Luganville, Espirito Santo

From Vao we headed a short hop up to the island of Espirito Santo and the town of Luganville. We powered through the Segond Channel and hit the tides and resultant currents just right. We normally cruise at about 6 knots but we were seeing speeds over the ground of over 10 knots because of the swift current. We followed our guide book reservations and grabbed a mooring at Aore Resort.

 

According to the guides, they had about 10 moorings and offered great protection from the prevailing SW winds. The protection was as advertised but the moorings were something else indeed. The resort did not answer our repeated calls on VHF so we motored right up to their small dock to get their attention and get them to turn on their radio. Once we established contact we were directed to their "hurricane mooring" due to our weight. We found that the mooring was all tangled up and the eye to which we were supposed to attach to was 6 feet under water (at low tide). Rather than wait for the inattentive staff, Kim hopped into the water with a line in her teeth (while I motored in circles) and connected our line to temporarily attach the stern of our boat. After about 30 minutes the staff came out, admitted the moorings needed attention and they properly connected our two bow lines to their mooring. We later found out that a smaller boat dragged on one of their lighter moorings and that only 4 of the original 10 moorings were left. Apparently, they are just abandoning them when they break. Not very good service for (about $20 US) 1500 Vatu per night.

We took their small ferry (for more Vatu) into Luganville for provisioning. We found a nice public market and several hardware stores that had some of the items we needed. I even met a local who drove me around to get a board cut to make our very own coconut grater. One night at the Aore Resort we attended a nice buffet dinner with Kastom dancing from the Banks islands and a traditional Vanuatu string band. The ladies of Emily Grace received flowered headbands and we had front row seats for the show.

After about a week at Aore, we took the 3 hour trip up the east side of Espirito Santo to visit a protected bay called Peterson. There is an outer anchorage that is fairly easy to enter but was rolly. There is also an inner anchorage with Oyster Bay resort, but it requires going through a narrow pass in the reef that only has enough water for us to pass at high tide. We anchored the big boat in the outer anchorage and took our dingy to scope out the depths and to locate the pass. We had spoken to several boats that had hit this reef recently and we understandably anxious. There were 4 boats inside and Gisselle gave us waypoints and helped us figure out the times of high tides. The next day we slowly entered the pass and with less than 1 foot below the keel we glided in and found a flat calm anchorage with free (slow) WiFi from Oyster Bay resort.

We kayaked up a small river to see a fresh water blue hole and did some snorkeling around Peterson Bay. One morning we found a small poisonous sea snake crawling around our toes inside the boat. The fearless captain grabbed it with a towel, returned him to the water and asked him to look for another home.

 

After we were there about 3 days we were joined by about 20 boats from New Zealand on a rally. Two of the boats brought kids and Emily had a few play dates. One day Tom pulled them around the anchorage with the dingy and our tow-toy for two hours.

We attended another buffet and cultural show put on for the rally boats and enjoyed our first "water dance". Local ladies waded into waist deep water and splashed the water to make music and a beat. It was actually pretty good but the pictures were a little dark since it was performed at sunset.

We spent our last few days shuttling back to Luganville to get duty free fuel, checkout and then back to Oyster Island to wait for weather for our passage west. Tom was finally over his cold, so one day the entire crew of Emily Grace did SCUBA dives on The Coolidge and Million Dollar point. The Coolidge was a 600 foot long WWII American war ship that was sunk by friendly mines in about 80 feet of water. Million dollar point is a site where the American's dumped more than a million dollars worth of equipment. At the end of the war, the US authorities asked the returning British and French governments if they would like to buy up some of the road-building and other equipment that they would otherwise have to ship stateside; the British (cannily, they thought) said "No", guessing the American would leave it anyway; they did leave it, but bulldozed it into the sea rather than let the Brits have it for nothing. It was amazing to see such a large collection of equipment just abandoned on one spot, but due to the passage of time, much of it was unrecognizable. We saw a bunch of rubber tires and some tracks probably from a bull dozer but coral and fish are slowly taking over.

 

After being delayed for a few days by a persistent low pressure system, Emily Grace plotted a course to Bundaberg, Australia and headed west. If weather permits, we may stop at Chesterfield Reef to break up the 1000 mile passage. Wish us well, Dear reader, as we head out to sea again…

Tom

Vao Island, Malekula

Because we had extended our 1 month visa on the cruise ship in Wala Island, we did not need to hurry to Luganville to meet the Customs and Immigration folks. We had heard that the small island of Vao off the northeast side of Malekula was home to some good wood carvers. Since it was less than an hour's trip north, we headed there and dropped the hook right off another white sand beach lined with dugout canoes.


Since this day was Independence Day celebrating 31 years (since 1980), we went ashore with soap bubbles, balloons and more plastic whistles on lanyards. After we entertained the first few shy kids, we were soon surrounded by kids and smiling parents watching from afar. Many families had come down to the beach to barbeque their food and enjoy the day.

We soon met Juliet, the local kindergarten teacher. She spoke good English and showed us some carvings from one man and agreed to meet us the next day and show us some others. We returned to the boat and had several more locals paddle out to us to say hello.

 

The next day we arrived with a backpack full of trading goods and canvas bags. She took us through the village pointing out local plants and trees and took us to see two more carvers. We traded some rope and some local Vatu (money) for a nice carved mask with one carver and traded a piece of line for a small old Tam Tam (slit drum)from another.

 

When we got back to Juliet's home, we sat in patio chairs in her garden while she picked and squeezed fresh pampemouse for us to drink. We chatted a while and she then picked us several more pampemouse to take back to the boat. She also offered to come out to our boat and show us how to make coconut biscuits. She brought her daughter (about 17), some coconuts and a special tool for grating coconuts. She had a board big enough to sit on with a circular serrated metal blade mounted to one end. Once she split the coconut into halves, she rotated the coconut half against the blade and fine white coconut snow dropped into a bowl. Both Kim and Emily had turns and we all agreed to look for this tool in Luganville. Kim supplied some sugar, flour, eggs and the oven and the biscuits were baked and some eaten warm. They were pretty good although Kim thought a little baking powder would make them a little less dense.

 

 

We stayed another day and there was a constant parade of kids coming out in their canoes. Mostly they just wanted to say hello, but almost every one thanked us again for the whistles and brought us gifts of one or two pampemouse or beautiful shells they had found. Some brought and gave us shells that we had never seen and were quite lovely. Few cruising boats stop here and again we found that some of the least-spoiled places are our favorites.

 

Tom

Wala island, Malekula

The villages of Malekula are roughly broken into two groups, the Small Nambas and the Large Nambas, and are distinguished by the size of the nambas (penis sheaths) they wear. The degree of kastom tradition varies in each village. Some villages in Vanuatu have returned almost completely to their traditional way of life, dressing as their ancestors have. Others, like the village in Wala Island dress in western clothes and attend Christian church, but will perform their traditional kastom dance for tourists and for special ceremonies in village life. Wala Island hosts large cruise ships once or twice a week and we were lucky to arrive as the only boat in the harbor. We quickly met Rubin and he showed us around the island.

 

There are 5 different tribes here and each has it own special area. These areas are large open and lined with stones and are used for Kastom dancing and ceremonies. We found that the stones on one side of the clearing are for men and the other side for women. The central spot on each side is the place of honor for chiefs past and present. Each time a villager is born, a stone is added. It is said that the elders can recite several generations by name and the stones are used as proof of membership in a tribe or village.

One area of stones mark the circumcision of the boys at about age 12 when they become men. Again a stone is added at the completion of the ritual for each man. Apparently, the ceremony lasts for several days and is culminated by each boy shooting an arrow into a large ancient banyan tree. The arrows are left as a sign of their manhood. We were honored to see the tree and were told that the cruise ship people were not allowed in this area.

We enjoyed our private tour and had good explanations of the local plants, dances, cultural exhibits and the ceremonies we would see on "Cruise Ship" day. We gave Rubin some rope for the tour and received several vegetables and herbs from his garden. We negotiated a price for the entire Emily Grace crew to join the "Cruise Ship" day festivities for about the same amount each cruise passenger would pay.

The next day, the mammoth cruise ship pulled in and anchored further out than Emily Grace and we saw them shuttle past our home in the small lifeboats snapping photos of the American Yacht. We soon joined the 1000 Australians ashore and enjoyed the day. We saw small kids holding iguanas and parakeets, and much dancing. The men wore little except their penis sheaths and many of the women were topless. While now performed for the cruisers, it is still much like what Captain Cook would have seen in his day. Our advantage is that Cannibalism stopped here around 1987 and we had one less worry!

After a couple of dances by the men, the women did a sitting dance that represented the yam picking season. The yam crop is extremely important to the tribes; this is evidenced by many of the dances dedicated to it as well as the tabu of walking through the forest during yam season.

After the dancing by the men and women, they showed us some kastom magic. Two men layered spade shaped leaves and then holding only the stems on each side they carried a young boy around on the leaves. We were also shown how to start fire the traditional way with two sticks. The man had a small bundle of coconut husks blazing in a few minutes. We saw some archery marksmanship and even Emily had a try at shooting a handmade bow and arrow. Another Vanuatu custom is sand drawings.  Many of the women practise this ancient art based on drawings many years old.  The trick is to make the entire drawing smoothly without stopping. 

It proved to be a nice day and a good way to see a lot of the culture demonstrated and explained clearly.

Tom even managed an invite on to the cruise ship to surf the internet for a couple of hours and to check in with the customs and immigration officials that had come specially to check the cruise ship into Vanuatu.

As on Epi, the villagers on Wala Island commuted each day to the main island to work in their gardens. So each morning and afternoon outriggers would paddle to and from the island. They would stop by to say hello and we would occasionally trade for fruits and vegetables. We stayed one more day after the cruise ship left and then headed less than 5 miles north to Vao Island. Stay with us Dear reader to see why that became one of our favorite stops in Vanuatu.

Tom

The Maskelyne Islands, South Malekula

After about a week, Kim and I were feeling a little better and decided to press north to Malekula Island. The Maskelynes are a group of low lying islands with extensive reefs and mangroves off the southeast tip of Malekula. We had a calm trip and decided to stop in the most protected anchorage behind small Awai atoll. There were two familiar boats there; Worral Wind and Skylight. We visited with them and Skylight had much info to share since they have been cruising Malekula for several weeks. If fact, Brian was repairing his 20th small generator. The locals use these for lighting and changing cell phones and word got out that Brian was handy with a wrench. This particular local had paddled 3 hours to bring the broken generator to Brian. After about 2 hours on the beach, he had it humming again.

 

Awai- This small atoll had one extended family living on it and the local guided us around the island to show us his lovely home on the other (windward) side from our anchorage. He had several buildings for living, cooking, drinking Kava and even a small church with several ancestors buried just outside. Everything was neat and he had obvious pride as he showed us around. Emily made some origami animals for one young girl.

 

 

The local had recovered a transponder buoy that had broken free from a longline fishing rig. Longline fishing is a commercial fishing technique. It uses a long line, called the main line, with baited hooks attached at intervals by means of branch lines called "snoods". A snood is a short length of line, attached to the main line using a clip or swivel, with the hook at the other end. These lines can be miles long and left to drift. Hundreds or even thousands of baited hooks can hang from a single line. At each end of the longline, they place the transponder buoy. When they want to locate and retrieve the longline, they get the exact location from the GPS and when they get within 1000 feet, they remotely turn on the LED lights so that they can find the buoy and pick it up. They cost several thousands of dollars and this was a lucky find!

 

This one contained a battery, solar panel, LED lights, regulator as well as the transponder and GPS. We all discussed if we could re-wire some of the parts to give him his first solar light. We disassembled the buoy and found that the battery was still working. We hauled the buoy back to our boats to tackle the project. I donated some tinned wire and a toggle switch to the project which was completed by Brian. In the end, we had the LED light mounted inside a half coconut shell with my on-off toggle switch mounted to the half coconut. This all hung from the house roof by my wire which led outside to the solar panel and battery still inside the waterproof buoy. During the day, the solar panel charged the battery and at night he could turn on the light whenever needed. It was hard to tell if the local family or the clever cruisers were more proud at the completed project!

 

Avok Island and Children's Day- Each day we were greeted by locals in their dugout canoes wanting to say hello and to trade or sell fruits and vegetables from their gardens. Two young girls came one day from Avok island selling mangrove oysters. We were a little hesitant until we saw them and they looked big and fresh. We bought two dozen for about $5 US and they were indeed delicious. We also made arrangements to visit their village on Children's Day which is a Vanuatu Holiday.

 

 

The three cruising boats emptied our lockers of give-away items and we headed in with our dingy flotilla for a day of fun. We were met by the entire village and welcomed by the elders. Emily and Kim blew soap bubbles for the kids and Emily had more than 20 kids gathered around while she had them making some origami. Watching the concentration on the faces of the children (and a few adults) was neat.

 

 

After the origami lesson, Worral Wind organized a bingo game. Since the players needed to know numbers up to about 80, it was a little bit of a challenge. With the cruisers and some adults helping, the game was soon underway. We agreed to pool our goodies and make them prizes for the winners. We kept playing the game after the first winner had chosen his prize and soon the winners were lined up exchanging their winning bingo cards for a prize. Almost everyone playing ended up with a prize.

 

The Emily Grace plastic whistles were popular with the kids while the older ones were eager for small mirrors and costume jewellery.

At the very end, Tom blew up balloons as fast as we could inflate, tie and set them free above the uplifted sea of hands. It was a great day and the entire village seemed to really appreciate our visit.

 

Tom