage here has a reputation for being uncomfortable. It is not undeserved. The generally high winds and big seas outside the bay arrived at the anchorage as a short swell that caused Begonia to surge back and forth on her anchor rode and roll just on the high side of comfortable. We put out extra scope and backed down hard on the anchor to make sure it was holding. Behind us was a big reef where the swell dissipated as loud, crashing breakers that ensured that we could never completely relax. Still, as the only catamaran, we had it way better than the poor monohulls, who rolled from gunwale to gunwale. During our brief two-night stay, we noticed that most of them got in and got out as quickly as they could, staying only a few hours, or at the very longest, a single night, with a first-thing departure.

We were here for the same reason as everybody else. Sola is the northernmost station in Vanuatu where it is possible to complete departure formalities for vessels heading that general direction. The town is very quiet, with far more really nice people ambling on foot down the middle of the main road than riding in vehicles. It has a handful of very basic shops, and lots of administration offices. With a more protected anchorage, they would surely have a lot more long-term visitors, but after spending a night getting rolled out of their bunks, the minds of the majority turn to finding the next place.

And so it was with us. Even though the motion in the anchorage wasn't terrible for us, the only way for us to get ashore was by doing a dicey beach landing through breaking waves. We did it the one time, because we had to, but casual visits ashore had little appeal after considering the risk of being drenched in sandy seawater for trying.

Maryanne and I double-bagged all of our important paperwork and managed to get ashore with nothing more serious happening than Maryanne stepping off the dinghy and finding the seabed was further down than she expected. She maintained her balance and managed to escape with only one really wet leg.

We walked to Immigration, where a very nice young man cleared us out efficiently and with characteristic ni-Vanuatu good cheer. We then went to Customs for the rest and to pay our port and navigation fees. The Customs officer was also very nice. He told us the agency was trying to move away from the more aggressive policing-like stance some field offices have had in the past. I'll be happy when that memo makes it to the lower echelons in Port Vila.

We had a reminder to remember that everything isn't always about us. The Customs guy apologized for being a little slow with our paperwork as he hasn't been in the office for a while. Because so many yachts had called into Sola to clear out today, he had been called in from his bereavement leave, which he told us was not a problem at all and that we had no need to apologize for interrupting. Earlier in the week, an interisland ferry had capsized and gone down as it went between Ambrym and Santos Islands, in the next district south of us, with the loss of most of the people aboard. Many of them have still not been found. He told us that several of his family members had been on board. When he looked us in the eyes and wished us a safe journey, we could tell that he meant it as more than a standard nicety. All we could do was wish him the best in return. {Maryanne:MV Matui ferry disaster occurred on September 11, 2026, and has had a huge impact on the whole country where everyone seems to know someone that was involved. Just a handful of survivors made it, and the biggest frustration is that the boat was over 24 hours late to arrive before any alarms were raised and searches for survivors began. It also seems that the boat was not licenced to carry passengers after several prior infractions - but it was carring over 50 passengers - most of which died. }.

After being officially cleared out of Vanuatu, and since we were not planning on crossing the surf line in the dinghy any more times than necessary, Maryanne and I decided to walk the entire length of the village and see everything we could before it was time to return to Begonia and depart Sola ourselves.

We stopped at every single little hole-in-the-wall shop and purchased an eclectic variety of things: A giant bag of rice, flip-flops, matches, nails, some children's clothing, batteries. None of it was for our use. We intended to use it as trade, mostly in exchange for fresh produce, at villages along our travels. The guy that sold us the nails – three boxes of three-inch ones – had a pretty good laugh wondering aloud what anyone on a boat would need with such big nails. Obviously, it's to keep our cockpit cushions from flying away.

Rumor had it that one of the stores in town sold ice cream. We asked at every one and mostly they laughed at the absurdity of such a thing. Then we saw a kid on the street holding an ice cream cone, WITH ice cream on it, and pressed him for his source.

Apparently, there was another triple-secret store in the village, which we never would have found on our own, as it appeared to be just another house set WAY back from the road. Maryanne tended our wheelie cart with the stash while I was led along the garden path to the house.

Inside were two shelves of stock on one side of the house's front room, and a chest freezer on the other. I was told that, yes, they have ice cream, but only vanilla. I ordered one for me and one for Maryanne to hold while I eat my other one.

The process was a bit slow. I hadn't accounted for this. As I was waiting for Maryanne's to be prepared, the tropical heat quickly caused mine to reach that emergency melting stage where I had to slurp mine up fast before I dripped half my ice cream on their nice, clean floor mat. I barely made it.

While all this was going on, the proprietor was talking softly in a local language (there are seventeen distinct ones on Sola alone) to someone just around the corner. Eventually, he explained that the other person was his granddaughter, who looked maybe four or five years old. She said she wanted to meet me and shake my hand because she has never seen a white man before.

Aw, jeez! What do I do? This is a big moment. No pressure!

She presented her hand and sweetly said, "Hello."

"Hello, It's very nice to meet you" I said, "Your land is mine now. You work for me."

I didn't! I wouldn't! I'm kidding!! I only did the first part. She was very cute.

Still, the urge to crack such jokes is probably why it is not sensible to nominate me to be making any first impressions.

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Anchorage location >> On google maps