Pitufa.at

Google maps shows a place called “Simon’s Nature Reserve” in a bay on the Florida Islands just north of Honiara and intrigued by the name we anchored, not knowing what to expect. An eco lodge? A nature park with a guard? Turns out Simon is just a local man living in a hut ashore, but he has dedicated the past 20 years to protecting the reef off his (and his father’s and uncle’s) land.
He tries to make sure nobody goes fishing there, has collected different types of coral from around the bay and has tried to keep them safe from locals breaking off bits to grind and burn into lime (needed in combination with beetelnut) and from crown of stars invasion. He talks about concepts like bio-diversity, coral bleaching and effects of climate change without ever having had the chance to get any higher education. He has just talked with everyone who came to visit his reef and sucked up information like an eco-sponge.
He warns us ahead that his reef has suffered during the last summer (“I cry when I see my coral…”), then takes us snorkeling, points out special exhibits (red coral, a dark-blue anemone, etc.) and we are happy to find that even though this well-tended reef doesn’t have much large fish (too many poachers come at night), the coral looks much better than any reef we have seen since leaving the Bougainville Strait.

We take many pictures and when we discuss them with him and his family the day after ashore, his face lights up when we tell him about the positive state in comparison to the rest of the Solomons!

Simon would like more nature-lovers to come, visit his reef and support his project. He’s only asking for a 50 SBD (6 USD) donation from visiting sailors to go snorkeling or diving and the local dive operator that occasionally brings tourists pays even less: just 25 SBD (3 USD) per person–not enough to buy equipment to mark the protected zone, patrol it or even buy a flashlight to check for poachers at night or to buy a new diving mask. He has tried over the years to get support from NGOs, but none were interested (a phenomenon we know all too well from trying to get conservation organisations aboard projects that would really deserve funding…), but it’s hard to get visitors for several reasons:

- Sailboats: We are really experienced in anchoring in precarious places (without damaging coral), but it took us a long time to find a spot on the steep slope that goes from the very shallow healthy reef down to 35 m within a short distance. To attract sailboats, Simon would need at least two moorings. We are getting new chain and can donate our old chain, but we don’t have the necessary shackles and rope to finish moorings.

- Visits to snorkel (from Honiara): Simon and his family have an old solar panel, but they would need a battery and an inverter in order to charge a smart phone (which they also lack) in order to be able to get online and have a webpage (or at least a facebook page) and email contact so that people could get in touch with them and arrange a visit… We can donate solar panels, but we would need a battery and an inverter to charge a smart phone that we also don’t have yet

Of course it would be easier to just shrug and tell him that he’s doing a great job and wish him good luck instead of getting involved and trying to help this great initiative. But this is an opportunity to support a project that can make a big difference in this lagoon as

- a breeding ground for fish that can prevent the villagers from selling the last fish before realising that it’s too late for protection

- an opportunity to give corals beneficial conditions (lots of herbivores to keep them clean, someone to remove threats like crown of thorn and adding species to see if they can cope with the rising temperatures) so resilient coral may adapt here and hopefully repopulate other reefs elsewhere.

Please get in touch if you are sailing towards the Solomons this year and would like to donate or actively help, or if you live nearby and would like to support Simon’s Nature Resort!

We start by donating 50 m of 10 mm galvanized chain for the moorings.
Additionally needed:
- shackles
- swivels
- rope
- floats
- someone with scuba gear to lay a number eight around two boulders to attach the mooring to (a weight might tumble down the drop-off, so not ideal).

In order to get Simon connected to the world, we can donate solar panels, but additionally we would need:
- a battery
- an inverter
- an old smart phone

To patrol the reef and keep nightly poachers out, a strong flashlight would be good.
In order to keep up his work Simon will need a dive mask–his is broken.

If you cannot come to the Solomons to actively help, please consider making a donation! All the equipment needed to make Simon’s nature reserve more widely known and accessible and keep him going comes up to about 500 EUR–very little money to make a big, positive impact in a world where nature is struggling with our pollution and shortsighted exploiting of resources and where even less funding than before is available for conservation projects. Within Europe bank transfers are ideal as there are no fees. If you live elsewhere in the world you can donate with PayPal

Anchoring
We were warned not to go to Honiara by sailboat as the anchorage has a bad reputation for bad holding, bouncy conditions and crime.
Well, I suppose we got lucky: we found a good anchor spot off the breakwater cafe (a big thank you to Fred, the owner, who let us use their dock and helped with advice) and with a few days of calm weather it was quite comfy there most of the time.
Smurfy found our anchorage in the harbour stressful, but exciting!

View from the breakwater

The harbour area is generally nicely made up with carvings from all over the Solomons–we particularly liked this god of the sea


Our first impression was that it’s horribly dirty: the floodings just before we arrived flushed most of the plastic trash from the gutters into the sea and we were horrified about the amount of floating plastic. The Breakwater Cafe and some hotels started a clean-up of their area while we were there, but the problem’s the trash that keeps piling up in the streets.
Honiara after the flood swept the garbage out to sea

Major awareness raising is needed

Shopping and transport
The expat community was wonderfully friendly, helped us find all the stuff we were looking for at the different supermarkets and hardware stores (The range of goods in the isn’t quite like Fiji and it’s more expensive than PNG, but we still stocked up on goodies, even on gluten-free stuff for Christian and high-quality catfood for Smurfy) and we even made it to one of their Friday evening drinks’n'dinner events!

It’s easy and cheap to get around in Honiara with the buses that constantly run up and down the only “highway”–a four lane road without pedestrian crossings or traffic lights. Apparently there are many accidents, suprise, suprise Taking a taxi back with cartloads of shopping is also quite affordable. Only the highway is paved and walking the incredibly dusty roads we ate considerable amounts of dirt and grit…

Medical services
We went to BS Medical to see the dentist there. The young dentist (studied in Suva) maybe didn’t do the most thorough check-up ever (no fancy equipment), but certainly the most entertaining one. Me (curious): “Do you often do root canals?” Lina (confident): “Yes, almost every day. And the patients don’t come back.” Me (being my naughty self):”Because they all died??” Lina (laughing out loud): “No, they do come back eventually, just not right after to complain…”
Apparently the prices are quite stiff for Solomon standards, but we thought that 2 consultations plus 1 x-ray for 80 USD was quite cheap.
I also went to the “Regional Eye Clinic” to have my retina and eye pressure checked, all was done quickly and professionally and when I asked where to pay the woman at the reception just shrugged. The clinic’s free for everybody

Unfortunately, air conditioning has become a status symbol here, and the icy air on my sweaty body, combined with coughing and sneezing people everywhere, naturally led to me catching a virus. Fever, but also a runny nose and cough – unpleasant and very debilitating, but at least we know it’s not malaria.

The only times we get north or northwest wind is when a cyclone or low passes south of us. With some patience we managed to sail all the way down from northern PNG riding those winds. This week a low south of Guadalcanal brought strong winds and floodings to Honiara–and brought us a weather window to sail down from New Georgia to the Florida Islands just north of Honiara.
We spent a few days in an uninhabited bay on the northermost island of the Floridas and yesterday we sailed down along the island chain to a little village near Tulaghi town. We’re used to having canoes around the boat just after we arrive, but yesterday half the village came out for a chat and to trade fruit and veg
Nice downwind saiing conditions, calm seas, so no rolling

The rugged coast of the Florida islands–beautiful islands, but badly scarred from mining.

When we anchored behind Undeka island an all-girl canoe came out first

And soon we had half the village around

We have a shipment arriving in Honiara, the capital of the Solomons, mid May (new solar panels, a new anchor chain, etc. coming on a container ship), so we should slowly make our way southeast towards Honiara before the trade winds set in. No problem, we thought, even though there’s not much wind we’ll just do short hops with little puffs of wind, it’s only about 180nm altogether from Noro down to Honiara.
So far we’ve had basically no wind and ended up motoring short hops. Yesterday there was finally a northeasterly breeze predicted from early in the morning, lasting until noon and then calm weather. Therefore we made a plan to have an early start from northern Rendova island, sail 30 nm down to a chain of little motu on an extended reef and anchor there rather exposed in the predicted calm weather.
Great plan, except that the promised NE breeze never arrived and we ended up motoring 30 nm with the main flapping uselessly on the mast. Just as we were approaching the anchorage (a narrow shelf with a shallow reef behind it and a steep drop-off towards the lagoon, like always here), the clouds that had been building, reached us as a squall with easterly winds, so we were bouncing on a lee shore with a shallow bank right behind our stern. We had anchored in 5 m and were swinging into an area with 3 m and just 25 m of chain down. Things then calmed down, but at 5 in the morning we were woken up by a squall from the south, 20 knots and Pitufa now had 18 m under the keel–not exactly an ideal scope with 25 m of chain, so Christian quickly let down more chain.

We waited for dawn to be able to ride the southerly wind of the squall to the next anchorage, but of course the wind died down as soon as we had enough light to manoeuvre between the reefs. Now it’s raining and we’re getting some work done (Christian programming and I’ve been wiping mould from furniture), ready to use the next squall with hopefully a useable wind direction to make some miles SE. Annoying weather.

We’ve just spent two days anchored off Gizo, one of the bigger towns of the Solomons, but it’s really just a village. The anchorage would be rough in trade wind conditions, but it was nicely calm and protected in NW winds (when we were there).
Gizo has the mouldy charm of one of the less charming Caribbean islands with (corroded) corrogated iron everywhere, muddy streets (okay, it was raining when we were there, so sunny skies might lift the charm level a bit) and little Chinese shop with a rather underwhelming range of goods. We stocked up on basics though as well as petrol and kerosene and this time we managed without lugging bags around: the town is really catering to the local boats, so almost every shop has a dock and we could just do our shopping, leave bags and jerry cans at the different locations and then go and pick them up by dinghy!