March 4, 2026: Honiara, Solomon Islands

Another lovely snorkeling day today. The excursion said “4o minute ride on a fast boat to Roderick Bay Resort & Bungalow”, then snorkeling and then 40 minute return to dock.

Well, the boat wasn’t that fast and it took us over 2 hours to get to the resort and another 2 hours to get back. We were, once again, the very last group back.

It was a lovely smooth ride to the resort and the resort was beautiful and peaceful. I was happy it wasn’t a flashy, modern, new resort. We were greeted with a spear and a question “do you come in peace or war?” we, of course, answered with “peace”. They gave us a lei and a fresh cut coconut so we could drink the coconut water. They played music as well.

They did not have snorkel gear for us but I spoke to one of the guides and he found a mask & snorkel for me. He requested a tip and I was happy to oblige.

The water was clear and I saw lots of fish. I watched a sea slug/serpent type animal for quite some time then as I was swimming back I saw a hole bunch of them- that wasn’t nearly as nice as they reminded me of snakes so I quickly swam past them. I looked on google to see what they were- I searched ‘sea slug’, ‘sea serpent’ and ‘sea snake’ with no luck. Jennifer figured out they were sea cucumbers!

There was a cruise ship wreck that happened in about 2000, the ship was still in front of the island. The children loved to play on it.

I finished snorkeling and realized, folks were heading back to the large boat. I found the gentleman that lent me the snorkel and gave it back along with a tip and went to the gathering place. While I was there another gentleman came over and asked me if I still had the snorkel….I had given it to the wrong person. I gave the correct gentleman a tip and we both laughed.

It took another 2+ hours to get back to the ship and since they only had one engine, it took a small boat to steer us to the pier. They loaded us up on vans and drove about 3 minutes to our ship. Just as we got there it started raining. The guides all held umbrellas for us and we didn’t get wet. When the ship departed a few minutes later, it was pouring rain.

The wreck at the Island. The larger blue & white boat is the one we took to the island. The small boat is the one we climbed into to take us around to the other side of the wreck to the beach
on the small boat on the way to the beach
Singing at the beach for our arrival
The large amount of creepy looking sea cucumbers
Love how this school of fish move
keeping us dry as we boarded the ship
pouring rain as we left