Ship’s Position: 8°29’54.7″S 159°42’31.2″E
After a hardy lunch prepared by the Maori cook, served by the Russian crew, we were bundled back up in the zodiacs to be taken ashore. The skies were leaden and heavy with moisture, spirals of gray within silver, approximately 85°F. Bearably hot with the expectation that if you started to move too fast, you’d work up a quick sweat. We were all, of course, heavily slathered in sunscreen and bug repellent. I was on the malaria drugs, but there are other diseases carried by insects — Dengue Fever, West Nile virus. It was a wet landing where the small boats pull up to the beach and you hop out in ankle deep surf. (All the landings were wet. The only proper docks we saw were at the beginning in Honiara and the end in Port Vila, Vanuatu.) I took an old pair of laceless tennis shoes because I don’t find flip-flops terribly comfortable to walk long distances in uncertain footing. My shoes didn’t dry the entire trip, getting more nasty, more salty, more grimy each day.
I would estimate about 20 huts in the village and everyone was down on the beach to meet us. Everyone had to shake our hands and personally wish us hello, good day, welcome, welcome. Because this village had the school for the surrounding area, I would estimate about 30 kids running frantically in confused excitement. They did everything but throw their hands in the air and shout, the white people are here, the white people are here. Or maybe they were because I don’t really understand the local language. They took us into their “canoe house” where they had some chairs set up and both men and women dance troupes waiting to perform for us. And as we sat down and settled in, it started to rain and the smell of the jungle and the gardens and the ferns and the wood smoke all flowed in through the large open windows and the thatched roof. The rest of the village stood outside the hut under the eaves, looking in through the chest high windows.
The dancers were fabulous. The chief mentioned that they were thinking of taking them on a tour of Australia and New Zealand and I think they would do quite well. This was the only island where we saw these bamboo pipes and marimba style percussion.
These videos were taken with Gretchin’s iPhone.
The camera I took ashore was my Canon 5D MKIII which I love, but I’m over-cautious about getting it wet. Yes, I have all kinds of bags and rain-gear for it, but after my troubles in the Galapagos, I tend to take a dry bag and just put the camera away when it starts to rain. I should have / could have brought the underwater camera, but the lens seemed to have gotten jammed on it. Fortunately, the rain had stopped by the time the dancers were finished
Then the villagers took us around their homes. And they wanted, they asked to have their pictures taken. Not all of them had the whole “posing for a picture” thing down, but they all wanted to see the picture you’d taken.
Ok, I have 20 pictures of this little blonde haired girl — she was working it.
In particular, I was intrigued by a tree that seemed surrounded by little gift wrapped packages.
The locals called it a Voodu Tree. I found out later it was called the Fish Poison Tree, Barringtonia asiatica. The local take the nuts inside, grind them up into a powder which they throw in the water and it stuns the fish, so they float to the surface. But doesn’t leave the poison in the system, so that the fish are safe to eat.
The locals travel by dugout canoe. And the little ones get their own canoe as soon as they can swim — about 5 or so. It had started to pour down rain again as we were leaving and as we watched from our outboard driving zodiac, 3 kids from the school were making their way home across the wide bay through the rain and wind. The boy in the bow bailing furiously. They looked so small, lost in an enormous landscape of wave and sky and jungle. Some of co-workers don’t let their kids that age cross the street by themselves, and here these 3 kids were taking on the tide and the weather in a small, unstable boat.
lheringer 
…and the saga continues. Fascinating about the poison they use to stun the fish!