May 23rd – Voyage to the Duff Islands

The reef islands: forested and heavily populated islands with several lagoons to go exploring...

After a fast sail to the Reef islands, some low-laying coral atolls displaying some limestone cliffs, we anchored the Kuna on a shallow bommie with the intention of only staying for a few hours. Sadly, because this island group would be great kayaking country! I had to go ashore to sched with Taumako island, our filming destination, 70 miles further east. So the easy way was to just launch one half kayak, which paddled quite well despite being a bit unstable.

The face of people looking at me landing with HALF a canoe is always funny. Not only it is bright yellow, made of plastic but it takes unusual shapes too!!



A day later, we arrived on Taumako island, we were received with traditional dances, flowers and speeches. And the Komodo of course got quite a bit of attention!




Due to lack of time (yes, filming deadlines!) it was easier to transport the komodo two halves in the motor canoe to get to the island. I later assembled it to return to the KUNA.




I deployed my komodo sail and was able to sail around the island in the 1m meter deep lagoon. Great sailing on flat waters and the front of the canoes was used to carry various cargo: bananas and a fishing buoy which I later used as an anchor buoy for the Kuna. The self tacking sail was brilliant: I did not need to control it from the back cockpit. And when it was time to pack up I just luffed into the wind and crawled at the front to retrieve it!

Better than the local traditional sail made of one coconut branch!!!


Our aim on Taumako was to film the Te Puke canoes, traditional sailing canoes that the islanders used to navigate between islands. They are rigged with an amazing claw shape sail made out of pandanis fibers weaved together by hand.

We also got the chance to shoot a little bit of kayaking underwater video!

Komodo sniffing in the mangroves

May 10th, Nukufero Village



The Komodo fits quite nicely on the foredeck, split in two part and there is still enough room to move and pull up anchor comfortably. At first, we launched the two half separately and paddled them ashore, one each. It was kind of fun paddling backwards!!!! After experimenting, we have found a great way to assemble the two halves canoes from the boat: easy as lego, standing on both parts, we clip them together in the water and paddle ashore (hoping to put some video on the web!) and then place the bolts and plates to secure them.

The Komodo always gets quite a bit of attention from the locals whenever we pull in on the beach. They are quite interested on how it breaks down in four parts. Some think it is a racing canoe (because of the color maybe) but we just tell them it is just our custom Australian canoe, just made of plastic!


Looking around filming crocs in the Russel islands, we were relieved to have a 7 meter long canoe, as it was most likely to be longer than a crocodile. The locals reported to have seen some large ones (see www.kunayacht.blogspot.com for details on Liapare Island). On the other side of Nukufero, the village where we pulled in, a young man diving for fish got eaten by a crocodile just last week, suggesting this danger is very real. Crocodile populations have certainly been increasing in the solomons as they are not hunted anymore and meanwhile, population has been increasing with new settlements and people impending on the crocodile habitat.
While we were paddling deep in a mangrove river, a local coming back from its garden, warned us not to go to close to the banks because of crocs…


The kayak was the perfect working platform to get low angle tracking shots of the mangrove, getting really close to the network of tree roots, all in silence to not frighten the bird life. One person on camera and one person at the rudder, lining the shots and paddling at the right speed.