Day 113, Year 2: Getting Ready to Move On
Date: Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Weather: Beautiful Sunny Day
Location: Port Vila, Efate Island, Vanuatu

I can’t believe I forgot to mention our dinner an Le Rendez Vous in last night’s log. In fact, I forgot to mentioin the whole late afternoon and evening activities. We did some late afternoon shopping downtown and then went to the Vanuatu Cruising Yacht Club to pick up mail our daughter Heather had sent. Sadly, it was not there. It has either not arrived yet or it has been lost. Since today was a holiday, the Post Office wasn’t open, so tomorrow before we leave we will do some more checking.
We had planned to have dinner at The Flaming Bull across from the Cruising Club but it was too early when we arrived and we hopped on a bus and went to check out a restaurant that Mark and I had seen when we walked to Nambatu yesterday. I also forgot to mention this. During World War II, there were three radar stations in Port Vila. They were simply named Number 1, Number 2, and Number 3. Those names were transposed into Bislama and became Nambawam (now a park), Nambatu (plush residential area
with great Bon Marche grocery store), and Nambatri (also a plush residential area). We walked to Nambatu to go to Stop Press, a book store. We have yet to see what we would consider a bookstore in all of the South Pacific. There were some books available in Papeete, and once we found Stop Press, we agreed that it comes the closest. But it is just a department in the Bon Marche supermarket and there are multiple copies of a few books on the back wall. Cruiser book exchanges definitely are the
place to go shopping for reading material. I must say that the Bon Marche at Nambatu is the nicest supermarket we have been in with the exception of those in Papeete, Tahiti and New Zealand. This store was huge and had everything from hardware to books to children’s toys to food, plus a fantastic selection of French wines. Now, back to dinner at the Le Rendez Vous. It was a lovely little restaurant overlooking the harbor. We were with Paul and Marie of Ranger and both of us could see our boats
in the harbor just below us. The chef must have been from Sri Lanka as there were many Sri Lankan dishes on the menu. The atmosphere was probably better than the food, and we had a lovely evening. And the strangest thing happened. Marie and I had met a man named Yogi at the World Health Organization. Yogi was willing to give Marie a course of Malarone in case she or Paul gets malaria. I have them one of our courses in New Zealand, but now that we are here, it seems prudent to have at least
one course for each person and you cannot buy Malarone or Larium here. Anyway, Yogi was supposed to leave the Malarone at this office yesterday for Marie to pick up, but he forgot to bring it. Just after we arrived at Le Rendez Vous, who appeared but Yogi. And he had the Malarone with him. Lucky for Marie.

So that brings us to today. It was another internet morning for Mark and he is making great progress. If we don’t leave until noon tomorrow, I think he will get most of our photos posted. Well, at least the ones I have named. So if you are reading this log, you can start back through the logs and see the photos if you would like. Just click on the picture after the log and the whole album will come up. I have most everything done except for the underwater photos. Those are harder to name as
I have to look up names. So instead of trying to get them all done, I have pulled together the best of the underwater world and will at least try to get that posted before we leave here. While Paul on Ranger was changing engine oil and Mark was at the internet cafe, Marie and I went downtown shopping. We didn’t get there until after 11 AM and we knew most everything would be closed by noon. Unfortunately, the places I had hoped to go to get some gifts for folks back home were already closed.
I hope to try again tomorrow morning before we leave. The shop that was open was Pilioko. Nicolai Michoutouchkine and Aloi Pilioko are two artists that have an art gallery here. They now have a shop on the main street as well. One of their specialties is hand painted clothing and we thoroughly enjoyed looking through these. The artwork is colorful and bold. And next to the clothing shop is an artefact shop with ornate carvings and masks made by master craftsmen in south Malekula. Since we
are going there and might be able to buy directly from the artists there, we focused on the clothes and each bought a great shirt and a pair of capris. Michoutouchkine was in the shop today and he signed the pieces we bought. It was great.

Marie and I had a nice time together taking photos on the main street and visiting the market. When we had bought as much as we could carry, we headed back to the Waterfront Restaurant where we tie up our dinghies and called Mark and Paul on the VHF to meet us for lunch. After lunch, we delivered everything we had purchased to the boats, and then spent the rest of the day doing more provisioning and taking a walk up the hill to the site of the Parliament House and the National Museum. Nothing
was open, but it was interesting just to visit the sites. We walked home by way of the fruit and vegetable open-air market (which never closes–open 24 hours a day) and loaded Paul and Mark down with bags of food. By the time we were done, we were all laden, but we won’t see many stores in the next six weeks, so it was time to stock up.

White Swan and Maggie Drum are on their way here. Blue Marlin and Christina both arrived yesterday, along with Anna Maria and Ernst of Galetea. They were part of the Riverside Drive Marina group in New Zealand. La Vie and Galaxie, a boat we met in Tanna, are spending time on the island of Erromango, but will also be heading this way soon. Many of us are working our way north quickly to try and catch a special arts festival on the island of Ambryn next week. So we will leave here tomorrow afternoon
and do another overnight to the island of Epi. From there it is a day sail to Ambryn, so if the weather cooperates we will make it. The anchorage on Epi promises to have turtles, a resident dugong named Bondas, and some good snorkeling. Some very strong southeast winds are headed our way, so we are hoping the anchorage there will be settled enough for us to enjoy the underwater life.

070815 Day 113 Efate, Vanuatu–Walkabout Port Vila