Anyone want to go fishing in the Solomon Islands?

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    Posted: 29 Jun 2012 at 1:22am
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OK, I have a hankering to return to Zipolo habu in the Solomon Islands again in August, probably a couple of weeks for me.
If I do go, is there anyone here who would like to take the opportunity to come along as well?
I will not be Camp Mother, or group leader or anything, you can do whatever you want, however I will be there to offer advice on where, what and how to those who will ask.
I can advise on what to take etc and it will be a good way to share expenses such as fuel and charter costs.
I will paste up a little more info about the place from my "Solomons Dreaming" thread tomorrow to give anyone interested a little more of an idea of what they can expect up there.
cheers, Stu.
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Don't forget the diving is world class there too:

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Geez Stu .... hard case ..... reckon your lines will barely be dry from your
last trip ........ talk about if it itches then scatch it!
.
 
Yep definitely interested .... who wouldn't be after reading your
reports on the recent trip.
 
 
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Here is a wrap-up of the last trip....

Where, Zipolo Habu Resort in the Solomon Islands.
To get there, the cheapest route was via Brisbane to Honiara on Pacific Blue(Virgin), it required an overnight stay in Honiara (We stayed at the King Solomon Hotel, but others like the Royal Mendana are just as good ) to catch the next mornings internal flight to Munda in the Western Province, on New Georgia Island. Internal and international return tickets , with insurance, cost around $1,900.
NZ aid dollars are at work here, rebuilding the Munda airport to international jet standard, the hope is that in a year or two you may be able to fly direct from Aus straight to Munda, cutting out the expensive and time-wasting stay in Honiara, which frankly is one of the arm-pits of the world. It would certainly save a day of your trip.
Once at the resort (after being picked up at the airport and escorted to the near-by jetty and zapping out to the resort by boat), I stayed at my own bungalow (built for me about 5 years ago), which is the  smaller of the 2 deluxe bungalows if you want to check out the Zipolo Habu Website (www.zipolohabu.com.sb I think). This has 2 double beds, and a single, the main master Bdrm has the huge kingsize bed and a spare single bed (if you need to have kids handy I guess), the smaller room also has a double bed. Both doubles have mozzie nets over a frame, with ceiling fans blowing straight down onto the bed, a HUGE relief in the muggy Solomons nights!
The view from the balcony truly is a Million Dollar View....
looking out over the Vonavona lagoon toward Mt Kolombangara.
 Dawn to dusk, the view is always spectacular, with fish constantly working and moving thru the shallows in front of you, dug-out canoes of the locals paddling or sailing past at dawn and dusk.... just a total bliss out sort of scene...
sunset from my balcony
(damn it is so nice loading these pics at broadband speeds!)
The resort has a restaurant and bar, you can buy meal packages if you want, or just order your meals as you go, which is what I do as once you acclimatise, you find your need for food drops markedly in the heat. Trust me on this, eating is one of my speciality subjects!
The meals are heavily fish based, being an island resort, not surprising really, with crayfish, mudcrab and fish meals  the mainstay of the menus, although there is always a meat option for carnivores like myself who do not fancy fish.
The maindrink is SolBrew, I am told this is a good beer, and it is reasonably priced too. They have a over-strength beer as well, SB, with a higher alch for thems as wants a faster buzz I guess. Perhaps someone else can rate the beer?
For lunches, you gotta have the Soltai Tuna toasted sandwiches. Yum.
Fishing options.
This is why i come here, there is just so much you can do fishing wise. There is always somewhere to go, somethnig to do. If it happens to be a bit blowy, you have the option of heading into the mangroves or up the rivers for mangrove jack fishing etc, which for Kiwis is an exotic lark...

The Bairoko river. The dead trees are a result of the big earthquake up here 6 years ago, when the land dropped a metre or so, and the trees got flooded out. Makes for perfect habitat for the Mangrove jacks though, numbers are high, and Jacks are NOT shy about having a slash at your lures!
... however, there are more fish up here than just the jacks, there are all sorts of jungle perch and other inter-tidal and fresh water fish, up to the spot-tail bass in the upper waters of the larger rivers, these get BIG, like over 10kg, and are well worth targeting. A lot of the fish are smaller though, so a 6-10lb spin set is all you really need. Be prepared to lose lures though :-)
seki-seki, or archer fish, will attack en masse anything that touches the water. Their mini-frenzies as they attack lures often brings good jacks up to see what is a-foot (sorry, a-fin). Small lures are mugged by brassy and small GTs in the rivers as well, and also other species like these two speciesus anonymouses...


On light gear, it is a bit of fun, and you never know when a decent fish is going to come charging in....


On the nice days, if you do not want to spend all your time in the boats, you can kayak or wade the sand flats around the resort....
... the sand flats just a couple of hundred metres from the resort. Miles and miles of them.
One of the main (hell, the main reson I guess) reasons I head back to Lola Island (Zipolo's island, from now on, I will refer to the resort as "lola" as it is faster than Zipolo Habu resort) is the popper and lure fishing.
All around the vonavona lagoon, one of the worlds largest, you have a huge range of reefs. From the open-ocean coastline of Parara Island (Hilton Heads area)
. to the sheltered reef lines along the Blackett Straits, there is just a huge range of popper and lure fishing opportunities, and always, always, somewhere calm to chuck your lures.



Hotspot on the Blacketts....
The main target is of course the Giant Trevally. The standard size for these fish up here isnot huge, most will be in the 10-15lb range, many being nice 20lb fish, but I have got fish up to 60lb here... serious fish at that size.

A nice, standard sized GT.
I have found that hese are easily targetted using good 30lb fireline sets, 50lb if you are really paranoid about losing gear, but 30lb gives you pretty much all the horsepower you will really need.
This last trip I was using pretty much all the time my 20lb set, a rod made for me by the guys at Kilwell on one of their PE3 nano-blanks (just PM Nagged for the details), and man, what a sweet rod/set that was, teamed with a Penn Conquer 5000. My heavier set, which I used in places like the munda bar, hotspot or double Island usually, as these are tiger-country areas when fish can get much larger, is a Van Staal popper rod with a Quantum Boca 80 reel. Good reliable set-up, solid as, and not a budget-breaker either.
Aside from the poppering, I really enjoy the bottom fishing up here, as you truly never know what the blazes is coming up next. In NZ, fishing in 200m (as you do here), you are going to get, well, Puka, maybe gemfish, a bluenose or a golden snapper, that is about it on a regular basis. Up in the solomons, multiply that list by ten... you never know what the heck is down there. Small things pop up among decent fish....


... like these litlle colourful fellas, up to the very prized snappers and larger jobfish...
longtail snapper, rusty or smalltooth jobfish, and hopefully the very common gold-lined jobfish....
which is a damn fine eating fish, and that is saying somethnig coming from someone who doesn't like fish that much!
I guess most folks heading up there for the first time will be much more intent of "Big Game" type stuff though, yellowfin, marlin, sailfish, that sort of bluewater stuff.
Well, they have that too, with several FADs within an hour or so of the resort, this trip we certainly had marlin in our lures at the fads, and we saw sailfish everywhere as well (read my earlier post about the sailfish being herded and eaten by the False Killer Whales)
... oh, and yes, that IS normal sea-state up there.
On our best day,we got a pile of small mahimahi, skippies and small yfin, and as we were using light spin-sets, it was a huge ball, flicking little lures around or towing small 3in skirts around the fad, constantly hooking, losing and landing all sorts of fish....

.... rainbow runners and mahimahi....

...as you can see, it was just plain fun.
So, there you go, as you can see, you have a huge range of options up here. Everywhere you look at sea you will find schools of tunas, mostly skippies, and the reefs and lagoons are just glorious in their clarity and their profusion of fishlife.

These days i like to take a few different lures or toys up with me to try out. I go for 3 week spans, so have plenty of time to give stuff a pretty good crack. This trip I had with me as my "projects" my new Kilwell PE3 rod set, I had several River to Sea (R2C) lures that I wanted to use on the new rod, which I had built specifically to use such lures), and a range of Sebile and Berkley lures from Purefishing.

Firstly, I had a bunch of little wee lures from Berkley, sub-dogs and... others, I have forgotten their names. Both little stickbaits, bibless lures and small bibbed minnows. I had these matched to a 6lb berkley nanofil line/1000 Abu Soron reel set, and man, they were a pile of fun.
The first one I used was... I think... called a scum dog or something (I left all the packaging at home to save weight, so am a little shakey on the names now), a little floating surface/twitch bait lure. On the flats, this lure was just deadly, working on the top or at most an inch or so below the surface, it managed to stay out of the sea-grass, but was close enough to nail a succession of small fish like the os'sanga (sweetlips n roviana language) and trevallies...
.. this is a sub-dog, not the surface scum-dog, lure, with an os'sanga. Sorry it is in B/W. Flamin' camera, grrrr...
... but I also had a ball, in the slightly deeper, less grassy, areas with the sub-dogs, as these slightly heavier lure cast about 10m further than the scumdogs. I also had a small popper from the range, which was a hit with trevallies on the shallows....
...
and the small bibbed minnows were also deadly flicking around mangrove and reefy areas...
... only trouble is that the 2 or 3 examples I had did not last long enough for more pictures :-) It is a hard and short life for light tackle lures in the tropics!
... headin' fer the coral!

I also was very keen to try the sebile lures I had with me, this time in sufficient numbers to be able to use them properly. By far the most effective Sebile I used this trip (as a surface/casting lure) was the small Stick Shadd. These just recently arrived in NZ, I had 2 with me, and after re-rigging them with decent salt water, solid hooks, (size 1 or 2 owner 4x strongs), they proved to be deadly as a faster retrieve lure for all sorts of fish....


... again, all on my sweet 20lb Kilwell set-up.
I got fish on the otehr sebiles, the splasher(popper) and bongo-jerks etc...
...
but the small stick shadd was for me the stand-out in this range, and one I think will be a superb general lure here in NZ too, for kings, kahawai and probably snapper as well.

The next range of lures I had were the R2C lures.
Without a doubt, for me the small R2C Wideglide was the go-to lure of the trip when working the reefs. This is because I was using the light set so much, when I used the heavy gear, my favourite was the R2C Doggie....
...
.... but on the light set? The small Wideglide. I have so many pics of fish on this lure, where do I start?
.....
...they are an excellent lure, given they have a very slow action, really just a twitch-retrieve style that leaves the lure jerking about over the target areas for much longer than other lures that need a faster retrieve, such as various poppers etc.
Awesome little lure, just wish they had some sexier colours is all.
Other R2C lures were also deadly of course, the bubble-pop poppers (not the biggest version but there 4inch one) was lethal (no, not you Eric) on all sorts of fish, mainly the trevallies....
... and until I lost it right at the start of the trip, the small R2C Dumbell popper was just a machine...
.
All up, we had a ball with these smaller lures. They didn't just get small fish either, oh no. Phyllis was using my light set on the last day, with that bubble-pop popper, and scored one of the better GTs of the trip on it. The rod, a Kilwell PE3, made with an extra 6inches added into the butt to give me extra length for twitching the stick-baits, was really put to the turps....
, and the fish itself shows why....
... bloody nice fish there Phyllie!

What else. Oh yes. For the bottom fishing, this time i took up with me a few 300gm Intruder jigs from Jarvis Walker. First I was using them as plain lures (cheated by adding a small bait onto the hooks though I must admit), and for dropping 200m, they worked fine...

... but as time went by, I took the hooks off the lures (after losing a couple in the bottom), and found that just as plain sinkers they were very effective, even more so as they are lumo-painted.
Maybe not as effective as a cyalume, but certainly much more rugged and long-lasting, I definitely caught far more fish on my rigs than cliff, my mate, who was using normal sinkers, right beside me. I would say by a factor of at least 3 to 1. So, that was a discovery right there, take some good lumo bottom fishing gear, the Intruders do it for me, for sure.

Well, that is about it I guess. If I think of anything else, I can add it later i suppose, but that was basically my trip.
The weather is at it's most stable and calm in June and October as these are the times when the trades (only moderate really up here anyhow, not like further south among the pacific islands) are slowing and shifting from their SE to SW trends. However, the daily temps are a pretty standard low-30s, night temps ten degrees less I guess, dropping to a cool 18deg at around 4 am.
The water temps are around the 30-32deg mark, going for a swim is just awesome, no groinal cringe as you wade into the water, the snorkeling is just mind-blowing around the reefs, there are plenty of old WW2 wrecks to dive on or look at as well, all in all it is a great holiday spot, at least, I think so.

But really?

 It is not the catching of the fish that is so intoxicating about the place, it is simply the being of the there.

Try it sometime.













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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Firey Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Jun 2012 at 10:05am
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Far out!!  looks terrible Wacko
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote whiti-fisho Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Jun 2012 at 10:20am
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My wife and I have been there and stayed in Stu's bungalo,we highly recommend the place .It was the best holiday we have had so far 10 days of sheer bliss ,Jo and his wife, Lisa are great hosts the food is brilliant I can recommend the chilli mudcrabs and the couda ,the bar snacks of fresh caught squid rings (Lisa went out in the bay on kayak and caught them ) I can also recommend the tuna sandwhiches with sweet thai chilli sauce .Sitting on the jetty in the morning sun watching fish jumping and duggouts go by waiting for your breakfast and coffee bought out to you is very relaxing .
The fishing and diving is fantastic ,we caught alsorts and saw heaps ,still want to climb the mountain and fish some fresh water stuff 
 The wife and I would love to go back in August especially with the good Capt as a guide and if work picks up ever so slightly we will do stiil have lots we want to do up there 
I would say that the locals are great people very friendly and will do anything for you so if you go up there please put some coloured pencils ,books etc in your suitcase if you have room the local schools really appreciated the stuff we took up as they dont have much 

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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Capt Asparagus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Jun 2012 at 3:28pm
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The Rainbow Kindie in Munda would really love colouring percils, paper and toys, the Lady was talking to me about it last week. They have literally nothing....
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when are you going mate? would be happy to gather up some toys, pencils etc for you to take if you want
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Capt Asparagus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Jun 2012 at 9:52pm
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Looking at around the 9th August til the 23rd August, but that is not set in stone just yet, thursday in is not as good as tuesday in. Plans are still somewhat fluid.... :-)
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote the angler Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Jul 2012 at 8:21am
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impressive variety of fish caught ,would love to fish and dive there one day .
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Capt Asparagus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Jul 2012 at 10:13am
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The diving is, by all reports, spectacular. Even snorkeling is pretty damn good....
...that was at hotspot, here.....


....so it is a pretty good place to veg out for a few days I reckon.



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Stu...   what an amazing world we live in...  and  what a great spot you have picked in it...  amazing pictures and amazing fishing...  So all up could you take a punt at what it would cost all up for say 10 days...  Pretty sure it was you who was talking about a Kilwell texalium GT cast rod 15-24... would like to know what you thought about it and also the Penn Conquer reels how do they handle the fish and any concerns with them....

http://www.tas-tackle.co.nz
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Capt Asparagus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 Jul 2012 at 9:14am
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Hi Fisher... I am waiting to hear from Joe just how much he reckons accoms/meals and fishing charters would cost, as I have no idea really. However, if there are several guys going up, then the costs reduce enormously, as obviously with say 3 guys, all sharing the one bungalow and same boat, you wind up paying, (and this is the tricky part of the maths) 1/3rd of what a single guy would pay. :-)
 Stop me if I am getting too technical.
I think (and therefore I am) that if you allowed for $1500 a week then you should be fairly close to the mark for 3 guys. That would include pretty full on charters as well, I am sure. Hopefully there will be others coming along as well, hey, a Fishnet Solomons Fishing Comp! Now there is a good Idea.
I'll even put up a prize, a nice shiny brand new reel or something.

The Penn Conquers. They are very nice, they get hammered in the sollies, and haven't misseda beat, although one notable exception did kind of burst the bubble a little, in that last trip my oldest reel, a 5000, had the tiny little pin that goes thru the hinge on the handle popped out, plink, splat in the water..... meant my spare set wasn't any more. :-) But... drag wise, flawless, and gears, solidity and ability to handle good fish without flexing or anything, superb, I am very taken with them. Also being able to open the gear housing so very easily (swiveling down the whole back of the gear housing to expose the gears for lubrication etc just needs one screw to be loosened) is great for keeping an eye on all that stuff.
I have 2000, 5000 and 7000 size conquers, and very much like them.
The texalium, nice rod, although mine broke just above where the texalium ended, which is why I went for one of their newer nano non texalium blanks for me latest rods from there.
So, gunna come ?

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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote bazza Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 Jul 2012 at 9:54am
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Anyone else like myself seriously thinking of joining in such an appealing offer.
  if
My decision will largely depend on the final overall costs are within the funds
I have readily available at this point & am at present trying to formulate what
the total costs are likely to be.
 
As Stu points out they would largely depend on the number going & to this end
would like to hear from anyone else seriously considering the prospect.
 
Will most likely be meeting with Stu here in Auckland in the next couple of days
to discuss what is involved.
 
Obviously with only slightly over a month to go before the proposed departure
& in fairness to Stu decisions or commitment will need to be made fairly soon.
 
Cheers
  
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Bazza,  yes that is my initial concern, the time being so close and when mentioned to the better half today...  just got a blank stare...  hahahahahaa...  plus being limited in gear for that type of fishing AT PRESENT of course...
Stu , the reason I asked was because I own one of the Tex rods and a Penn conquer 7000 on it.. so it's good to get feedback from someone using them in extreme, trying conditions and knowing they stand up..  Can you say why the tex broke...???  (pm be fine)
Stu, not this time...  but would possibly consider it at a later time if I know FULL costs and could prepare better..  it's a great idea and I like the idea of a mini comp alto you would have home advantage :}
Great new location to visit and fish ...

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Interested x 2, need to see what the costs would be though
slowly going where everyone else has already been
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Originally posted by Tonto2 Tonto2 wrote:

Interested x 2, need to see what the costs would be though
Better luck for your GT this time Martyn! LOLLOLLOL
FiShInG rOcKs! ChEeRs -mAdfis HO-





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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Capt Asparagus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 Jul 2012 at 4:06pm
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OK, this was for me, thru my travel agent....

Airfares return on Virgin Blue with two bags and extra leg room is pricing NZ$1560.04

Air Sol to Munda $529.40 return.

No connection on the 7th so means overnight in Honiara.

I pay extra ($50 I think each way) to get the extra legroom seats, not necessary if you don't have an arse the size of mine) and $55 each way for the extra bag, as you no longer get a rod tube on for free as sporting goods, they charge PER ITEM now, and it is way cheaper to pre-pay. Gets you a spare 23kgs, so could tape a couple of rod tubes together and put them thru as one.

Costs.... Well, you will need to share a room at a hotel in honiara over nite on the way up, 2 per room, $100AUD each, then the accoms, meals and fishing charters comes to...say $300 a day per person, but this reduces if you are sharing a bungalow among several people, those costs are roughly if 2 people are in a bungalow, however, the bungalows can easily hold 4 people, 2 in each bedroom. I would recommend the extra delux bungalow, the new one beside my bungalow, as it has a couple of huge bedrooms with 3 beds in each, en suite shower etc, a good big kitchen and great deck etc, very nice. Divide that cost twixt several of you and it comes very cheap.

Same with the charters. It depends on what you want ot do and where you want to go, for how long etc etc. If you are doing long, all day trips every day, you are going to rack up the big bucks... petrol alone is NZ$3.50 a litre, so it ain't cheap to run them boats.

If however you want to spend time kayaking, fishing the flats in small boats without any guides or anything, hell that is all free, again, dropping the costs.

Dives can be arranged thru Dive Munda if you are into bubble blowing, no idea what that costs, but snorkelling around the reef at say bikiki island, just 5 mins from the resort, is like $10NZ or somethnig, that is just running you over there and picking you up when you have had enough.

Most long fishing trips you see advertised, if you look closely at the blurbs, tend to be for say 4 x 4hr trips over a period of a week. They can do that, but it seems pointless to me to limit yourself so much... my costings are for going out and doing 6 hrs a day with maybe one or two days off... a PROPER fishing trip!

The resort is very laid back... you wander down to the bar in the morning, let them know what you want to do, and then they arrange it. If you are organised, hell, you can tee everything up the night before, no worries. It is not a "Ze boat leaves at 7 a.m., if you are not zere, you vill be left behind!" sort of place AT ALL.

I think if you were to say that the two week trip would set you back around 6 grand, all up, airfares, fishing charters, meals, accoms, the lot. The mate that came with me on the last trip, Cliffie, did $6,500 for his 3 week trip (well, 23days) all up, including his bar tab (a variable I have not figured into the mix) including airfares etc, you will be doing a week less, so........ you do the math. Cliffie had free accoms though, as he had the spare room in my bungalow.

It's not a cheapo trip by any means. Airfares are a large chunk of it, but as I say, this is a FISHING trip, which includes WAY more fishing than any packaged deal you may see advertised.

If you only want to do a ten day trip or a week (but you'd be mad to, as you will just be starting to properly unwind after the 1st week, trust me on this) that is coolio too. Like I said, i will be there as an unofficial advisor, not as Group Leader, Camp mother. It will be your trip, you do whatever you want.

If you want to cut back on the fishing trips, hey no worries. That too will make it way cheaper. But then.... that is the point of the trip, n'est-pas? And if you haven't got a GT yet,.... well, this is a very GT rich target area! :-)

If we get enough members along, I may just throw in a Fishingnet solomons prize to the winner with the biggest NON SHARK fish.... :-)


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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Tonto2 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 Jul 2012 at 7:27pm
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Originally posted by -mAdfis HO- -mAdfis HO- wrote:

Originally posted by Tonto2 Tonto2 wrote:

Interested x 2, need to see what the costs would be though
Better luck for your GT this time Martyn! LOLLOLLOL
 
 
 
SHHHH haven't discussed with herindoors yet DaddyHo WinkLOLLOL
slowly going where everyone else has already been
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote bazza Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 Jul 2012 at 8:40pm
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WOOPEE !!

Looks like myself & mate Adrian will be joining the
good captain up in Zipolo Habu for 7 nights as from
10th.Aug.
 
After much searching came across a great package
deal, have received itinerary & schedule so only
remains now to finalise payment & arrange suitable
return flights Ak to Brisbane.
 
WOW
 
When you cry, feel pain or sadness, no one notices your sorrow .... BUT
fart just ONE time !!!!!!!!!!!
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