solomans

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Hi everyone, today I am writing from Honiara the capital of the soloman islands. Our crew just pulled in yesterday afternoon so we have had some time to explore town (which only takes 15 or so min's in total) and we have a few more hours in town before heading off to our next destination, a desolate lagoon 80 miles away from where we are now.
Scince i havent been able to find an avalible computer in the last few days I will fill you in as best as I can... after arriving in vanuatus main port we sailed to some nearby village which we found through a relative of a custom officer in one of the main ports we were in (Amaru). We autimaticly made a effort to conect with the locals, which was through meeting the kids of the local school and having them invite us to play soccer and vollyball with them (although the girls were not aloud to play soccer with the boys!). the captain brought a full set of soccer uniforms for the kids with they greatly appriciated! Two of the other crew started a giant game of tag with the kids which pretty much involved tristan running around tring to catch the kids, and then a few minutes later we would see him being chased around the school building by 40 or more kids screaming and laughing! After heading back to the ship with a few of the locals they invited us to the next village to witness a tradisional Rhome dance. So we all hiked straingt uphill for 30min's to meet the dancers. when the first man came out to greet us many of the girls turned away blushing by the scandolessness of their outfitswhich left nothing to the imagination! once we were offically invited into the circle to watch this dance where 15 men ages 4 to 80 all in the same outfits started chanting and rythmecly dancing, when out from behind the main cerimonial building came 8-10 men dressed compleatly in dried palm leaves which made them look like odd huge bushes, pointy colorful masks and long sticks with rattles on the end. They danced for us for the next half hour and then showed us how they comunicated with neigbouring villages through the use these large ornated statuse with the middle hollowed out which they would drum on with two ppl.
When we arrived back to the village we first came to our guide told us that the village ppl were going to cook us a feast tonight and if we wanted to help supply some of the food. We of cource said yes so we motered off to the nearby woods where our guide and and group of dogs took us into to hunt wild boar! seeing them die was slightly horrific as we had to watch them squeal and twitch, but we eat pig all the time at home and its worth seeing first hand the process it goes through to get to us. Some of the boys were quite sollome about the who experience, but most of them had the look of exited school children as they brough the meat back to the boat which they had personaly obtained. Later that night while coming to shore of the village we see that the men and woman have set up a roast on the beach with a giant layout of yams and this othe rroot vegtable drizzeld with coconut sauce and coal roasted pork with an unlimited supply of coconuts to drink around us!
The next morrning we sailed off to avoid the bad weather, which managed to find us one night any way as the lightning thundered all around us! Some of us were quite worried at some points, as we are the tallest point in the ocean for many many mile! but we were assured that there were rods in the ship that would send the electricity right inot the water. the reat of the time was very calm, to calm at some points as we had no wind and had to moter through the day and night. One day 2 of the voyage scott and chase caught a giant marlen which was twice as big as I am. needless to say we ate alot of fish for the next few days (one day every meal consisted of it!). On the 3 or 4th day we let down all our sails and stoped the moter to find that we werent moving in the stightest, so in our watches we all jumped into the middle of the ocean, with no land with anysight and the ocean floor being 1200m down! promply after this the whole boat got dressed up in whatever that we could pull together using matterials found on the boat, there were some interesting costumes, from the 'salts calender boys' (june, november and december) to two girls who came as needles and thread (I was personaly princess leia with the use of canvas and tin foil).
so I must leave you all at this point for the likelyhood of me finding any intenet in the next few days is slim. hope everyone is having fun at home, and I will talk to you all later!

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