Snapshot: We are on the fuelwharf in VERY VERY hot post-storm Honiara.  We were booked in for 8.30…and will probably get our fuel around midday… Pete and John are on the deck eating watermelon; I am in the cabin, obviously, typing, and dreaming of Morova Lagoon…Actually we are not on the fuel wharf at all; this is occupied by an enormous white gin motor boat, possibly from Queensland, which is filling up with unimaginable amounts of fuel.  We have been relegated to a spot on the other side, tied up next to a big black & tan (ie rust) cargo ship.  I have just entertained the crew most mightily by sitting on the deck scrubbing Pete’s flood-stained clothes in a big bucket.  This must have been bewildering to them – “She washes clothes JUST LIKE OUR WIVES DO!”

(Well I am lying...no longer at the fuel wharf.  2XS is at the water wharf and I am having a last coffee at the lovely COOL Lime Lounge...)

I was typing in the midst of the heavy rainstorm last night.  It was all very dramatic, with fierce brown muddy waves whipping the normally placid little beach.  Within a few hours the beach was – a tip, piled high with debris, swirling and then settling in huge mounds.  I stood and watched for a while with some people from the US, from a very pretty yacht with a jade green stripe, Quetzacoatl.   We looked at the rubbish a bit wistfully, and talked about our own very careful rubbish policies – not a shred of rubbish overboard, everything recycled…we really might as well just hurl it all into Honiara Bay!  

Pete, John and I had a very nice meal at the Yacht Club – grilled snapper with chips and an oniony sauce, all very cheap and cheerful.  I spent a bit of time with the two little yacht children:

·         Baby Bill, whose mother is from Espiritu Santo, his father from Luxembourg – he is going to be absolutely multilingual!  He was born in March and takes life on the tiny red yacht in his stride.  His young mother, Angie, seems cheerful enough but it is all very different from her village life near Champagne Beach…  Armand, on the other hand, has been sailing, single-handed for four years and is at home with everything the sea has to offer.  On the other hand family life must all be very novel to him.

·         Mateo, who lives on a slightly bigger yacht, Hasta Manana with his Norwegian father.  He is a very good-looking four year old; his father told me Mateo’s mother, who “is not here,” is Columbian – this explains the good looks!!  Mateo was talking to his dad about tigers so I sang for him “I’m a great big tiger, creeping through the jungle..”  He looked at me very thoughtfully and seemed not to be wanting to learn a dotty song presented by a dotty old Australian chick doing weird things with her fingers and teeth, but half an hour later he came up, singing under his breath, “I have big CLAWS and great big TEETH!”  His father was very keen to get him back on the yacht for bedtime – this man is a very conscientious parent.  So he hurled his tender out into the surging rubbish-laden waves, flung Mateo into the front, where he clung, monkey-like, to a rope, and got the motor going.  I stood on the beach, praying – well you never know – there MIGHT be a GOD and if there is, this was the moment for Him to rise to the occasion!  (And…he did!!!)

Eventually it was time for us to brave the storm.  Pete took John out first, then came back for me and my precious cargo of two computers and an iphone.  Oh the terror!  It was actually very unpleasant.  A big wave washed all over Pete, covering him with filthy rubbish-laden water.  I paddled in and felt it all swirling around my legs, slimy and putrid.  But we were in no danger; I was just being princessy about germs and yuckiness.  (well so was Pete, not normally renowned for princess-ish behaviour…)

The storm abated and we had an easy night, rocking gently, no rain, no wind.  But I got up about 15 times to go and stare a bit anxiously out the windows, looking for god-knows what – Germs?  Rubbish?  Robbers??

Yesterday I was wandering around in the rain buying last-minute balls, pencils, notebooks to give the island children, when a nice-looking young Honiara man came up, beaming.  “I saw you, rowing your boat out to your yacht!  Then you put the engine on and came back!  And you pulled the boat up onto shore!  You should have asked me to help!”  I laughed and said, “Well yes but I didn’t; see you.  And I am very strong, you can see!”  He looked at me with great admiration and said, “Yes you have very good muscles.”  And, his eyes shining – the biggest compliment of all – “You have a VERY EXPENSIVE yacht!”