The Native Iowan

Got into Gizo yesterday with Mendozza.

It looked like a breezy, wetish, but sunny day when we landed. Looks can be deceiving though, and it started raining as we were driving home.

And it has not stopped. All eve, all night… and now, today…

The Alcol sailed to Honiara this morning. I was up early with Paul to see them off. Not the sort of morning you hop out of bed and race outside. It has been bucketing down all morning.

I got back a bit damp and chilled at about 830am. I wasn’t soaked but funny enough; I was rained on enough, below my knees (had a rain coat on) that, in a few minutes my boots were filled. Literally, the rain was so intense it ran down my body, down my legs, and filled my Red Wing work boots to the top, and over flowing. In minutes.

So I get home, I shook-off the cold clothes, put on a warm shirt and a lava-lava and wrapped up in a nice fuzzy blanket on the verandah. I read and dozed for 3 hours. Very nice but, dern, if it aint a tad bit cold for me. Gonna have to put on a pair of warm socks soon.

Pat P. just rang and was thinking of going to the pub for a beer. I ain’t going out.

The sound of the rain on the roof is hypnotic. The gusting of the wind, the rain, and the pounding of the surf below. All meld into a roar.

I love it when you have a lull. Everything stops for a time. Then you hear it coming. Above the boom and vibration of the surf on the reef. When caught unawares you cock and ear and wonder, “what is that”?

It is the sound of the rain on the ocean. The rain in the trees, the rain on the earth. But it sounds nothing at all like what it is. It sounds like an army marching. Thousands of feet stepping, stomping in time.

You feel the wind first. A gentle gust that moves your hair and makes you think, “It’ll all be fine”.

But that gentle gust, caress, is a lie.

It comes on very slow and soft, then WHAMMO…

The wind and rain hit all at once. A gust that shakes the house and rain that is more of a deluge than a wetting. The skies literally open up. It hits like a sledge. Rocks your equilibrium, destroys your perception and sends your senses into fight-or-flight mode.

In other words, it scares you shitless.

But you recover fast and think it won’t last.

Oh, fool, you. It will last. It will last for days.

In the village, days like these were considered “good sleeping weather”. You couldn’t garden or build or fish. So you slept. And still, today, in these islands people sleep through such weather. Business suffers, anything made of leather rots, and the population takes another jump.

It is down to a reasonable flow right now. A simple rain with a lying wind. It almost makes you believe (or want to believe) that it will all soon end.

My buddy Hans, at San Bis Resort, is supposed to be warming his new house today. Hans is a creative Swiss dude who has been building here at his resort for about 10 years. (Check out the “best resort in the islands” link)

In this time Hans has never had his own house. He has talked of and even built his own pad more than once, but it ends up being part of the resort being let-out to guests. So he has not had his own house, his own place, and sleeps wherever there is a free bed. And sometimes there are no free beds and he sleeps in the Dive Shop.

But now, finally, he has built his own house. And in classic Hans fashion it is a funkadyllic mix of island style with beautifully finished slabs of hard wood, tiled bath, and bitchin sound system, all conceived and executed as only a mad mind can. I commented before that he took a coconut tree that was in the way of the building, and turned it upside down as a feature post. It is cool but makes you scratch your head when you first see it…

We just spoke and the party is off for today. The wind is howling from the south/ sw. He built his pad on the south side of his island, away from the resort. It faces Simbo and beyond. Is indeed a glorious location. He built it with an open front so there is no door. Just this nifty leaf house, completely open on one side, facing south to the reef and ocean and….  sadly for today, the elements. The wind is blowing fair into his place.

So the house-warming party is postponed. And I get to sit up here on the hill, watch the weather, and consider myself lucky… don’t have to go out on the water today and can hole up, under my fuzzy blanket.

Life is indeed good. And there are sunny days on the way…