Solomon Islands – best avoided

Visiting the Solomon Islands is not worth the risk and hassle. We spent 7 months in the Solomon Islands to wait out the Southern Hemisphere cyclone season. Very few boats cruise these areas and there have been only a handful of cruisers here through the season. Overall I recommend to skip the country entirely or at least avoid spending any extended amount of time here if you can. The cons far outweigh the pros and sadly the safety issues will keep you always on alert, mentally tired and will spoil the experience even if nothing happens to you. You have to constantly lock everything up on deck and lock yourself inside the cabin at night and never let anyone on the boat. Below is a collection of inputs from various cruisers

Pros
– If you’re passionate about diving and you carry your own diving gear, there are many nice spots to dive
– If you are into world war 2 history, you can find some plane and ship wrecks scattered around the country

Safety issues
– There are many notoriously dangerous areas that we avoided, where reports of theft and harassment are frequent. These include Guadalcanal (Honiara), Florida islands, Malaita among others
– Even in the supposedly safer areas of western province or Isabel, theft has been a problem among cruisers, with several incidents. About 90%+ of the cruisers we met had problems with theft, robbery, aggressive boarding or corrupt officials.
– In western province, one small yacht had intruders sneak inside their cabin while the crew were sleeping and had various electronics taken (phones, tablets, sat phone).
– The same occurred to another boat, with people going inside the cabin while they were sleeping and they had their money stolen.
– One crew in Munda, supposedly the safest town in Western Province, while sleeping in the cockpit at night, woke up to a local sneaking past him with a leg already inside the companionway and the encounter turned into a physical altercation
– A yacht reports having had a beautiful set of oars for the dinghy stolen while at Papatura resort that was supposed to be completely safe
– Another yacht had their snorkeling gear stolen.
– Another reports watching a local boat shutting their engine off about 200m from the boat and paddling quietly towards the yacht during the night, then running away when yelled at
– One crew suffered a stressful experience with an aggressive boarding at 2am from a drunk local who threatened to harm the couple onboard with his pointy paddle for about an hour
– A solo lady on her boat had a drunk local come up on the boat at night. She locked herself inside while he dropped his pants down and started masturbating. It was only much later, when the police was approaching, that he finally left
– Another yacht had laptops stolen from inside the boat in Gizo
– Other smaller incidents include theft of fenders, shorts, thongs off the boat
– Asking the police for help is more likely to get you detained and framed up for something in order to extort money from you than get you any help, as has happened to one unlucky cruiser who was held for 2 days and had to experience the worst of the country’s corruption. The Police in the SI are generally very corrupt. They will often work with perpetrators to arrange meetings to return the stolen items in exchange for money and to get as much money as possible out of you
– Other officials are not much better. The customs officer in Gizo has come up with various schemes to make extra cash out of the yachts. He will insist to visit the yacht for inward clearance and outward clearance and will come with a local boat (about a 30 seconds ride to the yacht). He then request outrageous travel fees, enough for a boat trip from Gizo to Honiara. Other ports do not ask for travel fees. He will also push you to pay the SBD 500 outward clearance fee in advance, then forget to give you a receipt. One yachty was assured than everything was fine when he paid the clearance fee a week in advance and there was no need for receipt. The same officer requested the fee again at outward clearance, together with the outrageous travel fees and lunch at the pub. Customs in other ports have been known to ask for other things such as snorkeling gear

Other issues
– The heat is an issue. The high temperatures and humidity often make life unbearable. You end up sleeping in puddles of sweat despite the fans blasting air over you at full speed. The sun hits hard and it is very common to get sunburn even when sitting in the shade of the bimini or to get heatstrokes
– Malaria and mosquitoes are another real problem. Malaria outbreaks have been common and mosquitoes will make life difficult in many anchorages. Several friends have caught malaria, which can be life threatening. Cruisers either rely on taking malaria profilaxis antibiotics daily for months, which slowly but surely destroys your immune system, or try to hide behind mosquito screens and cover themselves in DEET, but still end up bitten. You have to carry malaria tests and treatment with you
– Despite western province being safe from cyclones, you still need to be constantly on alert, since squalls with storm force winds and thunderstorms are very frequent and come unannounced and you will end up dragging anchor in the middle of the night
– Crocodiles inhabit the waters almost everywhere and you need to check and double check with a few of the locals to make sure the spot where you’re anchored is safe for swimming before thinking of jumping in
– There are no chandleries, parts, tools available anywhere and no repair facilities. You need to carry on board everything you might need. Liapari was the only slipway available to cruisers but it is not really operating anymore after Noel’s death. Make sure you don’t hit any of the numerous reefs and pray that nothing major breaks or your boat might just be doomed
– Flying parts in is a nightmare. A crew reports having used BJS, a DHL agent in Honiara. “The freight costs are huge. BJS were very unprofessional. It was impossible to try to get a clear answer on anything or any clarifications on the process. A yacht in transit should be able to get parts without paying duties and tax. Apparently, though, customs need to be notified prior to the package arriving and BJS did not do that despite assuring in advance that there would be no duties. Therefore customs would not release the parts before we paid duties and taxes amounting to a staggering amount which was 6.5 times higher than the value of the the parts themselves. To pay for these, BJS asked we go into a bank and make a transfer to their account, but on top of everything they said that there is an extra fee of SBD 215 to put money into their account. Afterwards, BJS said we had to arrange the freight from Honiara to the local airport ourselves through Solomon Airlines without help from them. All they can do is drop off the package. It took more than a month of back and forth before we could get the package after it arrived in Honiara”
– The same goes for medical facilities. There are no pharmacies outside Honiara. If you need medical assistance, your only option is to go to the local hospitals in ghizo/noro/Munda where they usually lack all supplies, doctors and functioning equipment
– You have to watch for malignant tropical sores. The majority of the cruisers have had some tiny little scratch or cut on the legs quickly turn into a raging infection with high fever that will leave an unsightly round scar on your leg. This can quickly spread, make your legs swell up and turn into a life threatening condition that needs to be treated with injections of strong antibiotics
– The few major towns are essentially slums with dusty streets covered in rubbish and red betel nut spit and seedy characters getting drunk on Saratoga whisky cola early in the morning. Your grocery shopping options are very limited outside Honiara. The stores are all Chinese-owned and all sell the same basic food items
– A cruising family had granny come visit from Australia. She was bringing a suitcase full of Christmas gifts and boat parts. The suitcase did not arrive, ruining the kids’ Christmas and forcing granny to wear the same clothes for 3 weeks. It took 3 months and hundreds of follow up calls to finally locate the suitcase 3 months later