March 14th 2004:

Email from the Ship: We arrived in Noro, in Solomon Is. Sun Morn 3-14-04 at 7 am. The dock is about half the size of the ship so it was interesting to watch how they docked. They had to make sure that the storage holds where they put the copra are next to the dock. That means our gangway to get on and off the ship could not be lowered to the land.

The capt. called a neighboring island resort to come and pick us up for the day.They lowered the gangway on the starboard side down to the water and the boat and the boat that came for us came up to the gangway. It was a bit of a challenge getting from the gangway into the floating boat but we all managed to do it with the help of the crew. Then we took a half hour ride sitting in the bottom of the boat which wasn't all that comfortable but the ride was was so beautiful the discomfort didn't matter. We went by many islands and most of them are surrounded by coral reefs, lagoons beaches and have small villages of people living in "leaf huts" along the coast.Most of the interior of the island are toorugged and mountainous to support many people. Leaf huts have bamboo frames and roofs thatched with sago palms.There are 992 islands that make up the Solomons.Most villagers are self sufficient with their gardens and fish. The resort we went to are not like the resorts in Fl. It had 5 leaf huts and a large building with open sides and a thatched roof. It was a bar and the social dining area. We spent the day swimming with the sharks-yes the sharks swam up to the beach. They were small and we were assured they would not bite us.They feed them and treat them like pets. Maybe we should learn how to treat sharks from these people.

The owner of the resort came to the island in the peace corps and has been here 25 years. His wife Lisa is a native of the islands. She made lunch of fish and chips for us. The chips were thin sliced potatoes deep fried and tasted like potato chips. very delicious. They told us that business has not been good for the last 5 years because of all the unrest among the islands. Tourists have not been coming as much.

It is now Mon 3-15-04 and we are having rain showers. When it rains all loading ceases and they close the holds where they put the copra. So we will probably not be sailing tonight as planned. When we are in a port with lots of interesting things to do we love when it rains because it gives us more time to see things. But there isn't much to see here.