What to write on visa form if planning to enter the Solomons overland?

My girlfriend and I are planning to get boats from PNG to the Solomons next July. As she is Russian, she has to get prior approval to enter the Solomons. We have contacted the Director of Immigration in the Solomons and he has said it is fine, she just has to fill out the visa application form. We have the visa form but are just not sure what to write in the sections "point of entry" and "date of entry". Obviously when taking such a route it is impossible to know the exact date of our entry into the Solomons. Is it a good idea to write our real point of entry, ie the Shortman Islands or Gizo, or will that just alert them to the fact that we are planning a semi-illegal entry? Are there any international flights to the Shortmans or Gizo that they may assume we will be taking instead? Does any of this even matter ie. do they even write point of entry and date of entry on the visa? Thanks for any info!

I don't have a lot of experience with boating stuff, but when I visited PNG in 2003, I found that unless I was a Solomon Islander or Papua New Guinean, that I was not allowed to take a ferry or pay passage on a boat across the border. This obviously may have changed, but is still likely to be a grey area. I eventually crossed the border by joining a British couple who were sailing their own boat around the South Pacific and had all the correct paper work to do so.

Are you in your own vessel? If so, then before officially leaving PNG you have to go to the nearest marine authority port to sign your exit papers and stamp your passport. Then, similarly, before dropping official anchor in Solomon Island waters, you have to report to the nearest marine authority to get all your paperwork signed and passport signed again. Once you have done that you fly a Solomon Islands pennant rather than the PNG one. In our situation, the nearest port authority was at Gizo so we had to go there (I think you have about 72 hours grace to make the journey) to register, then all the way back to where we actually wanted to go on Choiseul.

Sorry this information is out of date - I suggest you contact the port authorities in Gizo for more uptodate info.

Amanda

Entering the Solomons from PNG isn't what I'm worried about. Although it is still a grey area, it is perfectly possible to do a semi-legal entry without a yacht. I know a couple who did it a couple of months ago and I have read several reports on the wb by others who have done it too. My question is about whether, on a Solomons visa, they write your intended point of entry and date of entry, and whether its important if you do not actually enter at that point.

The Shortlands (not Shortman) have long been a trouble spot between the two countries due to the Bougainville war. Not sure if it would help listing them, but I haven't been there, so just something to consider

There is no international flight to the Shortlands or Gizo ASFAIK, so I think all you can do is write Honiara as entry point on the application form, and then hope for the best.
You are very unlikely to get more specific advise with Solomons visas here from direct experience, simply because most Westerners don't need one.
Even I did not, which helped a lot with my semi-illegal entry! ;-)

Hi,
We did the same route on yacht but oposite direction last year. Gizo is official point of entry. At least we officially checked out in Gizo. THere is nothing in Shortlands. Your check out point from PNG will be Buka in Bouganville. It seems that maybe going the way you want might be semi illegal, but I do not get it why. In oposite direction it is legal, at least on your own boat.

I would try Gizo. Maybe you should simple try to call Gizo immigration. Or even better try Gizo dive center run by Ozzies for the past 20 years. They are tourists hub in Gizo, so they might help.