I feel like I'm in England. It was another overcast day with pretty disturbed weather, or no weather. We got up around 5AM and got the boat rolling just after. We had good light and it looked like it could be a nice day though lots of clouds were rolling onto the big island of Cristobal.

We exited the reef across the entrance to Port Mary with no track line but good visibility. We set the tracking on the Raymarine E120 for auto so that it gives a good track but minimizes the points used. When it runs out of points it alarms and begins erasing points at the start of the track to make new points. This is fine. What is not fine is that it seems to think that it is ok to delete the entire track when you shut down the E120. This is my theory anyway. I can say decisively that our track alarmed yesterday and began deleting its tail but still showed on the plotter, and today it was gone. It would have been a welcome reassurance in the gray dawn.

I exited the harbor in the center of the markers and saw 45 feet on the way out. On the way in I believe I favored the green mark (green right returning here in ex-Brit territory) and saw no less than 70 feet. Small cruise ships come in here so it is a pretty easy entrance if you have your wits about you.

Once out we put up the main with reef one and pulled out the jib due to the ominous nature of the system moving in. We ran just across the front of it getting a nice ride at 9 knots. Then our lead ran out and it got a little too hot, blowing around 30 knots true. We had to head up (I'm not used to sailing up wind anymore!) to put in reef two and roll the jib up a bit. Of course as soon as we finished that it was back down to reef one conditions. So we went down to reef one. Then it was light and on the nose so we started the Yanmar.

Well it was certainly cooler due to the cloud cover as we made our way to the island of Uki Ni Masi on the northeast coast of Cristobal. We motored (the sails were up but it would be a stretch to call it motor sailing most of the time) up the coast of Cristobal in the wake of a huge squall system. It killed the wind but we missed all the rain somehow. By noon it was still overcast but stabilized and not so dense and dark. In fact it would be a nice in town day. We're still two days from town however...

As we rounded the point of Uki Ni Masi the sun came out and it was a perfect blue sky afternoon. You get all the weather in one day here in the Solomons it seems.

Uki Ni Masi is a nice island with a nice trade wind anchorage on the west side. Selwyn Bay is fairly large and open though it does have a decent west extending lip on the south and north ends. We anchored near the south corner to shelter from the southeast trades (in case they show up). The island should do well in anything with east in it and the bay would not be bad with a south wind if you sheltered at the south end, also because Cristobal is not far off to the southwest. Wind with any west in it would probably be no fun here so you need to watch the monsoons.

Much like Vanuatu, we have found the anchorages here in the Solomons (both from the cruising guides and the whopping two we have actually anchored in so far) to be deep right up to the shore and then it goes immediately to 0 feet with lots of coral. I have been getting in the habit of motoring around the 30 foot contour and then trying to pick a spot with 50 feet of water where we can set and still be off the rock in a wind shift. I always like to be tucked in a short swim from shore in the 10 foot water, but those days are few and far between outside of the Bahamas.

The anchorage here is beautiful. We asked a friendly guy in a dug out canoe if we could anchor and he said, "sure". He also gave us some tips on the location of the shallow rocks near shore. It is a bright Saturday afternoon and we can hear children playing back in the trees though we can't see them. Margaret is taking a swim and cleaning the water line, Hideko is making dinner and I'm doing the weather.

Two more day sails to Honiara!