Honiara

Wednesday 10 May – Sunday 14 May 2000

When we arrived at Honiara’s international airport, everyone seemed to be leaving.  A conflict between two ethnic groups on the main island of Guadalcanal had been mounting and, as we discovered from our taxi driver, had culminated in a death the day before our arrival.  In an act of defiance towards their aggressors, the victim’s killers had delivered a severed head to the main marketplace as a warning they were not to be trifled with.

All this was news to us, but the picture soon became clearer as we started to make enquiries with respect to things we wanted to do whilst we were in the Solomon Islands.  People were beginning to panic and flights out of Honiara were booked solid.  Dive operators were doing very little business around the main island, having been unable to take tourists out of Honiara to other parts of the island for over 18 months.  Peace Corp volunteers were on alert to evacuate the country should the situation deteriorate, and there was a general sense of unease about the town, with groups of men gathering in the centre and several pairs of eyes watching your every move.

Ironically, we discovered that all the main hotels were full, so our thoughts soon moved from worry about civil unrest to concern as to where we would find a bed for the next few nights.  Thankfully we did and tired from our flight, after a nondescript meal we headed straight for bed, deferring any continuing worries until the following day.

In the light of day, things didn’t appear to be a whole lot better.  We would be stuck in Honiara for at least four days, when the first seats on a flight out of the capital would be available.  The village-stays we had hoped to do would be impossible as we couldn’t get flights to where we wanted to go, so we would have to fill our time instead visiting island resorts with dive operators:  not the best way to get a taste of the real culture of the place, but at this point any hopes of a Yap experience had long since evaporated.  Looking back, we remember wondering then whether we should simply call it quits and just forget the whole thing, but being the persistent travellers we are, we were not going to let a little unrest dissuade us from having a look around. 

In the meantime, we had more time to kill than we knew what to do with.  As the rest of Guadalcanal was officially off limits, there seemed little more to do than walk around the capitol, visit the museum and check out the local market,  none of which were particularly inspiring.  A closer inspection of the town also confirmed our initial impressions of a run down, dusty, dirty place with very little charm.  Even the harbour area and wharf provided little respite from the motley collection of shops and even smaller selection of restaurants on offer.  The guidebook, however, assured us that after a couple of weeks in the provinces with no electricity, nowhere to eat out and (if you were lucky) a one-shelf store, this meager town would suddenly undergo a magical transformation and look as if it were a bustling and cosmopolitan metropolis, which, if nothing else, certainly didn’t bode well for our outer-island travels!

The saving grace (for Pippa), however, was an internet connection at the hotel’s so-called business center, in addition to which we managed to find a dive operator offering a weekend trip to a small island off the northern coast of Guadalcanal where we could stay overnight in a small, basic beach hut.  Glad of any alternative to another two days in the capitol, we leapt at the chance, having been forewarned that places were limited and they would book up fast (no wonder, given what little else there was to do around town).

Despite its unfortunate name, Fly Island turned out to be not only a welcome respite but an enjoyable one.  While the diving was unspectacular, it was nonetheless interesting and the little resort, while basic, served excellent food and was in an idyllic, tranquil location.  Situated smack-dab on the beach, the huts were shaded by coconut palms, there was cold running water and the mosquito population was minimal.  This was a welcome relief for Pippa who was well aware that the Solomon Islands has the highest rate of malaria in the world, with more than a third of the population being infected each year and over half of all cases being on Guadalcanal.  As the ultimate mosquito magnet, she was always trying to ward off these pesky visitors but never more so than now she was pregnant.

The highlight for both of us by far was our first-ever sighting of seahorses.  The locals seemed surprised at our avid interest, presumably used to finding them caught up in their fishing nets or bobbing in the weeds in the shallows.  But we delighted in seeing these unusual and intriguing creatures in their natural habitat.  Another sight that brought smiles to our faces (and the cameras out of our bags) were the young children frolicking in the water and paddling about in the bay in canoes.  Children barely seven or eight years old were deftly maneuvering full-sized canoes around the small wooden pier while their younger siblings followed suit in their own miniature sized versions complete with half-sized paddles.

By the Sunday evening, we were back in Honiara.  Having successfully managed to avoid all but a handful of mosquito bites, Pippa was now covered from head to foot in huge red lumps caused by an allergic reaction to something that was apparently abundant in the water.  But spirits were lifted as we finally flew out of Honiara the next day, our destination a town  called Munda on New Georgia Island in the Western Province.  As we sat in the domestic terminal waiting for our flight, we noticed a few policemen patrolling the area and began to wonder if we should feel a little more concerned about the current situation. 

Headhunter Harbor

Monday 15 May – Friday 19 May 2000

We made it safely to Munda, which we expected to be a small town but was, in fact, a collection of small villages stretching several miles along the coast.  All we were to see of it was the a tiny concrete shelter masquerading as an airport terminal, and just behind it what appeared to be a hotel, as well the only thing resembling a dive operation.  After arranging dives for the following day, we headed out across the lagoon by boat to reach a tiny island where a fishing lodge we had read about in the Solomon Airlines in-flight brochure was situated.  Just as we were leaving, we bumped into Neil and Lyn Vincent, a wonderful Australian couple who were both avid divers with a passion for underwater cave exploration and photography.  Their list of prize-winning photographs puts our amateur holiday snaps to shame, but we were to have several opportunities over the next few days to learn more about underwater photography and to share in their captivating (albeit costly!) obsession.

Lyn also proved to be Pippa’s life-saver when she presented her with a hand-stitched lycra body suit to wear in the water and protect her from whatever it was that had been stinging her.  The next day, fully protected from head to foot (literally), she joined the divers on a trip out to Ndokendoke Island, where a fresh water pool in the centre of the volcanic island leads via caves and caverns to a half-mile long reef wall.  The wall was alive with corals and teeming with shoals of fish from small anemones to larger needle fish and barracuda. 

A day of diving with the only (and less than professional) dive outfit available proved to be enough for Eric so the remainder of our time was spent relaxing and enjoying the peace and tranquility of Lola Island, where our lodge was situated.  The place was deserted, but for us; the owners explained they had already had 75% of their bookings cancelled due to the troubles in Honiara.  We were certainly not complaining:  the leaf house cottages were charming; there may have been no electricity but there were cold water showers; the bar enjoyed a stunning vista over Vonavona lagoon, which was dotted with other small islands and islets; the white coral sandy beach was shaded by palm trees; and snorkeling just off the pier among the weeds was interesting, at least if you liked sharks.

On one of our laid-back and lazy days, we headed over to Skull Island.  This islet has a skull house or reliquary which contains the skulls of many ancient chiefs dating from several hundred years ago up to the 1920's.  The island is nothing more than a speck of land jutting out of the water, but is covered in thick vegetation and undergrowth.  The skull house is a small and triangular-shaped casket and as Nelson (our boatman-cum-guide) moved the door to one side, we could see the skulls piled up inside together with shell money and other valuables which presumably belonged to the chiefs.  The casket rested on a mound of coral which was also studded with skulls (they were there to protect the chiefs, Nelson told us) and gave the whole place a decidedly eerie feel.  

Thinking about it, we weren't sure Nelson was telling us the whole story.  We remembered that this very lagoon was an infamous headhunter haven even into the 20th century.  And some of the skulls didn't look all that old ... We looked around for clues, but the skulls offered none: they just grimaced.  Shadows cast by the swaying palms danced across their bony features.  It was all a bit weird.  

After our hasty departure from Skull Island, we visited a small village renowned for its weaving and had a chance to meet some local villagers in their own environment and delve, albeit briefly, into some of their culture.  In all our time in the Solomons, we barely felt we had even scratched the surface of the place.  Within the islands of Vonavona lagoon alone there was a staggering cultural diversity.  Pointing to a few islands just across from the lodge, Lisa, a local islander who ran our hotel, explained that each of them had different languages and customs, and the people who were born there considered themselves to be very much descendents of their island rather than a Solomon Islander or even, for that matter, someone from the Western Province.  We had not realised how common it was for people from villages only a mile apart to speak mutually incomprehensible languages.

The night before we left, there was a full moon.  The sky was clear and bright, littered with more stars than we had ever remembered seeing.  We could easily make out the nearby islands within the lagoon and the water shimmered white in the moon’s reflection.  It was so warm and peaceful that we decided to sit out on the small dock and enjoy the moment.  Everything was still.  There was the sound of the waves lapping gently upon the shore and up against the sides of the boats but other than that, everything seemed motionless.  We looked up into the sky to see what constellations we could make out and then, there it was:  a shooting star.  And another one.  And another one.  They seemed to be falling out of the sky every 10 to 15 minutes.  Sometimes more often, sometimes three or more in quick succession.  As if that hadn’t been magic enough, we then heard a long deep sigh out in the water and realised what we had heard was a dugong.  Shy and majestic, these animals were known to frequent these waters but were rarely seen.  But on nights such as these, they would come out to feed; the sigh was the sound of a dugong catching his breath.  It was hardly a melodic sound, but it seemed so wistful and so rhythmic that it was endearing and was to set us on a search to see a dugong before we finally left the Pacific.

The next day, we were up at the crack of dawn to fit in a half day of fishing before flying back to Honiara.  Our resort was a popular venue for serious fishermen and pictures of past guests standing next to their catch of marlin were prominent throughout the bar area.  Enthused by these and her first fishing expedition in Yap, Pippa decided another fishing trip was a must and so, as the sun was rising, we were heading out towards the horizon to see what we could catch.

It was a hot day but fun was had by all, not least Pippa, although sadly she didn’t get a single bite on any of her lines.  Meanwhile, Eric was pulling them in thick and fast.  No marlin, but a beautiful rainbow runner, followed by a barracuda.  As we headed towards the second outpost, the telltale sign of birds circling overhead raised our hopes and we changed lures to try our luck at catching a few tuna.  We could see the commercial fishing boats out in the distance presumably reeling in yellowfin bound for the Japanese market, but sushi was not to be on the menu for us.  Instead, we reeled in the most beautiful Mahi-Mahi (a fish Pippa had never seen before) and another couple of rainbow runners before having to head back to Lola island to collect our bags and head back out across the lagoon to the airport.

Our flight back to Honiara was in a tiny 12-seater plane.  Seeing how small the plane was, we wondered if it would get off the ground, jam-packed as it was with both passengers and luggage (to this day we have yet to see a Pacific islander who can travel within his/her baggage allowance).  We had never flown in such a tiny plane but had total faith in our pilot who gave a brief, informal safety briefing from his open cockpit area and then repeated everything in Pijin (a form of English that is spoken by most islanders), presumably to ensure all the locals who were flying with us had understood how to use the emergency exits.  With that, he bowed his head and asked for us all to join him in prayer.  In all the hundreds of flights we have taken in our lifetimes, never had we been asked to pray for a safe arrival at our destination.  We were definitely taken aback, suddenly wondering if he knew something we didn’t.  A hail and hearty chorus of “Amen” arose from the passengers as the pilot ended his prayer and almost simultaneously, people began to recheck their seat belts and pull out the safety card in the seat pocket in front of them, just in case.

But we need not have worried.  Not only was our flight back safe, it was spectacular.  Flying above the open lagoons, looking down on the formations of island clusters scattered across the expanse of blue and being able to make out the coral reefs and drop-offs into deep water, was breathtaking.  And to top it off, we saw a volcano erupting out of the ocean, spewing dark clouds of ash and smoke into the air and then disappearing once again beneath the sea.  If only we had had more elbow room to get that perfect shot.

Pigeon, Coup

Saturday 20 May – Monday 22 May 2000

The dismal sight of the domestic terminal at Honiara airport reminded us what we had returned to, but we reminded ourselves that we were only going to be stopping overnight as we would be on another flight out the next morning.  Besides which, we were meeting up with Neil and Lyn again for dinner, which we knew would be an enjoyable way to spend the evening.

Our flight the next morning was to Santa Cruz, in Temotu Province, the eastern-most part of the country.  From here, we were planning to head out to the Reef Islands, a five hour boat ride further north in order to spend a few days on a remote outer island called Pigeon Island.  A trip so far east had not originally been part of our plan, but Santa Cruz had proved to be one of the few places to which we could get a flight; in addition, Pippa had come across Pigeon Island in the guidebook and remembered an author by the name of Lucy Irvine or Irving who had been out here for a while and written a series for the Sunday Times Magazine about life on an island in the middle of nowhere.  

Given that there was somewhere we could stay on the island, we radioed ahead to advise them we were coming and tried to find out what little we could about where we were going.  It gets little more than a few lines write up in the guidebook and given that it is way off the beaten tourist trail, the tourist office had little to offer us in terms of information.  But, this was not the first time we would be heading out into the unknown, so we were actually looking forward to making the trip.

Despite the name, there are apparently no pigeons on this tiny raised-coral atoll, just parrots and plenty of them.  The snorkeling opportunities looked as if they would be spectacular given all the coral reefs that were close by.  But first, we had to get there.  The plane standing out on the tarmac waiting to whisk us to Santa Cruz was slightly bigger than the one the previous day, and despite the rain left on time.  Given the distance we would be flying, the pilot informed us that we would be stopping en route to refuel and before long, came down to land on a tiny grass airstrip on a remote island.  While we stood watching the locals wheel out the petrol drum and hand pump it into the tank, we got talking to a Peace Corps volunteer who was stationed in Santa Cruz with her husband.  We got more insight into what had been happening in Honiara and were amazed at the elaborate back up strategies the Peace Corps had for evacuating their people should anything happen.

Before long, we were back up in the air again and on the last leg of our journey, or so we thought.  After no more than maybe 10 minutes of flying, the pilot leant back to tell us that he had radioed ahead to Santa Cruz and been told that the runway was flooded and we would be unable to land.  He apologized for the inconvenience but informed us that he had no choice but to turn around and return to Honiara.  Unhappy at being back again so soon, we spent an hour or two trying to figure out from the airline when they would reschedule the flight.  Rain was forecast for the next two days so nobody had an answer, but it was finally decided that it would leave on Monday (two days away) and in the meantime, we would have to figure out our own accommodation etc.

All the hotels were once again full but we returned to the one we had checked out of that morning and tried to give a coherent explanation as to why we needed another room for an extra two nights.  Taking pity on us, they found something for us and begrudgingly, we did another circuit of the town looking to see if anything had changed since our last tour.  It hadn’t.

The following day was Sunday and the rain was still coming down.  The entry in Pippa’s diary for the day pretty much sums up how we were feeling:  “Rain, rain, rain.  Woke up to rain and spent all day looking at it.  Walked to museum but closed.  Business centre closed so no e-mail.  Read, wrote postcards.  Bored.  Eric tetchy… wasting time.”

Monday morning dawned and under yet more rain clouds, we retraced our steps to the airport, rechecked our baggage and re-boarded a similar sized plane.  We took off, landed to refuel, watched the petrol drum being rolled out once more and soon enough were back in the sky.  After 10 minutes, we all began to breathe easier.  No problems with the runway at their end; we should be fine.  After half an hour or so, things began to get bumpy.  We were in thick cloud and visibility was zero.  But then, we’d been through worse so knew we’d be fine.  The pilot leant back to tell us he was going to turn back and see if he could find a way around the storm (rather than through it which was our current trajectory), advising that this may delay us a little but we’d still have plenty of fuel to get us there.  After another 10 minutes, he informed us he obviously hadn’t gone far enough around as we were still in the thick of it so he would try again.

By now, we were all beginning to wonder if we would ever make it.  After a third attempt to circle the storm, we were running low on fuel and the pilot decided to turn around and head back for Honiara.  We landed at the refueling stop once again and now for the third time watched the petrol drum being rolled out.  This slow, laborious hand pump lark was now proving to be positively annoying rather than quaint, standing as we were in the pouring rain willing for them to finish so we could get back on the plane.  As we reached Honiara, everyone’s spirits were low.  Faced with the prospect of another two days in Honiara waiting for the weather to clear and thereby leaving us only a day on Pigeon Island (should we ever get there) we started making enquiries as to how frequent the flights to our next destination, Port Vila (Vanuatu) were.  There was a flight the next day.  Within minutes, we were booked on it.

Two weeks after leaving the country, we learned that Malaitans on Guadalcanal had staged a coup.  The Peace Corps was evacuated, international air service to the Solomons was suspended, and law and order in the capital was deteriorating.  A lengthy visit to Pigeon Island could have landed us in the thick of things, probably quite safe but seriously inconvenienced.  We had cut our losses, and counted ourselves lucky.