Nela Village reported as wrecked

Reports on the Tsunami in Temotu Province (Solomon Islands) in the Solomon Star newspaper say "95 per cent of homes in Nela village were washed away."

solomonstarnews.com/news/national/17108-help-on-the-way

Unfortunately this house with all these happy kids in 2012, is very close to the beach and would have been the first to go:

Our thoughts go to the kids, their parents and the rest of the village at this difficult time.

Sipuru Rove of the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) told the Solomon Star "an estimated 3,000 people were homeless"

Red Cross disaster manager Cameron Vudi said

"There are still reports coming in. Most of the reports are confined to areas that are accessible by road but there are a lot more communities that have been damaged."

Nela is close to Lata, almost a suburb and easily accessible by road.

#Map: Solomon Islands: Damaged houses and casualties as at 6 Feb 2013 -buzz.mw/-DtH_y

— UNOCHA (@UNOCHA) February 8, 2013

Relief web reliefweb.int/country/slb
Relief web have an assessment that looks like the places affected were all on the west coast of the island.

Message from Ben Hepworth on Pidgeon Island (9 Feb13 8:30 AEDST)

"..thought I would let you know that Reef Islands and Carlyle Bay are fine despite the tsunami."

In another article in the Solomon Star:
Temotu Provincial Disaster Management Office spokesman Frank Menoya said search for missing people in affected areas are still continuing. solomonstarnews.com/news/national/17109-1million-for-relief-supplies

I expect that the Solomon Star will be the best source for future stories as the big international news organisations move on.

Radio NZ comes a close second:
rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=73892
The premier of Temotu province says 3,100 people are now without shelter as they brave continuing shakes after Friday morning’s shallow aftershock.
Father Charles Brown Beu says people fled again to higher ground after the 6.7 quake, the largest following Wednesday’s 8.0 earthquakes and subsequent tsunami.

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister, Murray McCully, says the remoteness of the area means it may take some time to gain a full picture of the extent of the damage.

Last surf at Kalabay

Monday
Early surf out in the canoe (boat) to get right out the back quickly and easily. Long wait for not many waves. Moved further in but not much there either. Storm approaching and worried about the three hour boat trip.
Decided to go back to Lata today to make sure that I connect with the flight early on Tuesday morning. Pack everything in a way that may best handle getting my bags wet.
Make it to Lata and move in to the Luelta Lodge.

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Next: 2012/03/three-days-of-pain

Patteson family

Sunday
Woke to rain easing after heavy thunderstorm overnight.
Surf was small and frustrating and the various bits of the wave were not connecting.
Church may have stopped anyone else from surfing today. No-one suggested to me that I should not surf and I did not see any signs of a church service.
Yet another small storm blew through at noon.
Afternoon walk to track down the sugar palm board and to photograph it and its builder.

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Next: 2012/02/last-surf-at-kalabay

Sugar palm board

Saturday
Early surf before the wind kicked in. A day off for the school kids so I have company.

Two others out, 8 or 10 year olds. One riding a Rosewood skateboard deck and the other a surfoplane made from fleshy soft pulp wood with wooden pins holding it together.

Wind kicked in like a seabreeze at about 11am.

I take the little fibreglass canoe to the lee of the little island, Temotu Lite. I find bleached coral, some sea urchins and cute little bright blue fish.

Next: 2012/02/patterson-family

No ocean reflection

Friday
Walked to the point, made more sense than going there by boat.
High tide, waves a bit full at take-off for a change. A couple of teenage locals out trying to catch waves with dugout canoes. Saw how to bale a canoe out that was completely swamped. It is quick and easy, a rhythmic shake and make a wave inside the canoe that breaks out of it.
Watching the storm build out to sea and head toward me. No lightning in it so I don't have to run from it.
Eventually the whole of my vision of the sky when facing north east is the deepest black.
Any reflection of the sky on the smooth water completely went away and my full field of vision is straight into the clear water seeing the coral clearly and the occasional little fish swimming very near the surface. An awesome sight!

Next the rain started and I paddled in and walked back in a torrential downpour, past the school (disrupted most of the classes in the process).

Next: 2012/02/sugar-palm-board

Yet another Nave session

Thursday
Early surf, swell has dropped some more. Heavy rain overnight easing to light rain before the surf and on and off until lunch time. Solar recharging failure from the cloud cover today.
I got a clear indication of the swell direction by watching the swell to the east of Nave.

The left hand break in this photo is there but not really ridable, at least on any day I looked at it. The right handers are slightly better than they look in this picture.

Next: 2012/02/no-ocean-reflection

Fix the water supply

Wednesday
Morning surf session with the swell a little smaller than yesterday. Getting cocky with some rides ending in noserides on ankle to knee-high waves over coral.
Tides are lining up nicely with the morning and afternoon session and the current is not a problem. This could also be due to the swell direction being less east and more north.
After surfing we head up the hill to a couple of hundred meters above sealevel to unblock the village water supply.
Watson tells me what he knows about other people who have surfed the place and the names of the two breaks. Temotu lite, the left has the same name as the little island next to it.

Next: 2012/02/yet-another-nave-session

Heavy rain 2 sessions

Tuesday
Woke to HEAVY rain that stopped about 9am. Straight out to Nave. Canoe had a motor failure, screw loose. Paddled the canoe out and back at the end of the session.
Sitting out the back I had the thought: Wow that is an active volcano just out there. The next surfer to the east of me is surfing in Fiji. The nearest one to the west is probably in Malaita Province and to the south Vanuatu. To the north either Pohnpei or Kiribati. Wow I have escaped the crowd!
Because of the rain in the morning the "seabreeze" did not kick in so I had another surf session at 3:30pm. School was out so the break also had 4 dugout canoes and 10 kids in the water. I remembered the thought I had this morning.
The heavy rain has stuffed up the gravity fed water system.

Next: 2012/02/fix-water-supply

Figure out Nave

Monday

This was forecast to have the best surf of the whole trip, so an early start.
The previous session on Saturday had enough current to push me out of position by the time the next set arrived. So I urgently needed to work out a method of staying in the right place way out here.
Paddle out until you are where you want to be in relation to the breaking wave.
Look straight down into the water and note the pattern on the bottom, especially the bright white blotches (could be quartz).
Stay on top of that pattern for as long as it takes for the next wave the right shape and size to come through.

Next: 2012/02/heavy-rain-2-sessions

Meet the Kalabay kids

Sunday
Discovered that there is a seabreeze effect in the area that adds to the north east to east trade wind. A slow start getting into the surf at Temotu Lite was almost the cause of missing the best surfing of the day. Wind came up at 11am and chopped the left up. The current in the bay also built and I learnt a lot about when to surf the bay.

Walked out to the beach at Nave and picked up a crew along the way.

Next: 2012/03/figure-out-nave.html

1st surf at Kalabay

Saturday

Flight in to Lata Airstrip from Honiara then a three hour "canoe" (see picture) trip east to Kalabay (Carlisle Bay).
See visitsolomons.com.sb/temotu-province-destination
Contact at Lata was Walter Talva and at Kalabay it was his uncle, Gabriel Tavakie

Afternoon surf at a spot I later found out was called Nave. The combination of the direction of the swell and the incoming tide meant that movement away from the break was a problem.
I quickly found out that the best surf forecast for the area is WindFinder
windfinder.com/forecast/santa_cruz_graciosa_bay

Next: 2012/02/meet-kalabay-kids