Looks like you guys are having a ball up there and really enjoying it.

Good day yesterday. Took off about ten a.m., and the weather was just idyllic.... but hot, admittedly hot. Damned hot. Flat calm, mirror-like passage across the lagoon heading nor'west heading for Double Island on the Blackett straits, to see if we could find some more popper action out there, hoping to make our way as far as reremana for some bottom bouncing.Stopped off as we crossed the reef at double, and in the glass calm water, clear as gin, we just shut down the engines and drifted, admiring the natural aqaurium.Spectacular, simply spectacular. But I already have a million and a half pics of this area, so instead grabbed a light spin set and set about inceasing my fish photos library. All small fish, but glorious colours....

Whew. Long day in the boat yesterday. Shot out from here at 9am, headed for double island and the pass thru the reef to the blackett straits, hoping to get some more nice underwater shots of colourful fish, but it was just too riffley there for good pics, so instead we canned that idea, and slowly moved over to the bommie area just off Double Island itself.

what a cool fish...
your having way too much fun Capt A...

Oy vay. Well, got busy the last couple of days, not just with trying to find Bazza's passport either.
So much happened, I can't tell it all, as I am somewhat bushed, so will just post up a few of the pics.... which being on a slightly faster upload speed, will not be such a mission! :-)
... damn that was fast! 15 seconds tops! Would have taken 5 minutes in the Sollies, on a good day too! Anyhow, more....
nice little dogtooth, trolling past manta ray. Note the rough sea state, borderline for fishing up there, soooo rough! :-)
I just had to repeat that pic, it is such an awesome looking fish.....
.... just a few of the tons of yellowfin that go into the cannery up here every week. These are 30-40kg fish. The longliners get yfin over the 100kg mark, which is a hassle as they have to be individually weighed on a separate, larger, set of scales!
... what we thought were small skippies turned out to be small yfin, inside the reef at Munda bar!

cute colourful, small fish...still psychopathic enough to attack lures as big as their heads!
... the awsome coastline off the back of parara Island. Lost 2 poppers in quick succession here, one on a huge barracuda that just ripped my 50lb fireline down and thru the bommies, cutting me off (b@$tard!), the other a Dunno fish, which did the same on my 20lb set (just before deciding to go to the 50lb set to show them who was boss..... tui).

12 yachts from NZ anchored up at Lola.  Or, as we like to call it, Westhaven North.
... a colourful critter from the mangroves.
Well, that is about enough I think. Didn't take many pics the last few days, as the weather, while calm enough, was pretty grey, and made pics look pretty bland.
As ever I loved the place, always bummed out to be leaving, but always again happy to be home. Home, where you do not need mozzie nets, you don't sweat at every movement, and sleep like a lamb in our cool climate. Nice really :-)
Then again......

Big time industry over there.  The very good thing is that now the bulk of the longlined tuna catch, and the seined tuna as well, are going to have to be landed in the solomons before being dispatched overseas.... means no more ships of X tonnes simply sailing off to their base with holds full of X3 tonnes of fish. Allowing for improved monitoring of the catch is a very good thing, it is just now down to the politicians to restrict the numbers of fishing licences they issue.... however, the bribes to the officials concerned will mean this will be a very slow process.
Out of Noro, the one port in the Sols that all the boats will be using now, NFD have hugely increased their base, putting in the facilities and infrastructure to handle 120 reefer containers a month to move thru the port.
That is one hell of a lot of fish.

Those fish were frozen solid, straight out of the ships, about to head into the cannery. Once the boat had offloaded the more valuable and immediately usefull yellowfin tuna, which were to be sent straight to the factory for immediate canning, they started to offload their haul of skipjack tuna, the main catch up here.

. The conveyor taking frozen skippies from one of the NFD seiners....

... filling up the temporary freezer bins...., before they head 50m over to....

... a reefer container where they are all double handled and thrown into the reefer, reefers holding about 22tn each, then stored at -40deg and shipped off to asia and around the wrld to the cheapest canneries that can be found to can fish to a budget.... this is why you won't catch me buying tinned tuna any more from anonymous but chaep sources ( ever wonder where the sealords stuff is actually from?) but only this good Sol taiyo stuff.
So, tuna you get from thailand, asia or elsewhere often has been tossed about and thrashed... although those fish are all frozen solid. However, the tuna you get from the Soltai Cannery there at Noro is perfect, no tuna in the world would be as fresh or well treated before being canned. The result, the Solomon Taiyo tinned tuna, is a superb product.
The long lined tuna, mostly yellowfin, is sent out frozen to japan mainly, so is in really good nick to get the best money possible, that being such a demanding market.

So, if you really want to get a premier quality product, not the cheapest ****e the supermarkets can source, try insisting to your supermarket to get only Solomon Taiyo canned tuna. See how far you get!