Way down south

Since my last post I've travelled to the southernmost atoll in the country, and returned. I had been planning to get a boat back, a trip which takes 3 days, but that turned out to be not as simple as I had hoped. I was under the impression that there was some sort of regular passenger services but nobody I enquired with when I got down there knew of any such thing. Mostly I just got blank looks or vague suggestions to go and ask "at the jetty" (pointing vaguely along the 16km road which stretches along the waterfront). I did find a shipping company whose staff were very helpful with giving me the details of several boats which sometimes make the trip and calling some of them for me, but they were highly amused at the idea of me making the trip by boat, and I was getting the impression that even if I did find a boat going my way within the next few days, I could well be the only passenger (with an all-male crew and no private sleeping quarters), which didn't sound like a good idea. I stayed in the atoll two nights, but on the third day after trying again to call the boats again with no success, I decided I'd have to give up on the idea, and I got the afternoon flight back to the capital.

It was worthwhile going south to check it out, as it's quite different to the capital and the surrounding islands (and very lovely in parts). But having to give up on the boat journey plan, which I had been quite looking forward to, has left me feeling pretty disappointed and unsure how to spend the rest of my time here. The hard part is, there's absolutely nothing useful I can do while I'm here. I may try to organise a trip to a fishing island closer to where I am, but that's not easy either because very few of them have proper guesthouses.

Hopefully it will become a bit clearer in the next day or two...