Day 111, Year 2: Arrival in Port Vila
Date: Monday, August 13, 2007
Weather: Sunny Day; Winds ESE 15-20
Latitude: S 17 Degrees, 44.782 Minutes
Longitude: E 168 Degrees, 18.724 Minutes
Location: Port Vila, Efate Island, Vanuatu

Wow! What a great downwind sail we had from Tanna to here. Downwind always means that you rock and roll a bit, but we had great winds and sailed wing and wing all the way from Tanna to just outside the entrance to the inner harbor here. We arrived at just about the same time as Pantafive, a Danish boat that left Port Resolution a couple of hours before us, and a few hours before Ranger, who left Port Resolution with us.

This is going to be a short log. There is much to share about what we discovered here in Port Villa today, but I am frankly just too tired to write. We now know that the incidence of marlaria in the islands here is much less this year than last, so that is good news. After much searching, we found the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization and they had some information to share. I’ll just have to give the malaria update tomorrow.

Port Vila is a delightful little town, half English and half French. Tomorrow we will spend the morning in the internet cafe and then tour the town in the afternoon. We will spend Wednesday getting ready for our next month in the out islands, and then off we go.

Note: We found out today in an email from my sister-in-law Sue that our logs have not been posting for the past few days. Tomorrow morning is dedicated to website work–posting pictures and posting any logs that are missing. Not sure what the problem might be, but just be aware that if a log is not posted for a day, it is a technical error. I post each and every day. We apologize for the break in postings and hope we can figure out the problem so this doesn’t happen again.

070813 Day 111 Efate, Vanuatu–Arrival in Port Vila

Day 110, Year 2: Overnight Passage from Tanna to Efate
Date: Sunday, August 12, 2007
Weather: Sunny Day; Winds ESE 15
Latitude: S 19 Degrees, 00.640 Minutes
Longitude: E 179 Degrees, 01.924 Minutes
Location: Passage to Port Vila, Efate Island, Vanuatu

We are sailing wing and wing dead downwind in winds that vary from 10 to 20 knots. Right now our speed is about 6.5 knots, but that varies with the strength of the wind. We will arrive in Port Vila in the morning and the really good thing is that we are sailing, and not motoring, and we are enjoying the easy roll north. Leaving Tanna was difficult for me. We did not have the time to do everything that I wanted, but we were very fortunuate to be able to pack most of the “must sees” into our five
days there. Cannibalism was still alive and well on Tanna not all that long ago (sometime in the early to mid 1900’s) and living where a live volcano is constantly spewing forth fire from the center of the earth must have an effect on people. It is a very special place. We were given a wonderful introduction to Vanuatu and we look forward to our trip north through the islands. As we left Port Resolution this morning, Dianna on White Swan was blowing her conch shell to wish us well. Hopefully
we will see them in a week or so further north. They are staying to savor Tanna’s wealth just a few more days. In fact, they are making a second trip to the volcano this afternoon.

Tanna is an absolutely fascinating island. It is definitely the most primitive place we have visited in the South Pacific. Outside of the West Coast towns of Lenakel and Isangel, there don’t seem to be any sea going boats other than outriggers. There are none of the village fishing boats with 50-horse Yamahas that we saw in Fiji. There are also no concrete structures, only traditional housing with thatched roofs and bamboo sides, outside of the Lenakel-Isangel area. We did not see villages with
generators, but we did see villages with big solar panels, so there is some electric power in the larger villages. The mix of Christianity (mostly Presbyterian’), the Jon Frum cargo cult, and the kastom (old custom) believers, makes for a most interesting cultural mix. We had some absolutely wonderful village experiences in Fiji, but I can see that our experiences here will just as wonderful, just very different. We were so lucky to meet the young woman, Mary, who took us to her village of Ianumei
Nisori yesterday. This was a village of only four or five homes, just one family, but it gave us a real feel for what it is like to live here. We are going to have culture shock when we arrive in Port Vila on Efate island tomorrow. Port Vila is one of the more picturesque towns in all of Oceania. It is a mix of English and French and has all of the modern services. It even has an American restaurant, Jill’s Cafe. I’m sure we will enjoy it for what it is, a hub of services, and will quickly
be on our way further north. But there is a lot of history to see in Port Vila and some wonderful excursions around the island if we have the time. We are planning on spending only three days there (including the day of arrival) and then heading to an anchorage on the north side of Efate called Havannah Harbor. Port Vila and Havannah Harbor were both US military bases during World War II and over 100,000 US soldiers passed through these ports on their way to destinations in the North Pacific.
From there we will head north to Epi. But between now and the time we leave Port Vila, I know we will gain information that will probably change our agenda for the trip north.

It is time for night watches to begin, so that means I have to shut down and go to sleep. It looks like we will be able to continue sailing wing and wing through the night, or at least that is the hope. More tomorrow from Port Vila.

070812 Day 110 Tanna, Vanuatu–Leaving Tanna Island

Day 109, Year 2: Rainy Day in Port Resolution
Date: Saturday, August 11, 2007
Weather: Rainy Day; Almost No Wind
Location: Port Resolution, Tanna Island, Vanuatu

In 1774 Captain James Cook sailed into this bay following the glow of Mt. Yasur. He was denied permission to go to the volcano which at that time was considered tabu (sacred). After seeing last night’s fireworks, I know he would have loved the show, but that was just not possible in 1774. He did name the bay after his ship, the HMS Resolution, and he used a small islet offshore to do many of his sightings. I always enjoy sailing where Captain Cook once sailed. And I am constantly amazed at the
fact that many of today’s charts are still based on his sightings.

I spent most of today working on photo naming, but we did take a mid-day break and went to shore to take the pictures of the two-week old baby, Mark, named after Mark on Diva. I printed copies of Mary and her son Christian as well as Neri and her new baby and other two children. The rain had stopped when we started to shore, but by the time we got there, it was getting really serious about raining. Ranger went with us to deliver the photos they have taken. I have to say we were dreading the walk
through the bush to Nisoi, but fortunately for us, Mary was on-shore cooking in the hot springs. She took us back to the new garden and crafts center for us to make our presentations. Afterwards, we walked to the hot springs on the shore where laundry is done and to the place where you can cook your dinner in 200 degree water. It is great for the village to have this little treasure. We enjoyed visiting with Mary once again and both Ranger and Windbird gave her the photos we had taken yesterday
as well as a couple of t-shirts. She once again invited us to a special celebration tomorrow in the village, but we are leaving by 10 AM and will not be able to attend. Christina and Blue Marlin will be going, so we will be well represented.

It was just too rainy to make a trip into the Yacht Club and Irupow village today. I wanted to visit the cultural center one more time, but that didn’t happen today. Maybe I’ll have time fore we leave in the AM.

I got an email from our son Justin today and he said that Vanuatu sounds amazing to him. It is a very special place and it is most intriguing. I’ll close today’s log with the transcription of a sign I saw just outside the Custom’s Office in Lenakel. It is written in Bislama and then translated into English.

Sign Written in Bislama:
PLIS KAM INSAID NOMO SIPOSE YU KAT ANYTHING TO DO WETEM WORK BLONG MI OR ANY OFFISOL TINGTING. BE NO KAM INSAID FROM PRIVATE TINGTING.

TA

Sign Translated in English:
PLEASE DO ENTER ONLY IF YOU HAVE QUIERIES ABOUT MY JOB OR ANY OTHER OFFICIAL QUIERIES. BUT DO NOT ENTER IF YOU ARE ENTERING FOR PRIVATE MATTERS.

THANK YOU

070811 Day 109 Tanna, Vanuatu–Visit to Hot Springs on Rainy Day

Day 108, Year 2: An Evening on the Edge
Date: Friday, August 10, 2007
Weather: Party-Sunny; Threat of Rain in the Evening
Location: Port Resolution, Tanna Island, Vanuatu

Last night around 10 PM I went up into the cockpit and saw the red glow of Mt. Yasur in the night sky. We can’t see the volcano from the anchorage but it is just over the hills to our west. This was the first red glow we have seen since arriving here and although it is beautiful it leaves you feeling very tiny and defenseless. I can only imagine what it must be like to live here in the shadow of this very active volcano all the time. I can see why the people here are mystics. Some believe that
when you die you go into the volcano. So when you do something that displeases the dead, they send grumblings from the middle of the earth to punish you. I’m a definite coward and would do nothing to displease my ancesters if I lived here!

Tonight we went to Mt. Yasur and stood on the edge of the crater rim to watch the fireworks. It is truly spectacular to see the red fire coming out of the center of the crater and to listen to the growling and whooshing and the periodic thundering earth as the volcano sends the red molten lava high into the air. As well as standing on the edge, I felt we were living on the edge this evening. We took a break from watching the volcano and picture-taking to sit down and eat something. The biggest
kaboom of the evening happened while we were sitting and you could feel the earth tremor. The sound was deafening and the lava went up and up and up . . . just a little too far for comfort. We were really in no danger, but for a few seconds it was hard to tell if any pieces of lava were going to come our way. They all fell well short, but there was certainly that moment of tenseness. We stayed on the crater rim for more than an hour and half and just enjoyed the show, but even getting to the
volcano was a adventure. Let me disgress a little and tell that story.

At 3 PM Paul and Marie of Ranger and Dave and Kathy of La Vie were at the Yacht Club with us waiting for the truck to return from Lenakel with the other cruisers who were signed up to go to the kastom village. The truck returned late and Stanley explained that a man had died in the kastom village today, so there would be no dancing today. I guess we’ll have to see this on another island. So at 4 PM the other cruisers from the anchorage came into the Yacht Club ready to go to the volcano. Now
there were twenty-some of us ready to go, but only the one pickup truck. Stanley had arranged for other trucks, but this is Vanuatu, and time really has no meaning here. So half of us got in the one truck and could only hope that another truck would come soon. To make a very long story short, eventually everyone did make it to the volcano. That in itself was a miracle. Our truck had to back down the steep grade up to the volcano’s edge more than once to get us up there since we were so heavily
loaded. That truck had to go back to get the other half, but eventually we all made it. When it was time to leave, again the organization of figuring out how to get most of us to the John Frum village, but some back to Port Resolution seemed to take forever. And even once Stanley figured it out, he had to go back up to the crater’s rim to find the drivers. On the way to the John Frum village, Simon from New Zealand asked me what I thought we would see at the John Frum village. I really didn’t
know. I just knew that the villagers play music and dance from dusk on Friday to sunrise on Saturday morning. None of us really knew what to expect. We arrived and were escorted to what I would call a long house–a long thatched-roofed, open-sided structure. We sat along the edges and the “bands” sat in the middle. A John Frum band consists of about eight musicians and lots of women and children. Other men seem to stand around the sides of the long house and talk, dance, or smoke cigarettes.
Even after being there, I’m still not sure that I can explain what it was all about. I think this one is going to take more reading and inquiry of local people.

Now I have to digress even further. Earlier in the day, we went on a walkabout. Paul and Marie of Ranger went with us. We walked along the black sand beach and met some children playing in the water. Mark had great fun with them. One eight year-old was writing numbers in the sand with a long knife he was carrying. Mark asked to borrow it and he wrote his name in the sand. The little boy then wrote his name. We walked on and then turned inland when we saw some thatched structures just off
the beach. A young woman named Mary and her year-old son named Christiane walked over to greet us. I showed her the crude map I had made by printing a copy of photo of a map in the Irupow Cultural Center. She showed us her village and we followed her there. She explained that she went to school through grade six and that she married when she was 16 and is now 22 and has three children, Christiane being the youngest. She pointed out the different trees and their uses and seemed to have more information
about the environment than most anyone we have met. Her father, Philomon, the chief of Ianumel Nirsori village was gone when we arrived, but we met Mary’s sister-in-law, Neri. Neri has a two-week old baby named Mark, actually named after Mark on Diva, another yacht that was here when the baby was born. Neri wanted us to take a picture of the baby, but this meant that we had to go in the house. Babies here are not to be taken out of doors until they are one-month old. We took pictures and will
print copies and take them to her tomorrow. We continued our walk around a pond that Mary called a river, saw lots of beautiful banyon trees, walked through another village and out to the white sand beach on the east side of Tanna, and eventually back to Port Resolution.

It was quite a day and it is now midnight. It is definitely time to “shut down” for tonight. If I’ve left out any essential details, I’ll have to put those in tomorrow’s log.

070810 Day 108 Tanna, Vanuatu–Mt. Yasur Volcano and Jon Frum Village

070810 Day 108 Tanna, Vanuatu–Island Walkabout

Day 107, Year 2: Too Many Cruisers and Only One Tusker’s
Date: Thursday, August 9, 2007
Weather: ESE Winds 20 Making Things A Little Bouncy in the Anchorage
Location: Port Resolution, Tanna Island, Vanuatu

At 4:00 this afternoon, more than 20 cruisers gathered in the Port Resolution Yacht Club. Stewart on Kathy II, being the good Aussie that he is, arranged with Stanley (Chief Ronnie’s son) to have the bar open this afternoon. There was a problem, however. There was only one Tusker’s beer. It was the quietest Happy Hour I have ever attended! So we still haven’t tasted the beer of Vanuatu–Tusker’s, but we had a nice time socializing and signing up for the activities planned for tomorrow. The
plan is to visit a kastom village in mid-afternoon (what Stanley refers to as the naked people), go on to the volcano for sundown fireworks, and end the evening with Friday night dancing at the John Frum Village. Too little beer today; too many people tomorrow. Stanley is not sure he can accommodate the numbers. Some of the truck owners are Seventh Day Adventists and they don’t drive on Friday, so he is not sure he can get three trucks to take us all. He is taking ten cruisers to Lenakel to check-in
tomorrow and he will see if he can find trucks there. We won’t know until 3 PM when they return and when it is time to leave. I have faith that he can pull it off, but if not, some of us might have to wait until Saturday to see the mighty Mt. Yasur volcano. We’ll just have to wait and see.

I did laundry this morning and then Mark and I spent some time looking at our cruising schedule for Vanuatu and doing a little more reading about some of the other islands and anchorages. It is going to be very hard to pack it all into six weeks, but that is our goal. By late September we need to move on to New Caledonia, and then from there on to Australia by the first of November. If weather cooperates with us, we will be fine, but that is a very big IF. It is looking like the weather gurus
are about to declare this as a La Nina season and if that runs true to form, it means more west winds which will not help our cause. Again, we just have to wait and see. There are no guarantees out here.

After lunch, Paul and Marie of Ranger came over to review the cruising schedule with us. If possible, we would like to stick together so we will have a buddy boat from here to Australia. At this point, we are in agreement as to the schedule, so it looks like it should work. After reviewing the schedule, we went to shore to see the village of Irupow. We entered the village where there is huge green common area. There were some young girls playing volley ball in the center of the green. It was
great to see young women being able to do this here. There were almost no men in village, as they were all having an afternoon kava session honoring the anniversary of the previous chief’s death on August 9, 2001. The only man we saw was the chief, Ronnie. We introduced ourselves and took pictures of him with two of his grandchildren. We then walked through the village which was much larger than we had suspected. There were many young children, more than we have seen in any village to date.
Most of them seemed to be about a year and half old, which seemed a little strange. But there were many more three to five year-olds as well. When we reached the edge of the village, we saw that the women had a little craft market with woven carrying baskets and mats, shells, and carved outrigger canoes for sale. The prices were unbelievably cheap and some of the woven carrying baskets were very fine weaving. We were going to walk down to the white sand beach, but we learned that women cannot
walk that road in the afternoon. The nakamal where men were drinking kava is on that road and women are absolutely not allowed to watch, participate in, or even walk by an area where men are drinking or preparing kava. Equal rights have not reached this corner of the world. At this point, we turned around and went back to a little cultural center that a Peace Corps volunteer helped establish. There were written descriptions of some of the customs here and some wonderful pictures of special celebrations

070809 Day 107 Tanna, Vanuatu–Irupow Village

Day 106, Year 2: Exploring Tanna Island
Date: Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Weather: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood; SE Winds 15
Location: Port Resolution, Tanna Island, Vanuatu

It was an early start this morning, and unfortunately an hour earlier than it needed to be. We were to meet at the Yacht Club at 7:30 AM to start our trip across the island to the administrative center of Lenakel. We should have gotten a clue when we left Windbird and saw that none of the other boats even had their dinghies in the water, but on we went. When we got to shore, there was no one there, and we then started to think that maybe we have entered a new time zone. When everyone else arrived
an hour later, it was confirmed. We have now set our clocks back another hour. Since sunrise has been almost 7 AM, at least now it will be daylight when we wake up. We actually really enjoyed our extra hour on shore this morning. We watched White Swan and Maggie Drum enter the anchorage and just enjoyed the early morning. We met the cutest little kitten in the Yacht Club and got great pictures of the kitten sleeping on Ranger’s backpack. The Yacht Club is just an open-air structure that serves
Vanuatu beer, Tusker’s, when pre-arrangements have been made. It is certainly unique.

Stanley, Chief Ronnie’s son, was our guide. He had arranged for a pick-up truck to take us the 41 kilometers to Lenakel. The soccer team was also waiting to be transported across the island for the Tanna Island finals–100,000 Vatu at stake (that’s $1,000 US). But we were told to get in the truck and the soccer team was left behind. We found out later in the day that the final game between the Port Resolution team and the Lenakel team will take place on Friday. We were assured this was not because
we were being transported instead of them. I sure hope that was really the case. There were nine yachties and few locals in the back of the truck. To say that we were packed like sardines would adequately describe the picture. Add to that the fact that the road is sometimes a beach, sometimes a narrow dirt road with lots of ruts, and sometimes an ash plain of a volcano, but always either going up or down a mountain, and you sort of get the picture. The ride was not nearly as rough as we expected,
but it was absolutely spectacular. There were two US yachts represented, Windbird and Ranger, in addition to one each from Australia, New Zealand, France, and Sweden. We had a great time getting to know one another while enjoying the scenery of this beautiful island. We passed by Mt. Yasur, the active volcano, climbed high in the mountains, stopped briefly in the village with the island soccer field, and then descended into Lenakel. It has one main dirt road going through. We went to Customs
for check-in with them, visited the market next door, went on to Immigration in yet another town, and then went even further to the Quarantine Office. It was one minute to eleven, but the Quarantine Officer had already gone to lunch. We went to lunch in a little thatched hut by the ocean (fish and rice the only thing on the menu), went to buy fresh bread, and then went back to the Quarantine Office to wait. It was almost 2 PM when someone came who could help us. It still wasn’t the official,
but it was his assistant. We did have to do a bit of waiting, but at least we are legally checked into Vanuatu. Now we can relax and enjoy.

This place is so very, very different from Fiji. There are not the huge smiles and shouts of “Bula” as a welcome here. People are shy and don’t make eye contact readily. Most on the road in Lenakel did not say hello. It appears that it just takes time to get them to warm up to you. The women here are very low on the totem pole. Where women in Fiji were often running the show, here they obviously do the work and take a back seat. They wear Mother Hubbard dresses and almost all have very short,
kinky hair. Most men wear knee-length shorts, although some had on sulas. Many of the young men look and dress like Rastafarians. We have a lot to learn about the people here. The land is greener and there are many more flowering plants than in Fiji. High on the mountain, the trees and plants look much the same as New Zealand. There are the trees with bright red “bottle brush” blossoms, Australian pines, Norfolk Island pines, giant tree ferns, lots of mango trees, and many huge banyan trees.
The volcanic soil here is obviously very rich.

With all of our waiting time for Quarantine in Lenakel, we didn’t get back here until after 5 PM. It was a great trip with much that still needs to be digested before I can even write about it. Let’s just say that this is a beautiful island with a bit of mystery about it. We will continue to unravel the mystery tomorrow.

070808 Day 106 Tanna, Vanuatu–Trip Across the Island to Lenakel

Day 105, Year 2: Arrival in Vanuatu–Rough but Safe
Date and Time: Tuesday, August 7, 2007; 1900 Fiji Time
Weather: Winds SE 20 Knots; Rainy, Squally Morning; Some Sun in the PM
Latitude: S 19 degrees 31.564 minutes
Longitude: E 160 degrees 29.728 minutes
Location: Port Resolution, Tanna Island, Vanuatu

Friday–Leaving Fiji with Hefty Winds and Rough Seas
Saturday–Great Downwind Sail, Wing and Wing
Sunday–Another Great Sailing Day with Unexpected Moderate Winds and Moderating Seas
Monday–No Wind; Motored All Day on Flat Seas
Tuesday Morning Beginning at 5 AM–25 to 30 Knot Winds on the Nose, Seas Building, Very Little Visibility, Basically Yucky

That’s the run-down on our passage from Fiji to Vanuatu. We had a bit of everything, but talking with those who left two days before us and those who left the day after we did, we definitely had the middle ground and the best sailing conditions. La Vie left two days before us and had the roughest conditions on their first day that they have ever experienced. Maggie Drum and White Swan left 18 hours after we did, but they were hit with the front this morning and are having to endure it all day
today and through the night tonight. So maybe leaving on a passage on a Friday wasn’t such a bad idea. A squash zone is developing out there right now, so the next few days will not be good for a passage. Short of waiting for another week or two, I think we picked the right time to leave Fiji. The challenge of sailing is getting it right with the weather, and that is not an exact science by any means. Enduring a bit of “yuckiness” just goes with the territory, but a splendid territory it is.

As we approached Tanna Island this morning at sunrise, you could hardly see the island–but you could smell the volcano. I felt like I was sailing in Maine in a good fog. No visibility in reef country is never a nice thing, but we did have tested waypoints and a track into Tanna sent to us by Dave on La Vie. So as long as we could keep the boat on the track we would be fine. But before entering the pass, we had to lower the mainsail, and that is when I go into panic mode. What if the engine
should fail? Would we be able to raise a sail in such strong winds fast enough to keep us off the reef? I was sharing my panic with Ranger on the VHF when Jan on Christina called from inside the anchorage. I think he could hear the near panic in my voice and he assured us that it was an easy in and that it was much calmer inside. We have only met Jan and Christina of Christina recently, but more than once they have been there to help guide us into questionable anchorages. That’s what the cruising
community is all about–people from all over the world pitching in to help each other when needed. I love it.

About an hour out of Tanna, we could smell the volcano. It was pouring rain and the wind was blowing directly over the island and in our direction. Wet volcano smell is sort of like wet dog smell–not pleasant. Once we were in the anchorage, however, the smell went away completely. We couldn’t see anything beyond the shore until mid-afternoon, but as evening approached, we could see mountains to our west. We think one of those might be Mt. Yasur, the active volcano. Anchoring here was fairly
easy. Port Resolution has gotten shallower and shallower over the years as it has been uplifted from the sea. Such is life when you live where two major tectonic plates are competing under you. We anchored between Christina and La Vie, with Blue Marlin slightly in front of us. Christina is a boat from Sweden and Blue Marlin is a boat from Norway with Idunne, Runae, and their twins, Marita and Hedda aboard. We haven’t seen them since New Zealand, so I look forward to getting together with them.

Late in the afternoon, we put the dinghy in the water and Mark went to shore to check out the situation here. He followed Jan and Christina of Christina in and shortly afterward, I saw the Runae and Idunne on Blue Marlin head in with their two girls. I kept thinking that Mark should be back, but I was working on naming pictures and didn’t poke my head out of the boat. Finally, I went up into the cockpit to see if he might be returning. What I saw was Mark furiously trying to row our dinghy against
the 20 plus knots winds. I feared that he could be swept out to sea, but then I saw that Dave and Kathy on La Vie were putting their dinghy motor on so they could assist. Mark was holding his own, but thank goodness that Dave was able to tow him in. He worked on the dinghy motor once he returned, but he is not sure what the problem might be. We had planned to go over to Ranger this evening to talk about plans, but we will have to do that another time. Mark did return with new information. Ten
of us will be meeting on the beach in the morning at 7:30 AM to ride across the island to Lenakel to check-in. It is a grueling two-hour ride in the back of a pick-up truck, but we will take boat cushions that will help insulate us from the bumpy ride. While we are doing this, Maggie Drum and White Swan will be coming in here. The winds are supposed to stay strong and turn to the East. If that really happens, we might all have to vacate to Port Vila on Efate Island, an overnight sail from here.
Evidently this anchorage can get a little rough with East winds. I’m really hoping we don’t have to leave before we get to go to the volcano. Right now we are slated to visit the volcano on Friday. Samuel, the village chief’s son, met with Mark and gang and made the arrangements for tomorrow and for Friday. On Friday we can go to a kastom village (the naked people as Samuel calls them), go to the volcano around 4 PM and stay until sunset to see the fireworks, and then go to a Jon Frum (the cargo
cult) village to witness the Friday night dancing. Sounds like a great day, so I sure hope the weather allows us to stay here.

070807 Day 105 Tanna, Vanuatu–Arrival in Port Lenakel

Day 104, Year 2: Day 4 of Passage to Vanuatu
Date and Time: Monday, August 6, 2007; 1800 Fiji Time
Weather: Winds SE 5-7 Knots; Another Sunny Day with Temps in the Upper-70’s
Latitude: S 19 degrees 20.872 minutes
Longitude: E 170 degrees 26.733 minutes
Miles to Go: 53.9 (We have come 428.)
Location: Passage from Lautoka, Fiji to Port Resolution, Tanna Island, Vanuatu

We have certainly had a mix of sailing conditions on this passage. We had a blustery start, followed by a great downwind run yesterday, and today almost no wind. We are motoring on flat seas, and although we would rather be sailing, we are enjoying the quiet time. We are anticipating arrival in Vanuatu tomorrow morning, but already we can see one of the out islands–Futuna. It looks like a volcanic cone with the top flattened and it is just a few miles ahead to port. Sometime while we were in
Fiji, a boat that we had met in Tonga was lost on the reef off Futuna. The captain and crew survived, but the boat was lost. We are giving this island wide berth. One little mistake out here and you can lose it all, so you have to be constantly vigilent.

The more we read about the culture in Vanuatu, the more we are intrigued. We will arrive in Port Resolution on Tanna Island tomorrow. This is one of the southern most islands in the chain. Captain Cook arrived in Port Resolution in the 1700’s and named the bay for his ship the HMS Resolution. He was drawn to Tanna because of the active volcano there, Mt. Yasur, but he was never allowed to climb to its rim. I would say that he was just lucky not to be eaten. Cannibalism was rife in Vanuatu at
that time, but somehow he and his crew got away. Today there are more than twenty languages spoken on Tanna, with the pigeon English/French Bislama being the equalizer. I’ll just have to keep saying, “Me no save.” That means “I don’t understand.” Somehow I’m sure we’ll figure out how to communicate. Tanna’s population is divided into thirds–one-third Presbyterian, one-third cargo culture, and one-third kastom (custom) culture. The John Frum culture is most interesting. Sometime in the 1930’s
a man named John Frum (from the United States) visited Tanna. He was a black man and he told the people to reject the teachings of the missionaries and return to their original lifestyle. During World War II, black US soldiers in Luganville became the ideal for these people. The black soldiers had all of the things that come with modern life, and the John Frum villages still fly the US and Naval Ensign Flags and are awaiting the second coming of John Frum. The kastom people live according to
old traditional culture. Some say kastom means that the people run around naked, and that is basically true. The men wear a leaf penis sheath attached to a highly decorated belt. The women wear only a grass skirt. And then there are the Presbyterian women in the Mother Hubbard dresses. Add to this that we will be able to visit the world’s most accessible active volcano that nightly throws up car-sized boulders, and Tanna sounds like a most “interesting” destination.

We just finished talking to White Swan, Maggie Drum, and Ranger on the radio. White Swan and Maggie Drum will arrive in Tanna 24 hours after our arrival. We will arrive early tomorrow morning and then the explorations will begin. I have been spending a great deal of my time today cooking fresh vegetables in the hopes that they will not be taken from us if they are cooked. We are not sure about the frozen meat. Hopefully, they will not take that. I’ll have a full report tomorrow night on what
it is like to check-in in Tanna. Check-in means taking a truck across the island to Customs, and that in itself should be quite an adventure.

Day 103, Year 2: Day 3 of Passage to Vanuatu
Date and Time: Sunday, August 5, 2007; 1800 Fiji Time
Weather: Winds E 15 Knots; Another Sunny Day with Temps in the Upper-70’s
Latitude: S 19 degrees 11.96 minutes
Longitude: E 172 degrees 29.45 minutes
Miles to Go: 171 (We have come 311.)
Location: Passage from Lautoka, Fiji to Port Resolution, Tanna Island, Vanuatu

Today was a wonderful gift. During the night, the wind died and we had to roll in the headsail and motor. We were both pretty certain that we would have to motor all the way to Tanna Island, but sometime mid-morning Ranger called on the VHF and said they were going to put out their genaker. They had been watching the winds carefully and they were starting to build. We had just tried sailing and were going a whopping 2.8 knots, so we had given up and rolled in the headsail. When Ranger called,
we examined the winds again carefully, they were indeed building into the lower teens. We rolled out the headsail once again, and we have had a wonderful day of lazy sailing downwind. We have up the full main and the headsail poled out and we have moved along between four and five knots all day. After the rough and tumble start to this passage, today really was a gift. According to the GRIB files this should continue through tomorrow, but then that could change. We are just grateful for today.

Ranger is still within sight, although they had a great sailing day with their genaker out. This is like a spinnaker, but it is asymmetrical and much easier to handle. We could have put ours out, but our Yankee headsail poled out seems to give us good speed speed. And it is a lot less trouble, so we went the lazy way today. It was a little difficult watching Ranger pull out in front of us, but I just talked to Marie on the VHF and they will be rolling in the genaker for the night and trying to
sail with their headsail which is a full genoa. Our headsail is a Yankee and it is cut much higher which allows us to pole it out. In downwind sailing without a pole the headsail often flaps with every wave. Hopefully there is enough wind so that we will not have to motor tonight.

We talked to Maggie Drum and White Swan this morning and found that they left Fiji yesterday afternoon. So they are only a day behind us. We sure hope they are having the same gentle winds and calm seas that we are experiencing. Dave and Kathy on La Vie arrived in Port Resolution today and Dave just sent us his track for the entry. I love email. It is great to get up-to-the-minute information like this. We are anxious to arrive and see Dave and Kathy again, and wait for the arrival of Joe and
Cindy (Maggie Drum) and Bob and Dianna (White Swan). Hopefully we can all explore Tanna together. The more I read, the more it sounds like the best of Vanuatu.

We spent part of today reviewing the information on malaria, which is a problem in Vanuatu, and trying to decide whether to take the preventative medication or go without and just be really, really careful not to get bitten by mosquitoes. Even if you take the medication, it is no guarantee, so you still have to be careful. We are going to sleep on the information and make our decision tomorrow. I have emailed our son-in’law’s father (Jed’s dad Donald), to ask for his advice. He is a physician
that worked for the National Institute of Health until he retired last year, so we are hoping he will have some sound advice. Every doctor we have consulted has had a difference of opinion, so in the end, we will have to make our own decision and live with it. It is not the rainy season, so maybe the mosquitoes are not the problem they can be in wetter times.

Once again, the sun is about to set and it is time for me to prepare dinner. I’m working furiously during the night watches to name as many photos as possible and get them ready to upload to the internet. Not in Tanna, but in the next island north, Efate, it looks like we should have good internet access and that we could get the pictures posted. It looked like that in Fiji as well, but that didn’t happen, so we shall see. Until tomorrow . . .

Day 102, Year 2: Day 2 of Passage to Vanuatu
Date and Time: Saturday, August 4, 2007; 1730 Fiji Time
Weather: Winds ESE 20 Knots; Sunny Day with Temps in the Upper-70’s
Latitude: S 18 degrees 42.845 minutes
Longitude: E 174 degrees 29.439 minutes
Miles to Go: 287 (We have come 188.)
Location: Passage from Lautoka, Fiji to Port Resolution, Tanna Island, Vanuatu

When I booted my computer to start writing this log, the first thing I saw was the screen saver picture of our beautiful grand baby Sam. That always makes me smile. And then the little pop-up at the bottom of the screen came up that says “wireless network unavailable” here. Now that made me laugh. I talked back to the computer and agreed that indeed, there is no wireless connection out here. Then I got worried. Maybe I’ve been out here too long. Talking to a computer doesn’t seem quite right!

At 2200 last night, the bulging half moon rose giving us light for our first night of passage. When it rose out of the sea, it was right behind us and I kept thinking someone had left the back porch light on. With the rising moon, the winds settled a bit. They went from thirty-something to twenty-something which gave us a much smoother ride. I’m using the word “smoother” only to indicate that we were no longer wildly rockin’ and rollin’. The bucking bronco had been tamed just a little. Our
boat speed was reduced from 7 plus knots to 6 plus knots. When we first exited the pass leading out of Fiji waters, we were going so fast the GPS was saying we would arrive in Vanuatu in 58 hours. As the evening went on, it went to 68 hours and settled out at 72 hours to go. Of course, that was last night. We have slowed down a bit and are now sailing head downwind with a double-reefed mainsail and full headsail poled out to starboard. We are now averaging about 6 knots, and at this current speed,
we now have 68 hours and 28 minutes to go to reach Port Resolution on Tanna Island. You might ask, just where is this place? I have been asking myself the same question. So I started reading last night.

If you want to read a funny travel book about Vanuatu and Fiji, get a copy of J. Marteen Troost’s “Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu.” I think I mentioned this when Mark was reading the book a couple of weeks ago. I started reading it last night and you really can’t read a page without a good laugh. I keep checking what Troost is saying against what is written in the Lonely Planet guide and both seem to agree. Vanuatu is a country of 80 small islands,
altogether the size of Connecticut. It sits right on the Pacific Ring of Fire where two major tectonic plates meet. Right now, the Pacific techtonic plate is being forced up and over the Indo-Australian plate resulting in frequent earth quakes and volcanic eruptions in Vanuatu’s nine active volcanoes. Vanuatu’s 83 islands stretch from near near New Guina in the north to New Caledonia in the south. Many people here still live according to kastom (custom) where grass skirts and nambas (leaves) are
the only covering. I love Troot’s description of the big nambas and little nambas. You’ve just got to get the book and read it. Vanuatu is also a land of magic and sorcery and kava. Not kava as we know it from Fiji, but really, really strong kava. It still tastes the same, so I guess I’ll avoid that like the plague. Every village speaks their own language, so they have devised a pigeon English language mixed with French called Bislama. Do you have . . .? is “Yu gat . . .?” Thank you is “tank
yu (tumas)–very much.” Excuse me is “skiusmi.” Learning Bislami will be fun or maybe just funny. And pigs are still money here. This is the land of the pigs with curved tusks. Still today a boar with a full-circle tusk is worth up to 40,000 Vatu or about $600 US dollars. There are even magic rocks in Vanuatu. This is going to be quite an experience.