It's been three weeks since our last update and I had a mind to wait until we arrived back at Lata but decided to do a quick update anyway.

Weather is always our predominant consideration and the forecast showed a window to allow us to sail to Utupua (pronounced oo-too-poo-ah) and Vanikoro in a few day time so we thought we might be able to sneak around to the east side of Ndendo (Santa Cruz)Island visiting a few "out of the way" villages, which we managed to do. The water is often so deep near the villages, or so exposed, it is impossible to anchor so we have to find an anchorage as near as possible and then take our dingy back, which we're happy to do, if the weather is calm enough. The people here were quite spread out and we did one walking clinic with a guide (at his prompting), along the shore where the huts were quite strung out in a rural type setting. "there's one old man who lives down here..." or "one family with old people just nearby". If you have never visited places like these it would blow your mind just how much the locals can make out of the natural materials that surround them. Very few of the huts have tin roofs and these are mostly paid for by the government, so it's sago thatch everywhere. No two huts are the same and there is a lot of though and creativity that goes into designing and building each one - split levels, verandahs and high-pitched roofs. We were around the area three days before we headed off to Utupua, 40 miles to the south east. The wind, although "on the nose" still allowed us to sail. We only spent one night at Utupua and told the people at Metembo village (where the health clinic is) that we would be back as we wanted to get to Vanikoro while the weather was suitable. The next day the wind was so light that we ended up having to motor the 30 miles to Vanikoro (such is life), which was the furthest south east we would be taking our program. We actually had two days of sun and fine weather - a rare occurrence in this area it would seem, due to the almost ever present Convergence Zone.

We arrived in Lavaka village in mid-afternoon (a must in uncharted tropical areas) and started clinics early the next morning. These islands don't have any mobile network and the only communication is via a HF radio net which they monitior in the morning and afternoon. It's mostly in Pigeon and is a tad tricky to understand especially when the person you are speaking to has had a good dose of betelnut chewing beforehand. Lavaka village had been notified of our arrival but few of the other villages seemed to know. There is always a lot of rumours flying around the place so I guess information gets distorted - stories and yet more stories. However it seemed almost everyone had heard about the sunglasses we distributed on the Reef Islands, however we had decided to save the remaining sunglasses for the remote atoll of Ontong Java 600 miles to the north west. The only sunglasses we supply at the moment are those with prescription and for medical reasons, i.e. people with one eye or with cataracts (we call these medical sunglasses).

Over the next ten days we did a clockwise circumnavigation of the island stopping at the eight main villages which have a population of around 1,200 people in total. It's circumference is about 40nm (80kms)and the island is quite high at around 500 metres, covered in rainforest (where it hasn't been logged) and is deeply indented in a number of places, the anchorages being some distance from the villages so we had to pay local OBMs to take us back and forth (remember OBM stands for outboard motor).

Logging is an issue everywhere on Vanikoro. I won't go into it too deeply here but we actually didn't speak to anyone who was in favour of the logging. The people claimed that they were not paid royalties and certainly there was no evidence of any benefits to the communities. We were told that many parts of the reef were now covered in mud after the rain (which we saw)- the soil washing down from where the logging was taking place. One settlement had a creek for a water supply that, they said, now ran "like Milo" when it rained. The logging companies operating in these areas are from Malaysia but there are also Australian companies logging in the Solomons. Corruption, as always, is an issue. We told a number of people that in Australia we have the same problems they do, for example what is happening down at Dover in the far south of Tasmania - economic development at the cost of the environment and the quality of life of the local people. The difference between capitalism and corruption is often determined by how good one's lawyers are - a few people benefiting hugely at a cost to many and it can all be summed up in one word - greed.

At the village of Emua (pronounced em waa) - only 85 miles from the nearest islands of Vanuatu, on the south east corner there is a health clinic, a very basic standard two room structure. As with many of the villages on these islands, Emua is very difficult to access at low tide. The reefs are wide and either dry or don't have enough water to traverse in a boat, which would make it difficult with an emergency at low tide for someone from another village. We took the dingy in and made arrangements for the clinic the next day with Lawrence, the head nurse. He mentioned that there was a problem with the lights and the HF radio which were solar powered. He turned on the LED bulb and it barely glowed. I told him I would bring some tools the next day and see what I could do. So the following day we ran the eyeglass clinic with the help of all three nurses. Overnight a baby was delivered (at the clinic) and the mother and bub were still admitted when we arrived. I took time out later to look at the equipment and found the problem with the lights was a corroded wire which made me think, if they delivered a baby there the previous night, what did they do for light? Lawrence said that they used his torch and when that battery ran out they used the light from a mobile phone (I mentioned earlier there is no phone service on these islands). That day, mother and baby were healthy and discharged from the health clinic and were taken by canoe back to her home village eight kilometres away. Lawrence said that since April he had delivered ten babies and, as evidenced on all the islands, the birth rate is very high, most families have 5, 6 or 7 children.

For the sailors who read this blog I'll mention the depth of anchorages. We draw the line at about 27 metres, sometimes this means 80 metres of chain out. I guess that's about 140 kgs of weight hanging in the water, including the anchor and the anchor winch doesn't seem to have any problems raising it but 27 metres is deep enough in our books. Also we heard plenty of stories about how there were crocs here but we didn't see one the whole time, no doubt they are there but in very isolated areas and not in big numbers. At one village they had killed a croc a couple of months ago.

I should put in a word about crayfish too as well as mud crabs as, in the end, we had to decline offers to catch us more as we had as many as we could cope with. These were rarely gifts, often people are keen to trade for them, whatever they could get, batteries, clothes, diving gear, fishing gear, etc.,. As per usual the glasses (and sunglasses) are not for trade, they're a gift from the people of Australia. All in all we fitted and supplied 533 pairs of glasses on Vanikoro, and this included leaving some pairs at the Health Clinics with the nurses (whom we had trained in fitting them to people).