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… Continue reading »
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2025
15
May
2025
05
May
8 months of Smurfy aboard
Incredible, but true, our kitten’s already grown up. He’s still a bit crazy, but getting better (or so we tell ourselves). Unfortunately there’s no veterinary in the Solomon Islands, so we still haven’t been able to have him neutered. For now we just hope that he won’t start marking his territory anytime soon as he can smell neither competing rivals nor lady cats out here… Continue reading »
2025
29
Apr
Convergence Zone weather sailing (motoring)
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… Continue reading »
2025
28
Apr
Squid egg spread
We often have groups of squid and cuttlefish hanging out around the boat. They are really interesting to watch communicating with each other with intricate changes of colour, swimming forwards, backwards and even sideways looking like aliens. We always wondered why they were so interested in the anchor chain, now we know: they are looking for a convenient substrate to attach their eggs! The poor… Continue reading »
2025
19
Apr
Shopping in Gizo
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… Continue reading »
2025
12
Apr
Bleached, dying, dead
Have you ever cried into a diving mask? I did today when we were snorkeling on the reef off Vella Lavella (Solomon Islands). We had visited the village of Leona before and were thrilled to hear that they are thinking of the future and have been protecting their reef for 20 years(!) with no-fishing zones. Additionally they have now created a conservation area in the… Continue reading »
2025
29
Mar
Logging in the Solomons
In Taro we saw a big freighter loading logs and asked the guys at customs and immigration about it: they said that logging was done on a big scale by Malayan companies. Asked about regulations for reforestation they just sadly smiled and shook their heads–theoretically maybe, but neither the logging companies nor the land owners actually replant trees. So lush rain forest is turned into… Continue reading »
2025
27
Mar
Arrived in the Solomon Islands!
We’ve checked in at Taro Island–quick, simple and very pleasant! We contacted customs and immigration ahead (aleonard@customs.gov.sb, samson.korai@commerce.gov.sb), they sent a form each to fill in before arrival. Once we got there we wrote to them again, went to the police station where Alex and Samson checked us in, so no running around searching for offices… We paid 500 SBD fees and were glad to… Continue reading »
2025
26
Mar
Found Nemo in Papua New Guinea!
Nowhere else have we encountered such huge numbers and such a variety of anemones and clown fish subspecies!
2025
20
Mar
Sailing Towards the Horizon as pdf
Are you interested in reading my travelbook, but haven’t ordered one yet as you don’t want to support Amazon? I’ve now converted it into a pdf, scaled it down to a reasonable size (50 MB) and I’m happy to send it as a WeTransfer. The paperback costs 17 euros on Amazon (btw I only get 5 per book), but I thought I’d offer the pdf… Continue reading »
2025
15
Mar
No NW monsoon over PNG
Remember our plan to sail up from Vanuatu to the north of PNG using the SE trades in order to arrive before December when the wind collapses and then sail back from northern PNG to the Solomons using the NW monsoon that’s supposed to blow over PNG from December to March? Well, that didn’t work out: the winds got very light (but predominantly east) in… Continue reading »
2025
06
Mar
6 months of Smurfy and we’re still struggling
Smurfy’s the most stubborn person I’ve ever met (of any species and that includes my own pighead), fiercely independent and rebellious–not ideal features of a ship’s cat. None of the cats we’ve had before prepared us for this struggle… Sometimes we’re close to giving up, but then he shows his adorable, dotted belly and we’re melting again. Sometimes we suspect that he’s not quite sane…… Continue reading »
2025
06
Mar
Pitufino at the boat show in Tulln
Our WiFi gateway Pitufino can be viewed and tried out at the Austrian boat show in Tulln! Of course there’s also a discount of 10%, not just for those shopping at the boat show, but also for everything ordered from the online store–just this week and next week!