October 28, 2002 Tawatana
Back to the reality of trying to get transport. Friday, Andy talked to the Kaona on the radio and asked them to reserve their cabin for us. They said great, so we started packing. Saturday we tried to get ahold of them all day to check their position, but nothing doing. Sunday after church they answered their radio again, and told us they’d had a change of plans. Instead of coming back to pick us up, the ship had now been pre-empted by 70 high school students heading for home at the end of the term.
So here we are, with our house packed up, the solar panels down, and no transport. At least we weren’t actually sitting on the beach.
Two other ships are out around the island somewhere, but neither answered their radios. We were all feeling pretty depressed at the prospect of unpacking our things for some unspecified length of time, then repacking.
Solomons Pijin has this wonderful word “kansenao” which means something like, “Oh well, there’s nothing you can do.” It’s fitting our situation fairly well.
This morning, we finally got one of the other ships, the Compass Rose, on the radio. They said they would be picking up passengers on our end of the island on Tuesday morning. They don’t usually pick up passengers down here, because they are often full by the time they get here, so we are only skeptically optimistic.
The Compass Rose is larger than the Kaona, and rides better in the water, so we would much prefer the Compass.
October 29, 2002
Tawatana
The Compass Rose is still at the far end of the island, doing we know not what. Maybe they will head for Honiara and come past here tomorrow. But meanwhile, the Kaona has mechanical problems and is waiting for a spare part to come by plane. Our neighbors tell us that when the high school students finish their term, they start destroying the dorms if they have to wait too long for a ship. So the great question is—will the Compass Rose pick up the students? Will the Kaona’s part come in time? Will the Bruners ever get off this rock?
