Pastime heads further West
We left Sirovanga for Choiseul's Provincial Capital of Taro. You will recall we had called there to drop off our taxi passengers. Because we picked the right tide, we again had the current with us and a good trip to Taro. David got up early the next morning to buy some locally baked buns and bananas from the small market. We weighed anchor under sail and started off for Toumoa (pronounced "Toom-wa". We'd only sailed a few hundred metres when someone came out in a canoe to ask us if we would take a boy to the Vocational Training School at Nila, in the Shortland Islands. Now this was a little mysterious because the training school is for girls who learn sewing, cooking, maintaining market gardens, craft etc. Still, having become the "Pastime water taxi", we said "yes" and sailed back. We did explain we were going via the village of Toumoa but this did not seem to be an issue. Out came an 18 year old girl who had been waiting three weeks to get there! Bad weather had prevented transport across the notorious stretch of water which if full of shallow reefs and adverse currents. The big swells come rolling in from the South Pacific. We had settled Jane-Mary and explained that yachts can lean over a lot but not to be frightened. Of course, she was frightened despite our reassurances. Then, just as we were reaching the reef entrance to the open sea, another motorised canoe rushed up with ANOTHER girl! The driver explained that Jane-Mary was his son and this other girl also needed to get to the school. Could we take Maria as well? Yes, of course! The local language does not have the concept of male and female, which is why the people when using English referred to the girls as "boy" and "son". Well. we were soon underway and true to form, the wind blew right up with big seas. The passage was VERY rough and the girls became more frightened and seasick. Still, they were very brave and hugged each other. We caught a Kingfish which was savaged by a shark as we pulled it in; there was enough left for a few nights of food, so that was good. It probably did not do the girls' stomachs much good watching it being cut up. Possibly the visible evidence of sharks was also discouraging. We had to pull down the mainsail as there was way too much wind. Unfortunately, this increased the rocking motion quite a bit. Eventually, we reached the reef surrounding the Toumoa lagoon and gained respite from the waves. The girls perked up considerably. We sailed past the village and many people came down to the beach to wave and even waded out. We needed to anchor about a kilometre away as that was the closest safe place to anchor. Where we stopped, there was a man fishing and quite a few picaninnies who had run down from the village. These were probably some of the 10 year olds who in 2002 were on the beach for hours calling out "big white bird coming". No children under 10yrs had ever seen a yacht because of the Bougainville crisis. In fact, we discovered later that no other yacht had been since our 2002 visit. With the girls' help, we explained to the fisherman (who had rolled up his line) that they needed to be accommodated for three days/nights & that we knew Chief Chris Muli. The fisherman led us off through the jungle path to the village. We expected him to take us to the Chief's house, but no, he took us straight to his house and said he and his family would care for the girls for the duration, until we were ready to leave for Nila. What a kind act- typical of what happens here all the time. Would it happen in Sydney? No, rather unlikely! Another man took us off in search of the Chief, and we had a great chat. Maria (his wife) had been in their garden, high up on the hill, and saw us coming. She thought it was us, but told here husband that she was puzzled that there were three adults PLUS two Solomon Islanders. Mischievously, she had suggested to Chris that it probably was us and that we had undoubtedly abducted the two girls! Anyway, we had a great time and "Willie Mechanical", one of the villagers, was entrusted to take us around the village as Charlie has not been here before. It was great to see the "Toumoa Bell", donated by the CCCA (Coastal Cruising Club of Australia) mounted in a corner of the meeting house. More on that in the next BLOG. The CREW
