From Santa Maria to Waterfall Bay
Hi Everyone, We set out from Losalava (perhaps this means "lots of lava") on Saturday 10th of June. The winds were strong and behind us, so we used only our head sail and (foolishly) towing the rubber ducky rather than stowing it on deck (which blocks the air flow into the front of the yacht). We raced along at 7kts and all was fine until we got near the island of Vanua Lava, where we encountered very rough and "bositerous" seas. One huge wave broke on top of the rubber ducky, filled it with water and plucked out the centre (inflatable) seat which was never seen again. Well, we can live without it. The underwater camera (very expensive) also stopped functioning some weeks ago as has our Olympus SLR digital camera (which has always been kept in a sealed dry bag). Oh well, back to the 35 year old Olympus SLR film camera which has worked well all our married life. We reached the very calm Waterfall Bay very quickly and were greeted by John who is the son of one of the Custom Chiefs. When we went ashore later, they performed a pleasant welcoming ceremony in Chief Kerely's Yacht Club (which is a pleasant leaf house with concrete floor). We exchanged small gifts and the Chief showed us their fantastic waterfall which has thousands of litres a second flowing over twin falls. Of course, Charlie was in and attempting to swim to the falls themselfs within a minute of our arrival! The katabiatic wind coming off the falls is awesome, at around 25KM/hr! We donated a Cosatal Cruising Club of Australia to join the many other flags there and also filled in the guest book. Several of our fellow CCCA members have also visited in the past. the Chief's wife (Elizabeth) and daughters agreed to do all our laundry so far. The methodology is similar to that found by David in India. Flog the clothes on the rocks in the river! They were returned a day later very clean. We also scheduled a Custom dinner for Sunday night- our last local dinner before the Solomon Islands. For five dollars each, we had Cassava, Taro, lobster and cooked freswater prawns. Wow! All the people at Waterfall Bay and the village (3KM away) are Anglican and so people from near and further away attended a Mass celebrated by Charlie on Saturday morning. The people were delighted and told us that the last time a visiting clergyman had performed a service for them was a American Pentecostal man twenty four years previously. While at Waterfall Bay, we also met Chief Jimmy, who lives on the other side of the twin Waterfalls. He is the elected Chief and the day of our arrival he had been elected the Chief of all the land of Vanua Lava. He was a kind and gentle man with much wisdom, so this augurs well for any land disputes on the island. We got an excellent pineapple and other fruit from his children. It was fun watching the kids surf their outriggers across the reef outside their home. Another time, we met former Chief Nixon, who "rents" space on the beach from the Custom owners. He is from Mota Lava. We traded with him for excellent bananas. Overall, our short time at Waterfall Bay was wonderful and we could easily have stayed longer, as did a German boat (called Calypso) which had come from the Marshall Islands and Kiribati. They had waited six days at Sola (Provincial Capital) for Immigration, who was never there (he is also the local Policeman). We knew that the trip to Sola would involve lots of tacking as we had to sail clockwise around the island, but that's another story. Best Regards, PASTIME crew
