A little lashing from TC Sandra in the Coral Sea

Hey all,

We're fine, hanging out in the area around New Georgia and Ghizo Islands.  Doing boat projects, and sweating, as per the usual.  It's nice.

A couple of days ago the weather turned nasty with strong winds from the north and severe thunderstorms.  The night before last we had the most intense night of lightening and downpours we've had on the entire trip.  Fortunately our anchorage is secure, and never did the forty plus knot winds cause us any concern.  All this weather, which continued last night and today, is just a taste of Tropical Cyclone Sandra, which has been feeding off the warm waters of the Coral Sea and has been stirred to life by high winds aloft.

The cyclone keeps throwing out troughs and fronts full of rain and bad weather, but nothing compared to conditions closer to the center.  Here we are getting flooding locally and unusually high water levels.  The surf on the reefs in incredible, and thunder is almost always present.  Our solar panels are mostly decoration at the moment, as the gloom hasn't lifted for days.  Hate to have to run the engine to top up batteries, but may do so.  Also the water is light brown due to runoff; so no swimming, and no use of the saltwater pump when doing dishes.

Right now the storm is category 2, and is projected to keep strengthening over the next days and gradually move off east southeast.  Looks likely to be in the cat. 4 range in a few days time, though by then our weather should be much better.  Here's a satellite photo with our position marked.

Owen

Life in the Solomon's

When we first entered the straits between Kolombangara volcano and Vonavona lagoon it was almost dreamlike in its elemental nature.  Lush gum trees soaring 200 feet carpet the slopes of the volcano to our right.  Mangroves and smaller trees cover the scattered motus to the left.  The channel is mirror calm.  As the sun rises, slanting rays of golden light stab down into the waters picking out iridescent plankton and squid.

In the strait - early morning

A few grass and pole houses, beautifully made and situated, cluster near streams mouths and bays.  Next to the huts on shore are small intensively cultivated garden plots.  Taro and cassava fill in the corners, and fishing nets hang over bushes drying.  A few dugout canoes ply the waters between islands.  It seemed that this scene is timeless, and is essentially unchanged since the times when my own ancestors lived in much the same manner in Europe.

They say that Gizo town is the second most populous town in the Solomon's.  That statement gives rise to expectations unmet, as most of the small towns back home are far larger, and the town has but one significant street that follows the shoreline and is lined both sides with wooden shops and warehouses, with a smattering of WWII era Quonset huts rusting away for flavor.

The street is dusty, and outside each shop are garbage cans and refuse overflowing into piles on the street.  Under shade trees everywhere people cluster around vendors selling tobacco and betel nut.  The locals are very dark skinned, with mostly African features.  Some clearly have polynesian ancestry, and there are groups of recent (1950's) Gilbert Islanders settled near town.  Smiles are quick and friendly, but seem a bit strange at first with the deeply red stained teeth and gums from betel nut chewing.  The ground is covered in vivid red dried spittle marks.

Most of the shops in town sell the same products; tinned meat, flour, oil, cloth, and the like.  All the shops appear to be owned by Chinese families, much like how in Fiji shops were owned by Indo-Fijians.  I spent some time talking one day with the son of the owner of the Wing Sun Store.  He and his family, he explained, are "Old Chinese" and have lived in the Solomon's since just after WWII.  The family started their store shortly after arriving, and there were only a few other stores back then, so business was good.

But in the late 1980's and 1990's there was an influx of "New Chinese" stores, owned by overseas interests (Mainland China) and staffed by young english speaking Chinese who are in the country on tourist visas, and thus technically are not allowed to work.  But work they do, for three months - bossing the local employees around in a superior manner before they return home to the PRC to further their education.  You never see them out and about in town these young twenty something Chinese, as they've been told to keep a low profile.  They sit on elevated platforms in the stores, watching every transaction with a suspicious eye and being addressed as "Madam" and "Sir" by the Solomon Islander employees.

I asked how the Solomon government lets this situation go on, and I was told it's all bribery and money crossing palms.  Now none of the shops turns a good profit, and the locals have essentially no chance of starting their own businesses.  The can't compete with either of the Chinese factions.  No... for the locals the place for business is the market.

The market is what makes the town tick.  It is the clock that governs when people leave their home island by dugout, laden with produce grown in their own garden, or fish caught during the night.  It's "the Mall," a place to meet, sell, talk, gossip, and at the end of the day - to buy, before packing up and paddling home.  

The market exists most days, but on Friday people travel from all the surrounding islands, and the market on that day is something to behold.  Dozens of types of greens, fruit in profusion, Stalls full of fish, from sardines to tuna five feet long.  Crowded and alive with colorful cloth and small children holding onto the mother's skirts, the market is full of life and sunshine, and is the exact opposite of the shops which are dark and smell of flour beetles and dust.

Tamsyn and friend

Our days begin an hour after sunrise as the light grows, and we begin to hear canoes being paddled by.  Griffyn usually runs on deck first waving and greeting the families paddling by, mothers shielding their infants from the already oppressive sun with brightly colored umbrellas.  These folks know our kids and they wave back and call out "hallo's."

Katydid and lunch

On Fridays, if we are near Gizo, we too plan on going to market after a hurried breakfast of pancakes and coffee (We have finally run out of syrup, so now use jam on our pancakes).  Tamsyn quickly does the dishes - usually with some prodding, and we lower the dinghy into the water and ready our shopping bags, and fill up water bottles and apply sun screen to noses.  

At the market we usually get enough greens for much of the week, plus some cucumbers for snacking, and green onions for cooking.  Grapefruit, papaya, limes, mandarin oranges and bananas round out our purchases.  I then pop into a shop and get a kilo of flour and and maybe some crackers.

Once we are back on the boat it's time for some school.  Griffyn is still doing reading lessons most days, and hasn't quite found the magic point at which it becomes easier and a joy.  He still has to work at it, and struggles when he's tired.  He plugs away at his math, and we do science or geography every few days too.

Tamsyn is reading up a storm, and can plough through her school work quite well.  I've been working a lot on creating more challenging math problems for her.  The latest batch usually involve multiple factors that she has to consider in figuring her answer.  I try to keep them fun.  Here's one from last week:

• There are 310 people in a village.

• At zero hour there are 3 zombies.

• Zombies can eat 2 people per hour.

• Once eaten, that person becomes a zombie the next hour.

• People can kill 3 zombies and hour - but only after hour 6 when they realize what is happening.

Determine for every hour after zero hour, how many people, and zombies, and 'totally" dead zombies there are.  How long until the zombies are wiped out?  How many people are left?

Tamsyn has never seen a zombie movie, but she and her brother seem to know all about them (wonder how that happened?).  She does really well on this type of problem, and when the form is extended to a problem with disease incubation in a population vs. treatment, she just applies the same methods and does great.

By late afternoon we are watching the clouds that always form for signs of rain.  It always seems to rain downwind of the volcano, but seldom near this island.  Four o'clock brings a hue and cry for swimming and a relief from the heat.  Before long we are jumping and splashing into the clear blue water.  The kids are getting to be great divers - going down to the snubber hook - which is about twelve feet deep in these windless conditions.

I've been doing more deep diving lately, following the anchor chain to the bottom fifty feet down.  The sediment there is a fine grey silty sand with numerous round white disks scattered about.  A few weeks ago when I first noticed them I grabbed a handful of sediment and surfaced to look in better light.  The round disks were different sizes, most half a centimeter in diameter, and less than a millimeter thick.  Many had a small hole in the middle.

Seeing the odd "disks," I was suddenly transported back to my childhood - fossil collecting with my dad at "the brickyards" near St. Paul, Minnesota.  We poured over ancient limestone sea beds, populated with a multitude of shells, trilobites, AND little round disks with holes in the middle.  When we first ran into them back in the 1960's we called them "Cheerio's" and later learned they were in fact called crinoids and that they when stacked together made up the stems of Sea Lilies, a primitive marine animal that looks like a plant.  And here they were in my hand, picked from the living sea floor much like the ones preserved all those long ages ago on the other side of the world.  I wished my dad could see them.

After washing up with fresh water in the cockpit, we start dinner and get ready to put up the mosquito net over the main hatch.  At dusk the "mozzies" fly out from the mangroves looking for a blood meal, so we try and keep them out, since malaria is a problem in the Solomon's.  We take our doxycycline daily, but keep our windows and hatches screened too.

Before bed there are stories and talking, then the fans go on in the v-berth where the kids go to sleep.  Outside the wind dies down and stillness fills the night.  Carrie and I stay up reading and talking until the kids fall asleep.  Sometimes we watch a movie, sometimes we're not far behind the kids, and our heads nod.  

One last thing.  The other day Griffyn was on deck looking over the lifelines looking at the water and talking up a storm.  I assumed he was talking to some local kids in a canoe.  Then he came down the ladder and announced that it would be o.k. to swim later because his "Sea Friends" are guarding the boat, and that they can't keep up with us when when we are sailing because they have some "Sicklings" with them.  We all like it here.

Owen

Tsunami preparations in Gizo, Solomon Islands after todays 8.0 quake

It's a very warm muggy night with flashbulb flashes of distant lightning on the horizon.  Local dance music wafts out from shore, and beads of sweat roll down our faces as another night in the Solomon's begins.  Tonight we are all very thankful for the music, the heat, and normalcy of the evening; considering that much of the day was far from normal.

Today we woke to blue skies and temperatures in the 90's by nine o'clock, so we knew it would be a good day to try and dig out from huge pile of laundry generated by the two weeks of overcast and drizzle we've had.  So it was a day off from building the "big" raincatcher - that's a story for another time.

We scored some free water from shore - must be laundry time.  We had three loads going in the shaded cockpit when the VHF radio at the nav station came to life with Gene from S/V Reflection's voice.  He announced that an 8.0 quake just happened in the Santa Cruz area, and that a tsunami was generated, and that the warning just went out, and would be in effect for the next two hours.  He also said the first wave could hit the Munda area (about 25 miles east) in the next 15 minutes.

So immediately we jumped into action to clear the cockpit, and helm to prepare for navigation.  The kids were sent to get life jackets, and bring things below.  I checked for lines overboard and finding nothing fired up the engine.  About this time I heard a loud blast of a siren from shore - like a civil defense siren back home.  It continued to sound for five minutes.

I ran below to get the GPS online and fire up a laptop with navigation software.  While I did that Carrie was up on deck doing lookout for approaching waves.  She shouted down that lots of boats were leaving shore and coming out into deeper water.  Tamsyn reported that boats were coming near our anchorage, and that some were tying up to the yellow quarantine buoy.

Once the computer was up, and depth/speed were flipped on on the electrical panel, I bounded upstairs.  Now to decide: to go or stay.  It had been nearly ten minutes since the first radio report.  We would never get past the reefs in the time left, so riding a surge and debris out at anchor seemed the best bet at the moment.  We were in 50 feet of water with excellent holding, and far enough from shore that I felt I could drive the anchor through changing surge.

None of the other five boats here made a move to raise anchor, though every boat had people on deck anxiously watching for breakers on the surrounding reefs.  On shore a fire truck was stopped in the main street, and someone was talking through the vehicles load-talker.  We couldn't make out what he was saying.

All boat traffic in this area with nearly constant comings and goings during daylight hours ceased.  One of the big ships that was scheduled to leave port at 2:00 p.m.  just lay at the pier, engines running, bridge crew out on the wings holding binoculars up to their eyes.

Gene from Reflections got back on the radio.  Reports were coming in of villages erased from the map closer to the epicenter.  The time of earliest wave arrival came and went.  With all these islands, bays and reefs though, it would be easily possible for waves to reflect and curl around and arrive much later than the soonest possible arrival.  So we hung tight.  The kids packed up their most treasured possessions into a small bag.  I threw our passports and ships documents into a waterproof backpack.

Carrie and I talked over how we would deal with debris washed back from shore should a wave go inland.  But nothing happened.  There have been some big aftershocks around the epicenter, and not much news from the ground, so we're curious what news tomorrow will bring.

So all are well here.  We like the Solomon's quite a bit.  It reminds me a bit of Africa in that it's people are very poor, though good natured, and getting anything done is a bit of an odyssey.  This area also has the most expensive internet we've yet run into.

After the all clear was announced we hung our laundry, and then went swimming off the boat.  Thousands of minnows schooled around the boat in ever-changing swirls and shimmering silver clouds.  We hung motionless in the green water letting the schools envelop us.  Then Carrie tapped everyone and signaled to surface.   "A huge Fish," she exclaimed.  We looks down where she pointed.  It was a huge fish - a five foot barracuda that was circling the schools of minnows, which were swimming around us.  I swam down to the big snaggle-toothed fish to move him along, and got within three feet of him and he wouldn't budge.  So we watched him for twenty minutes and decided he was waiting to go for something smaller that might go for the minnows (but we did keep Griffyn close).

So tonight, all the boats are back on shore, people are dancing and happy that they dodged a bullet, and the sweat runs off my nose, and we are contentedly settling in for another tropical evening.  Oh... and more lightening is flashing on the horizon.  Cross your fingers for rain.

Cheers,

Owen

Madrona safe after Solomon Island Tsunami/Earthquake

Hi folks,

Just to let everyone know that as of 4:00 UTC (around two hours after the quake in the Santa Cruz Islands) Madrona and crew are safe and sound. When we heard about the Tsunami all sorts of boats were putting out from shore, and everyone was scrambling to get their boat ready handle surge and debris that would result if a big wave series were to come in.


Since then we have been on deck scanning the reefs around our location (near Ghizo Island)for signs of incoming waves. But sounds like we are good and clear. More later.

Owen & Crew.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Coral gardens near Plum Pudding Island (Kennedy Island)

Happy New Year,

We are anchored off a small island near Gizo that boasts two little resorts. A short ways to the NE is Plum Pudding Island, aka Kennedy Island, the spot where Lt. John F. Kennedy USN and the other survivors of PT109 swam ashore and hid from the Japanese while Kennedy's message, carved into a coconut, was sent by canoe to Rendova. Strange to be here.

The coral gardens here are amazing. So many colors of coral and fish. The best diving we've had yet. A few days ago a tropical storm formed 100 miles east of us, and as it moved south of our location formed into tropical cyclone Freda - now on it's way to New Cal. The storm has made it a bit windier than is ideal.

While diving we've seen sharks, sea horses, amazing corals, and so many new fish that it dazzles the eye. The boat is still in chaos from the holiday, and having our top sides clear of things that might be pinched during the night. I was considering titling this entry A sailboat Named Entropy.

Now to see what our next weeks weather is likely to bring. We hope everyone has a nice New Years, ours was quiet - just the wind of a rising rain squall punctuated the night when the clock ticked over. We're going to watch a movie today, and see if anyone on shore wants a baby bird.

Owen

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Madrona at anchor in Gizo harbor

Merry Christmas again.

We had a nice Christmas day, and today - Boxing Day - has been very relaxing. We had a great morning yesterday and the kids really enjoyed themselves. Our dinner was shared with Gene and Cherie from S/V Reflections, a nice spaghetti, salad and brownies! The kids watched a pixar movie called "Brave" and enjoyed themselves. Then we all played a board game called Apples to Apples, and Griffyn won.

Today it is hot and humid, with thunder in the distance, and the hope of collected drinking water later tonight. Keep your fingers crossed for us. Just wanted to thank everyone for your holiday greetings. It is so good to hear from you all. Don't freeze. We'll write in a few days to let everyone know what's up in this neck of the woods.

Owen

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Merry Christmas and holiday season thoughts from "The Slot"

Hello everyone.

Merry Christmas! Griffyn, Tamsyn, Carrie and I want to let everyone know how often we think of you, family and friends back home. It's has been a long and eventful year. December 21st (on our side of the world) finds us motoring up a passage running NW with New Georgia Island to our west, and Santa Isabel Island to our east.

We are a day and a half out from Honiara on the Island of Guadalcanal - mostly sailing in very light winds. We are still a little gun shy of the engine after we sucked some air last week, and it took three days to sort it out. We hope to be in Gizo in about 36 hours. There we plan on spending a quiet Christmas.

Right now it s very hot aboard. The equatorial sun makes it almost painful to be out in the full sun. This morning our backup GPS bit the dust, so that caused some stress. Also the current coming down the slot is reducing our forward progress to 3.5 knots, so that's a worry too. As the kids are madly cutting out paper snow flakes, and taking care of their new pet - a Kura Kura bird (police bird) chick that fell out of its nest on Guadalcanal, I've had a chance to step back for a few moments and look at our year in perspective.

We are healthy, generally happy, and together as a family. It is this time of year that it is hardest to be away from those we love. We are thinking about Carrie's brother Tim, and wish we could be more supportive to him and his kids. We are thinking of Torrie Jane, and though we know her husband and family are around her, we wish we could be too. And we wish we could be around my father, Hinka and Lois, and see my nephew's new baby. But here we are.

Last night sailing, we left a long phosphorescent trail through a sea so still and smooth that the stars overhead cast mirror images in the water. I remember that dark night a week or so ago when we were engineless in zero wind off a lee shore while lightening played all around us - dolphins were jumping and frolicking all around the boat. I think of the mysterious Island of Tanna, with its spectacular volcano and warm people. I think of the many new friends we have made in Fiji and other places. We wonder how Sisi and Eshwini and their families are after the cyclone hit Fiji. I think of our kids making so many friends and playmates among the peoples we have visited. Tamsyn and Griffyn are still kids, each with their issues and challenges, but I watch with pleasure as they are deepening, and growing in compassion and understanding. And they are not done. Soon they be trading with peers and that will be a joy to watch.

So from ours to yours, we wish you a Merry Christmas. We will touch base when we get safely to Gizo.

Owen

8 13.110 S
158 26.250 E

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com