Sunday 17th May

Another day of good intentions, I’ve got a few of them done which puts me ahead of yesterday. Went to Kukum Fish Market early today to get ahead of the crowds and possibly get out of town later. I’ve finally got some pics of the market, I’ll post a couple in here, the rest in my webshots album, www.community.webshots.com/user/VWKombi if anyone wants to look. I’m putting reduced size pics in there, 600 pix wide, due to the time it takes to upload larger ones. If there is a pic you’d like a full size 3mb copy of, contact me here

My Coconut crabs are still having fun on the porch, they climb up into the roof during the day, then come down during the night and chase each other around. I bought a few $1 coconuts at the market for them to eat, so hopefully they’ll be a bit quieter tonight.
I’m doubtful about cooking them, for all you get, just a bit of meat out of the claws, and a fiddly bit out of the legs, for the size of them, I’ll take them to the beach next weekend and set them down in a coconut plantation.

I’ve got everyones references written for tomorrow, the weather has clouded over, but that could just be the usual evening buildup. So long as we get a fine morning, it will all go well. A few speeches, barbque, food, with luck they’ll all find work now either in Honiara or back in the provinces.

I’ve printed a few of the Market pics to take to the stall people, I haven’t got a UV filter, and you really notice the blueish cast to the prints. Clear skies and a lot of UV coming down, it is quite noticeable.

I’ll play with the editing programmes at some time and get it adjusted.

The little truck I have is getting temperamental again, taking ages to start, but it does eventually start. It still needs the main fuses fixed, but the jumper leads across the terminals are still working, so it’s the normal Solomon Island case of if it’s running keep going, we’ll fix it when it really dies.

I went into work today, and put the carburettors from the weedeaters into some white spirits to see if that will clean the jets and filters. I’m happy with what we got done on Friday, stripped down one motor completely, and rebuilt, and it started and runs. I’ll have to buy a few proper tools this week, all we have is 2 screwdrivers, some sockets, no ratchet handle for the sockets, so we use a screwdriver wedged into the square end. It’s a bit primitive.

It’s 7pm. The water went off at the same time as the power this morning at 9am, I’ve got power, but still waiting for the water pressure to build up in the lines, it’s a slow trickle at the moment.

Friday in Honiara was fun, I forgot about it till today driving through town. A container truck took the power lines and pole down outside Central Market about 1pm. They had traffic diverted through Hibiscus Avenue from the Breadshop Roundabout, and the ANZ roundabout, but there was still a 4km long buildup in both directions for several hours. They were replacing the pole today in the quiet period when everyone is at church.

Managed to get hold of Steve, my VSA Officer, he’s going to come along tomorrow as well, and get a few pics to send to Wellington for the VSA Magazine. I should really do an article for it as well, I have enough pictures, just the writing is the hard part. I’m meant to be doing a 3 month report anyway, I may just crib a lot of the rubbish in here and fill the spaces with pictures.

Our roads are improving. The council have been out and started filling in the potholes on Mendana, and the really bad corner outside the Iron Bottom Hotel by Rove. It’s a bit annoying, I’ve got so used to the holes, some of them seem like old friends now. You get used to driving sideways along the road once you know where the big ones are, or crossing over lanes into oncoming traffic to dodge the really big ones. Never mind, another few months of rain and they’ll be back again