Wednesday 5th October

We are still in Honiara...

John (Miedecke) arrived yesterday afternoon, bearing not-so-good tidings re our need for visas for PNG, although we are only lightly touching on the outer waters, hardly even stopping on land at all.  So...many forms to fill in, and new passport photos to put on our visas.  And...Computer Says No after 12.00 on Wednesdays... So we have another day and night in Hot Honiara.

I don't really mind.  Honiara is, of course, nowhere near as wonderful as the outer islands and reefs, but it is full of life and interest,and has a certain raffish charm all its own.

This morning we on 2XS were talking very complacently and happily about how safe and comfortable we feel, anchored right in the middle of town, outside the Point Cruz Yacht Club, right next to the police wharf, resplendent with huge official motor boats.  So imagine our chagrin when we came back from the market and settled at a table at the Yacht Club and heard of mischief and mayhem in the night.  Apparently there is a nasty little gang of motor-boat driving machete-wielding BadBoys stealing things nightly from the yachts in the bay.  Brian and Brady, nice young blokes from the beautiful big yacht Delos (Seattle) had some of their very good, expensive diving equipment stolen.  Clemence, captain of Infinity, was on watch and saw it all happening.  He and one of the crew, Phil, leapt into their dinghy in hot pursuit - so brave!  They smacked one of the BadBoys with an oar, "and," said Clemence viciously, "I hope we broke his nose!"  (Yes - Infinity is once again anchored right next to us; so lovely to see our friends again.)

So now we are feeling just a little bit less cosy and complacent... We do lock our door at night but...aaaggghhh...  Clemence was particularly cross because he radioed the police boat, not 100 metres away, and - no reply...nobody on radio watch, everyone in SnoozyLand!

Tomorrow, once the colossal amount of red tape have been surmounted, we should be going to Morovo Lagoon, which is apparently more beautiful than we can dream of (or so we have been told...)  We will be back in Honiara on the 9th; I won't have built ups such a huge BlogNovel by then and can just make a more or less normal post.