THE weekend trip to East Kwaio on Malaita last weekend was intended to defog (clear) the mind of all the clutters and hassles of city life. It almost ended in disaster.

From the start it seemed everything was going to plan until Sunday morning. To my disappointment no boats were traveling to Malaita that day.

Unprepared to give in, my next stop that morning was at Henderson Domestic terminal in the hope of getting on an early morning flight the next day.

“Yes, there is a flight in the morning but it is not certain as these flights are decided by operations at the last minute,” were the response to my inquiries.

“So is there one this afternoon, then?” I asked.

“Yes, this afternoon’s flight is confirmed. It is at three.” Later the flight time was changed to 4pm as the aircraft was still on another run.

An hour before the designated departure time, the flight was brought forward to the original time of 3pm.

By 3.30pm I was in a taxi on my way to Auki town on the $100 ride.

On the way, the driver informed me of an attempted break-in at the Bank South Pacific branch in town, the second such break-in.

The week before the Office of the Solomon Islands National Provident Fund (SINPF) nearby was raided by thieves.

Their haul was an empty safe, which police later retrieved.

The early Sunday morning raid on BSP was not the first time.

About two years ago, the same branch was the scene of an armed hold-up when armed men in balaclavas raided the bank and got away with an estimated $200,000 loot.

All three men have since been captured and are in jail.

The ride on the transular road across Malaita to Atori in East Malaita the next day took two and a half hours.

It was a far cry from earlier days when passengers were told to prepare to spend the night along the way, particularly in wet weather.

The first time I travelled on the Auki-Atori road was in the 70s, when I was still in high school.

We had walked from Su’u National Secondary School to Auki in the hope of catching a government vessel from Auki on the weekly north-east run.

Arriving in Auki that weekend, we were told there were no ships. It was decided that we’d walk from Tiuni in the West to Atori in the east.

At the time there was no road as construction of what is now the Atori road today had barely begun.

At 5:30am we were dropped off at Tiuni, a few kilometres from Dala North, on our journey to East Malaita.

It was 6.30pm that day that we arrived at Atori, exhausted and sore from the 13-hour trek through bush tracks.

I promised never to repeat the feat.

A lot of things have changed since.

Small stalls now lined the roads along the way, with vendors selling largely betelnuts. There also are new signs, advertising alcohol on sale.

Combined with the locally-brewed kwaso and marijuana, which were reportedly grown and sold in excessive amounts in many of the villages in the area, it is a recipe for disaster.

At Atori itself, transport in terms of motorised canoes is in abundance.

OBMs are the only tangible evidence of development resulting from tens of millions of dollars politicians spent annually on behalf of their constituents over the years.

Tuesday, my second day at home, was spent fishing offshore all day.

That day we caught three large yellow fin, including the largest, which I had caught on my line.

The next day it was one skipjack tuna and about a dozen rainbow that we caught.

Thursday was a lean day. We were reduced to catching only two, including one rainbow.

The next day it was time to head back to Auki as twice weekly flights to Atoifi have been suspended over some issues with landowners.

That Friday afternoon was when the comedy of errors at Solomon Airlines began to play out. At first we were told there’s a confirmed flight for 3pm.

By 3.30pm after we had checked in, passengers were more or less put on a holding pattern, not knowing whether we’d travel to Honiara that day, if at all.

Just before 6pm, the news came that two aircraft including the Dash 8 were down due to mechanical problem.

By 7.30 on Saturday morning the airline has advised passengers to find alternative transport to Honiara as the next flights might not be possible until Tuesday.

At Auki wharf it was another story. The two passenger boats leaving for Honiara that morning were largely overloaded.

One which I boarded almost capsized at the wharf not once but twice, forcing many passengers to jump from the ship onto the wharf for safety.

It was standing rooms only everywhere one looked – quite a spectacle.

That spectacle almost ended at the Auki wharf with the potential loss of hundreds of lives.