Getting ready to fly westward Sunday. Dug around and found my fly rods…
Been a while since I had them out. I know they don’t look too dissimilar but one is a 9 and the other an 8 weight rig. The 9 is quite a bit bigger but has a lot more line. The 8 is a tidy set up that feels real good. Or should I say “reel good”.
I’m going to take the 8 weight. And a lovely finor off shore spin caster rig I have never used before.
Do look forward to the sun, the sea and the wilds of the western province…
Posted in DATED COMMENTARY
Based on a “recent” census taken in 2009, the results fresh off the press…
The total population of the Solomon Islands officially recorded in the 2009 (recent) census, now stands at 515,870.
In an electronic publication containing only 50 pages of the 331 page detailed print version census, the increase was by 106,828 compared to the previous census conducted in 1990.
The 1990 census recorded a total population of 409,042.
The released publication is the first of two major publication volumes covering the 2009 population and housing census.
The second, which will be released at a later date, is Volume II Report on 2009 Population and Housing Census and will contain analysis.
This release follows a preliminary result released in November 2010; one year after the census enumeration was conducted in November 2009.
The current release show population of both females and males from each province and other detailed results.
Solomon Islands population recorded by a national census carried out in 1970 was 160,998.
In 1976 the census recorded an increase of more than 300,000 people, from
160, 998 (1970) to 196,823 (1976).
Another count was conducted in 1986 which recorded the total population of 285,176.
In 1990, the population moved up to some 409,042.
According to the government’s statistics office, the average annual increases of population are at the rate of 2.3 percent.
The Solomon Star will continue to study the statistics and disseminate vital information based on the figures in coming days.
Sir Ninian said there have been a lot of talk about the negative impacts of investing in the Solomon Islands but he said it was not true.
“This country is one of the safest and best countries to invest in and I love this country,” he said.
Prime Minister Danny Philip and some of his cabinet ministers including business houses in Honiara were also present at the function.
Speaking at the function Prime Minister Philip said his Government’s vision and policies were also in line with Sir Ninian’s objectives and that was to improve agricultural and trading sector in the country.
“We welcome investment in this country as this is the way forward,” he said.
The Carpenter Group of Companies also have businesses in the country which include Budget, Daltron and Courts Homemaker.
The Carpenters Group Solomon Islands is a member of the MBf Carpenter Group with major operations also in Malaysia, Australia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu.
I have always been a dawg person. For many years now we have had at least a couple of Rhodesian ridge backs hanging around. Going back to when all our kids were little, we got our first RRB, Tane. I like the ridge backs because they are classic houn’ dawgs… the right color. They have a classic hound face. They have character and are pack oriented so love kids but not strangers.
Currently we have Chewy, Jelly, Bean, and recent additions just imported from New Zealand, Iowa and Lauru.
I gave everyone a bath Tuesday eve and last night we just played. Was all good fun…
Posted in DATED COMMENTARY, dawg daze
Happy to be back in the tropics… There is nothing like the bananas we get here. Everything is naturally ripened. Having just spent 6 week running I noted the severe difference between fruits available. Some have been in deep storage so long that by the time they are allowed to ripen there is almost no flavour. Not so with this stuff…
Life is good…
Posted in DATED COMMENTARY, tropical bounty
Skype meeting with my lawyer… swinging my ancient japanese sword and an old black-mangrove spear as I have my “meeting”.
Life or good.
Posted in DATED COMMENTARY
Been a long, productive 6 weeks. Just back and hanging in my lava lava, finishing a few things before I hop in the pool.
Lots to do… the engineer from the Alcol walked off his job today. Nieghbors are digging up our easement. Alcol is only 14 months behind original schedule. Business always damands attention. Have the grand kids to play with.
And life is good. I’ll head up to Gizo within a few days and spend a number of nights/ days at liapari. look forward to the sea and sun and reefs and flats…
And life is good…
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Weather here is much the same a Missoula. Justh more rain. Had a quick ride yesterday and came home smiling. But the conditions are less than optimum.
Today looks better than yesterday. Will work through the morn and see what I can pull off this afternoon.
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Just back, home, in Queensland. So nice to be at sea-level again.
Exhausted but buzzed by such a fun ride. Enjoyed the Iowa lake house. Was blown away, again, by Montana…
Life is good.
I think I’ll go get a Rick’s burger then go to bed. 10am my time but I have been up and traveling about 48 hours.
Life is way, way good…
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I sit in the departure lounge of the Missoula, Montana airport.
I am beguiled by this land. My lord! It is insane. The diversity and sheer volume of life taking place in this terribly frightening and inviting landscape…
I hear the sirens calling.
I will be back. I am looking at my calendar now and thinking I need time to get “able” for the this land. We’re dealing with an unforgiving playing field here. I feel stronger and better after three days but sore and sadly unwell too. I need to get my cardio up. I need my skeletal system to be at optimum to wade fast running rivers and hike the hills and valleys. I am sore. SORE!
But I smell of wild-fire and adventure. Dok C. took me out and forced my fat arse up a small hill where we smudged for the journey. I smell of the mountains and the wilds. I welcome the run down into Mother Pacific.
So I am coming back. Maybe as soon as September. If I can set up shop here and spend all of October and early November I may be competent and “fit” for these mountains. It is an honour I aspire to.
My legs are shot. I just climbed some stairs and did not do it gracefully. Had to take my boots off for security check and got everyone’s attention with my painful moans and groans.
I drank some beer in some classic Missoula bars with Dok C before coming here. I wear a “Mo Club” hat and have one of their world-class burgers in my belly. I am merrily sedated. I have a double expresso americano by my side. I will inject wakefulness to ensure my crossing from LA to Brisbane is relaxed if not comatose.
So it’s down hill from the land of my birth. I’ll head into the saline south to the land of my choice. But, golly-gee, these mountains are great. I am going to become intimate with this place. I know I have been spoilt by my youthful adventures in Melanesia but this land here, around Missoula, is magical, magical, magical…
I now have 3 of the 4…
Posted in DATED COMMENTARY, Trout fishing in America
Packed and ready. All scrubbed and organised, ready to trade the mountains for the sea. This has been a mind-blowing Experience. With a Capital “E”.
I am lucky in a couple of ways… I do have Dok Filardi to guide me around. This guy is insane in his natural prowess. He is big and strong but more to the point, he is so aware of the world around him. I love his sublime comments like, ” Lots of moose around. They can be ornery. Stick close.”. No instructions about what to do should I disturb a moose. Just an open warning about their orneryness. Another one: We’re walking up Rock Creek and he points to a place about 50 feet away and says “That’s where a a big grizzly watched me from. He sat and watched me for a long time.” Again no real instructions. But, as we wade further up from this spot he says, “Great to be in a place where you’re not top of the food chain.”.
I am sore and feel so terribly unfit. My wind at altitude sucks and my physical conditioning is in need of an over-haul. My body from my navel on down is sore and merrily weary. Dok has just taken off up Mount Jumbo behind the house. He is a machine.
So I have agreed to invest in a wilderness property at the head of Willow Creek. Working with Chris and his friend, Grant, at the Five Rivers Land Trust we are hoping to create a forward motion for protecting some of this gorgeous land from the high-end developers. I am stoked about the possibility of being involved and assisting here. Hopefully we can make this happen and do a couple more such key properties as time goes on.
So, the smell of the ponderosa and larch is still in my jacket. I will savour the aroma of the wild mountains as I travel south and west into the Pacific. I do look forward to October… I shall return…
Last shot for now… being this close to the big horn sheep just blew me away… so, so magical…
just a teaser here…
Posted in DATED COMMENTARY, fly fishing in Montana
Been in the mountains with Dok Filardi all day. Not 7pm and I am looking to go to bed. Too exhausted to tell of the Big Horn Sheep we got close to or the Cut Throat trout I nailed…
Too tired to do much but head to bed. Picts and words to come…
More, Later
Posted in DATED COMMENTARY, Too tired to move
I’m sitting in an “ol_man” lotus in the town of Missoula, in the state of Montana. Temp is about 3c / 38 degrees…
A fire burns vigorously next to me. Night settles in.
My buddy’s place here is bitch’n. Dok Chris and Dok Cath and their kids Leo and Wren are phenomenal.
Spring is springing here. I was out in a fly hatch today with Dok Filardi. It was amazing. Had to spend too much $$$ on some nifty gear… I remember “waders” to be heavy rubber buckets that always leaked. I hated duck hunting because my 5yr old hand-me-down “northern” waders were thin and leaked and I froze for hours, and hated duck hunting thereafter.
This gear is great.
I just pulled my hood up. I have wool socks, Polly long johns, jeans, a “tee “ and a long arm turtle neck. A hooded jacket and a wool scarf. Life is good.
Chris just poured me a splash of great red… I am slower now, sedated would be the term.
We did the “river runs through it” journey today. I struggled with tangled shrubs and personal tangles involving new piercings. Fly-Fishing is GREAT!
Dok Chris is a magician. These trout are ethereal. The slightest quiver makes them spook. Dok Chris says “look left, see the vee…”, and casts into a visible eddy and whammooo… he is amazing.
I have fished with Chris in the islands and now have the honor of having him guide me though this amazing biological process.
We were out today when a hatch occurred… it was magic.
More to come
Posted in buzz, DATED COMMENTARY
Posted in another lake pict, DATED COMMENTARY
Sitting in Des Moinse, Iowa. Just spent a weekend misbehaving with my family here. It was quite a bitch’n party.
My sister and her husband own a lake house in the southern part of the state. It sleeps 16 and stacks 27. Has a great fire-place and a very, very good pool table. Bro in law, Doug, is partial to good pool and this is as good a table as I can remember shooting on. So we had heaps of fun, plenty of fires, oodles of pool, and a never-ending river of grog.
I showed up at the Lake house on Thursday with Angela and Doug. Bro Bruce and his wife Mellitta and their two kids, Eli and Elora were already there. Bro in law Mike and Sister Jane, with grand kid Zoey showed up shortly after we did. We started the serious drinking immediately. And carried on until late.
Mike and Doug were golfing Friday morn. I think I went to bed about 4am and was up by 530am. I walked and watched the lake wake up…
By 10am I’d chosen to golf rather than sleep. And it was a good time. I had a couple pars and was happy that a “snowman”, 8 , was the highest score allowed in the game. After golf we ran back to the Lake House and got stuck into our large cache of grog. We were very thirsty and considering the grog we had at the house was better than was available at the golf club the first beer was being consumed with relish when we were informed that Bro Bruce had been stung the night before and was still in bed nursing his sore head. It was 4pm. He’d been hung-over, sick in bed all day long… !!! …. We laughed ourselves stupid.
So friday night we find Mike, Doug and I misbehaving. Bruce was still licking his wounds. Also, Mike and Janes’ daughters, Katie and Andrea, their husbands, Jarrod and Brian, and their two other grandkids arrived. So the house is filling up and we’re having lots of fun.
Saturday morning we were up and off fishing early. I had fun but am too spoilt by the ocean fishing I know to think I am going to get a big hook up. But the small size of the reel/rod and the potential for a “big” Bass or Crappie keep the jig going out and being retrieved back in. By early afternoon we were back and into our supply of grog and preparing for more arrivals.
And they came… and they came… There would have been almost 30 family members at supper Saturday night. We played hard but went to bed early, about midnight, after some poker where I fleeced the nephews.
More arrivals on Sunday for Granny’s birthday party. All up about 50 family members on site. We count 102 total family members so we had about half the clan in one place.
So the fun is over and it’s time to head home. I am going to stop by Montana for a dose of mountains before ending up In Aus.
This was a good run. First time my siblings have been together in 19 years.
Look forward to the next party…
Posted in DATED COMMENTARY
Just received from one of my partners in hydro-crime…
Oh, that’s all too funny.
I still have the original proposal, in which I find:
General Terms of Reference, Landowners
1. Identify the landowning groups who have an interest in the site, the watershed, the gravel pit(s), the construction road(s) and the transmission line(s).
2. Over a period of some months, hold a number of meetings with these groups. The function of the meetings will be two-fold: to explain, and to listen. The explanations will cover inter alia:
the nature of the project
the impacts of the project
the nature of the proposed landowner involvement
the possible returns to the landowners
the possible costs to the landowners
floods, droughts, and water quality
effects of construction on village life
environmental issues
3. The listening will cover any and all ideas, objections, and considerations that the landowners may have regarding the project.
4. We suggest that the Fijian model be followed for landowner approval. Under Fijian Law, before any land can be “alienated” for use as e.g. a hydroelectric site, it is necessary to obtain the signature of over 50% of the landowners to release the land for the specified purpose. This, of course, is easier in Fiji where land ownership is well-defined. However, it is no less important here.
5. The final outcome of the TOR will be the project document that grants authority to build and spells out the landowners rights and duties under the project, signed by over half of the landowners.
While it would be nice if the TOR for this challenge were able to be more specific, the nature of the task is to deal with whatever the landowners may throw up in the way of ideas, suggestions, or roadblocks. Since these are unknown, the real part of the TOR is to obtain a final signed agreement that covers both known and currently unknown issues.
Uh-huh …
Great to hear from you guys,
This is perversely humourous for me in that I got sucked into being involved in the Tina Hydro Project a few years ago. I guess the reason I am most unhappy about the experience in that I got conned. I thought that by getting involved I could make a difference. After spending money doing research and drafting a project description (that was a 1000% different to anything that had been considered in to that time) our plan was accepted and then we were f*%&#ed off.
I feel I owe an apology to a couple of bros, W.E. and R.G., who I sucked into the project. It was fun and interesting and stimulating. And, as we said then, before you could do anything you had to get the Land Owners on side.
Well, it didn’t happen. And, sadly, between the World Wank, oops, I guess it’s spelt “bank”, and the inept SI government this has all gone up side down.
side note: Old hands from the Solomons will remember the big money plans to put a hydro dam in at Lungaa… lots of reasons but it never happened. At this time I do not belive a single hydro plant is running in the Solomons. Quite a shameful matter, really.
Consider: The Solomons has about the highest priced domestic power supply in the world… (old numbers here: US average about 10 cents, Aussie average about 15 cents… Solomons) … about 50 cents per kw. The Solomons is rich in hydro. We have high islands and decent rivers. Hydro has been successfully used in many places (like Buala) for ages. But nooooo… we can’t do it. It’s too hard.
The fun thing to come out of our interaction with the World Wank and this was the project proposal “we” produced was eventually written up and published as World Wank’s work. At least the right plan is being used but they engage consultants and advisors… before they have secured the cooperation of the people that own the land… When will we learn?
THE Tina River Hydro Landowners Council (TRHLC) last week issued a seven days ultimatum to the Prime Minister.
A seven resolution was agreed on and signed by more than 20 landowning tribes after a meeting held on Thursday.
A statement from the landowners council want government to act on their demands within seven days as of last Thursday which is expected to lapse Wednesday this week.
The Landowners Council (TRHLC) at its meeting held in Honiara made the following resolutions;
The ultimatum issues by the council is that SIG is required to positively respond to these resolutions within seven days or the landowners will not allow any activities relating to the project to be undertaken within Malango and Bahomea area.
It is understood the resolution was also issued to the Prime Minister Danny Philip last week.
A spokesperson for PMO office when contacted over the weekend said a response might be issued later.
Govt loses millions in revenue from SOEs
The study report called, “Finding Balance: Benchmarking the Performance of SOEs in Fiji, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, and Tonga” was launched in Honiara on Tuesday by the Minister of Finance Gordon Darcy Lilo.
The study highlighted that Solomon Islands government made the loss in its owned public enterprise during the period.
It is believed the contributing factor was the ethnic crisis.
The report said this is despite millions of dollars being pumped in by the government.
“The Government of Solomon Islands contributed over $200 million to the SOEs in the form of cash contributions, debt forgiveness and asset donations over the 2002 – 2008 period, yet despite this support the SOEs generated losses of over $180 million,” the report said.
The ADB report investigated performance of the 11 SOEs in the Solomon Islands.
Some of the SOEs in the country are Solomon Airlines, Solomon Islands Printers, Solomon Islands Ports Authority (SIPA), Solomon Islands Water Authority (SIWA), Solomon Islands Electricity Authority (SIEA), Solomon Islands Postal Corporation (SIPC), Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC), Soltai Fishing Processing Limited and Investment Corporation of Solomon Islands (ICSI).
Some of the SOEs which have been privatized at Home Finance Corporation and Sasape Marina Limited.
The report further highlighted that over the six year period Solomon Airlines incur a huge loss compared to other SOEs.
Only the Ports Authority is the only SOE which continue to generate revenue for the government during that period.
Meanwhile the study report has also highlighted that investment in SOEs contributes to negative economic growth.
“In many pacific island countries, however this growth is hindered by generally low investment rates and productivity.
“In Fiji, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, ongoing investment in large public enterprise sectors has the dual impact of limiting the opportunities for private sector investment and generating low returns on the significant amount of scare capital stock that they absorb.
“Combined, these factors serve as a heavy drag on economic growth,” the report said.
The study highlighted that while some of these SOEs in these countries provide essential public services, many do not.
“Many SOEs are purely commercial undertakings that compete with the private sector, often with an unfair advantage due to the preferred sector, often with an unfair advantage due to their preferred access to markets and discounted capital.
“In some countries, SOEs offer higher salaries for skilled managers than the private sector and as a result divert these scarce resources into less productive economic activities,” the study report said.
In these circumstances, the SOEs effectively crowd out the private sector.
The report noted that investing in underperforming SOEs has opportunity costs by absorbing funds that could be better spent on such high-yielding social investment as health and education.
The report, shows Solomon Islands’ SOE portfolio is among the poorest performing in the region, returning an average of -14 performance on invested equity in the period 2002 -2008, compared with 6 percent in Tonga, 0.2 percent in Samoa, 0.7 percent in Fiji and -13 percent in the Marshall Islands.
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Posted in an investment opportunity for one and all..., DATED COMMENTARY