Gizo Town

Hello All,
We made it to Gizo yesterday morning at 0900. My position is 08 05.99S 156 50.37E. We spent Monday morning traveling out of Marovo Lagoon and then made a 3 hour crossing to Tetepare Island. It is the worlds largest uninhabited Island. It does not offer any good anchorages so we just found 2 places with moderate anchor holding and some what protected from the wind so we could kill some time before doing an over night passage to here. The Island is a wildlife preserve with heaps of sea life and birds. We didn't get to explore much because of our short time there but at least we can say we have been there.
We had an excellent crossing to Gizo, it was a beautiful evening and we were able to sail part of the way even though the weather man said very light winds.
We came into Gizo through the Eastern passage. The Island of Gizo is protected by a reef that incompasses the whole southeastern side. We passed by a very small island as we entered called Kennedy Island. It is named for President Kennedy after his PT boat was ran over by a japanese destoyer and sank near by. Him and his men used the island as a refuge before being resued.
Gizo has 3500 people that live in this seaside town. It does not offer much to a cruising boat but is a very safe anchorage. It does have a Yacht club called PT109, the name of Kennedy's boat, heaps of Chinese shops, a few cafes and a hospital. The town has a broken down drinking water system so most folks catch rain off of the roofs of homes. For the first time on this trip I am also catching rain water to drink.

Rafal and Paula leave from here and go to New Zealand next week so for the time being we are going to explore some outer Islands and do some swimming. There are a few nice resorts close by so we will go check them out also. There is WIFI here so when we return this weekend I will Skype my family.

I will talk to you soon.

PEACE