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

Preparation for the Trip

Here are a bunch of links that I thought may be needed for the visit to Temotu Province.
I place them on a page on my other blog and make an easy shortcut to the page in case I have to refer to it from an internet cafe along the way:
bit.ly/temotu

Forecasts
From Stormsurfing.com
North Pacific wave height stormsurfing.com/cgi/display.cgi?a=npac_height
and period stormsurfing.com/cgi/display.cgi?a=npac_per
and note the following:

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From Surfline
You may not be able to access these pages without a Premium membership.
Ignore the southern swell in these forecasts:
surfline.com/surfdata/forecast_advanced.cfm

Surfline Text forecast
surfline.com/surfdata/forecast_advanced.cfm..lat=-10.10&slon=165.98

Language - Äiwoo or Ayiwo (ISO 639-3: nfl)
Vocabulary with links to other language resources:
language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/austronesian
OLAC resources for this language
language-archives.org/language/nfl

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Next: 2012/02/village-of-kalabay.html

Local History - Visit in 1595

From wikipedia

Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira

wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81lvaro_de_Menda%C3%B1a_de_Neira

..it was not until 8 September 1595 that they sighted land again, this time the island of Nendo, which they named "Santa Cruz". The Santa Ysabel had disappeared, however, and despite searches by the two smaller vessels, it could not be found.

Arriving at what is now Graciosa Bay, a settlement was commenced. Relations with local islanders and their chief Malope started well, with food provided and assistance in constructing buildings.

However, morale amongst the Spanish was low and sickness (almost certainly malaria) was rife. An argumentative old soldier, Pedro Merino Manrique was murdered at the orders of, and in front of Mendaña, and shortly afterwards, Malope was killed by soldiers. Relations with the Islanders soon worsened.

Wracked by internal divisions and an increasing death toll, the settlement began to fall apart. Mendaña himself died on 18 October 1595, leaving his wife as heir and governor, her brother Lorenzo as captain-general. 

On 30 October, the decision was made to abandon the settlement. When the three ships departed on 18 November 1595, forty-seven people had died in the space of one month.

James Graham Goodenough

wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Graham_Goodenough

Captain James Graham Goodenough CB CMG (3 December 1830 – 20 August 1875) died aboard HMS Pearl off the coast of Australia from wounds inflicted from poisoned arrows in an attack by natives of the Santa Cruz Islands.

From: Australian Dictionary of Biography

adb.anu.edu.au/biography/goodenough-james-graham-3630

His duties included the maintenance of law and order among British subjects in the Pacific and control of their relations with indigenous peoples. On 12 August 1875 while trying to conciliate natives on Carlisle Bay in the Santa Cruz Islands he and others of his party were wounded by poisoned arrows. He refused 'to allow a single life to be taken in retaliation', although some huts were burnt. Tetanus set in and, after gallantly bidding farewell to the ship's company, Goodenough died on 20 August in the Pearl, 500 miles (805 km) from Sydney.

He was buried in the cemetery of St Thomas's Church of England, North Sydney, between two of his men.