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Saturday, 13 October 2007

The sea seen through pawpaw......

Friday 29.11.03: The crossing

Heading to sea in a motor canoe

This is no place for a breakdown. Choiseul is still a grey-green smudge in the distance. The Vella Lavella islands, back in the direction from which we had come, are even more distant. We are in the open sea passage between the twin lines of islands that make up the Solomons, a small motor canoe on the big water known as 'The Slot'.

I look to the bottom of the canoe at what may be our only remaining means of propulsion - a wooden canoe paddle. One paddle; six people; a long way to landfall. We will still be paddling when night comes and probably well after that... and then there are the reefs between us and the land.

Half way to Choiseul

We are out in the middle of New Georgia Sound on the 115km open sea voyage from Gizo to the village of Sasamuqa, on Choiseul, the north-east-most of the Solomon Islands. Only about 50km from the big island of Bougainville in PNG territory, Choiseul is about 180km in length from Taro island in the north, where there is an airstrip, to Vaghena Island off the southern tip, home to people from the Gilbert Islands who were settled there by the British in the 1950s. Choiseul measures only a little over 50km at its widest.

Mangrove alternates with sandy beaches along the coast. Behind the coconut palms on the narrow coastal flats the island rises in ridge after ridge to a mountainous spine, all cloaked in a green fuzz of tropical rainforest. Most of the population live in villages along the shoreline and subsists on the produce of bush gardens and the fish of the sea.

In a motor canoe with a big outboard and calm seas the crossing can take as little as four hours. The canoe we were in was more typical of the vessels that move people between coastal villages. Made of fibreglass and measuring something like five metres in length by a metre and a half at its widest, the vessel is powered by a 40hp outboard. That pushes it along quite fast, but crossings are not always so speedy. A couple weeks later, in Auki, I was to meet and Englishman who told us of a horrendous crossing in high seas and rough weather. The way he told it, those on board feared for their lives.

The driver, a slim but robust man of late middle age, pivots the outboard to see what the trouble is. Seeing him do this reminds me of an incident when a canoe such as this lost the pin that holds the outboard's propeller on its shaft. Our problem was nothing so dire. We had snagged what appeared to be a long piece of rope floating on the surface.

Departure at first light

The sky is rimmed with a rich red that silhouettes the cone of Kolombangara island as Steve Amasi and I leave the guest house to find the canoe. At this time of day Gizo is quiet and there are only two or three youths sitting in the market place. In a few hours it will be crowded with people and the tables will be piled high with fresh fish, fruit and vegetables. We exchange greetings with the young men and wade through shallow water to board.

Dawn departure - the volcanic cone of Kolombangara island

We waited two days to get to Gizo and have spent a further day trying to find a canoe. Fuel shortages at provincial airstrips and heavy demand for seats on the two remaining Solomon Airlines Twin Otters delayed our arrival. After landing, we looked for a canoe preparing to make the crossing to Sasamuqa only to learn that one had left the previous day. There was nobody preparing to make the voyage.

But we found a canoe at last, thanks to Steve's sleuthing about the marketplace. Now there are six of us in it - the driver and his young offsider, two women returning to the village, Steve and I. We settle either side of a cargo made up of large bags of Australian white rice and other goods over which the driver spreads a tarpaulin.

"This is the best time to travel", says Steve. "The seas are calmer in the morning and our journey will be fast. In the afternoon the wind makes it choppy and you get wet with spray".

A couple pulls on the starter cable and the motor comes to life. The bow rises as the helmsman opens the throttle. We are underway, the wind on our faces cool and refreshing. Another reason why this is a good time to travel is that you are well underway by the time the heat comes. I had been warned to wear sufficient clothing in the canoe to give protection from the sun. Out on the sea there is no shelter and, as I was to learn, to travel unprotected is to risk severe sunburn.

We pass an Australian navy patrol boat and head into Vella Gulf, a broad body of water that leads into New Georgia Sound. Kolombangara lies a couple kilometres to our south and at this time of the day is free of the cloud that will later envelop its cone. The peaks of Vella Lavella lie far to our north, grey blurs on a distant horizon.

Snagged

A sudden silence replaces the noise of the motor, the only sound now the gentle slap of the sea against the hull. We bob on low, wide swells moving up from the south.

This is the second time the engine has quit. Only fifteen minutes earlier a plastic thong had brought us to a sudden stop. The helmsman had plucked it from the surface, held it up for all to see, chuckled, and then threw it back before getting underway again.

The cause this time was a rope, a long rope of blue synthetic fibre about a centimeter thick. Fortunately, it has not tangled around the propeller and I expect the helmsman to toss it back, restart the engine and get going. But what is mere flotsam to some is of value to others, and to the helmsman and his offsider this is something worth salvaging. The young man makes his way to the bow and, hand over hand, starts to haul the line in.

Ten minutes later the bow section of the boat is covered in a growing blue coil, and still it comes. As he pulls, the rope tensions to where it sinks below the surface some tens of metres away. This, someone comments, is a long rope.

The movement has attracted fish that nibble at the marine life colonising the rope. Then a much bigger fish appears, circling a little further away.

"It is a shark", the offsider says.

"No. It is a big fish", contradicts the helmsman as he cranes his neck to get a good look.

I look towards where they are pointing and see a dark shape just below the surface. It does not look like a shark.

It must be twenty minutes since the offsider started to pull in the rope. Surely we cannot take on more? The two women move out of the way of the growing coil and the helmsman goes to help haul. Soon they realise that enough is enough and a knife is passed; the remaining line is set loose to slowly sink, its remaining length unknown.

A pull on the started cable and the motor comes to life. The helmsman turns the bow towards Choiseul, opens the throttle and, sluggishly this time, the bow rises as the vessel gains speed. We are underway again.