Day 115, Year 2: Revolieu Bay–A Great Anchorage
Date: Friday, August 17, 2007
Weather: Partly Sunny with Periods of Drizzle
Latitude: S 16 degrees 43.659 minutes
Longitude: E 168 degrees 08.677 minutes
Location: Revolieu, Epi Island, Vanuatu
We are sitting here in a fairly calm Revolieu Bay even though the winds outside the anchorage are blowing a good 20 to 30 knots. We arrived here at dawn and have had a great day. But before talking about that, I’d like to regress and describe our overnight sail.
We left Port Vila at three in the afternoon and made our way around the south tip of Efate. This is an area of overfalls. This is rough water caused by a relatively shallow area. We chose to hug the coast and endure the roughness rather than to go way out to sea to avoid it. At sunset we were making our way through the pass. It was a bit bouncy and we were looking forward to getting through to calmer waters. But that didn’t happen. We did get through the overfall area, but then we got into
higher winds and seas. We could see right away that our overnight was not going to be a calm run. Once we rounded the south point and headed north we were on a beam reach and we were rocking and rolling in 25 knot winds. During my midnight watch, the winds increased with frequent gusts to 33 knots. Mark got very little sleep on my watch, and in fact, neither of us slept much during the night.
I came on watch at 4 AM and by 4:30 I could see on the electronic chart that there was an island to starboard, but I could not see it, try as I might. It was a clear night with thousands of stars, but as the first light of day tried to break through, that clear sky turned into a misty morning with gray clouds where that island should be located. I could see the green light of Ranger to port and the lights of big boat coming up behind me, but not much else. I couldn’t see the sun rise, but as it
got lighter I could begin to see the head and tail of an island to starboard. The rest of the island was valed in heavy low-lying clouds. As we approached our waypoint for heading into Revolieu Bay there was a cargo boat between us and the island. I know it is time to wake Mark but he has had very little sleep, so I hesitate. I look for Ranger, but don’t see her where that little green light has been beside us all night. I look further back and there she is but she looks like a ghost boat in
the early morning light. I could barely make out the rigging against the gray and white sky. There was only the slightest hint of pink to the north, but none of the beautiful pinks, blues,and yellows of most mornings at sea. we followed our waypoints to the anchorage and as we got closer, we could see that Scot Free II was right in front of us in the anchorage. We anchored just shy of them and made contact with friends that we haven’t seen for awhile. Once Ranger got into the anchorage, we talked
and agreed that it was time for a morning nap before continuing our day.
In the early afternoon we picked up Marie and Paul on Ranger and visited the villages on shore and talked with the “boss man” Fred to get permission to walk through the villages and snorkel offshore. The idea of property here is different from back home. The water that they can see from the village is thought to be their property and asking permission to anchor here is the proper procedure. When we walked into the village we found out that a marriage celebration was underway. A young woman from
the village here is marrying a young man from across the island. Today was the wedding celebration in this village. The wedding will take place in the young man’s village at the end of the month and the couple will live there. Although it was interesting to see what was happening, we felt like we were intruding, so we said we would return tomorrow and we walked back to the shore. On the way we met a young woman named Lucy and her one-year old Katie. Katie reached her hand out to shake Mark’s
hand and then each of us. She was so cute and Lucy, her mother, spoke very good English. We then walked toward the dinghy and met an older gentleman name Tom and his grandchild. She was also a one year and something and she also extended her hand. She extended the left hand and Tom immediately corrected her and showed her how to shake properly with the right hand. We talked with Tom who had a good grasp of world geography and we talked about how far away from home we are. He said that his people
don’t have the money to travel as we do. There was not much that we could say in return. We are privileged to be able sail around the world as we are doing. We don’t have much, but have so much more than these beautiful, humble people. It is such an honor to meet them and share their land, even for a short period of time.
After returning to our boats, we decided to go snorkeling. The reef here is mostly dead coral but the fish are beautiful. We saw way too many crown-of-thorns, so that is partly the reason for the dead coral. But we also saw so many of the reef fish that we have seen elsewhere. The difference is that they are so big here. we saw the largest colony of anemone fish that we have seen to date and we found huge cushion sea stars. Others have seen the fantastically colored nudibranchs here, but we
didn’t see them today. It was another great snorkeling experience.
We will stay here tomorrow and then head just twelve miles north to Lamen Bay. We have not seen the turtles or dugongs here, but they should be here and at Lamen, so that is our next pursuit.
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| 070817 Day 115 Epi, Vanuatu–Revolieu Bay Underwater |
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| 070817 Day 115 Epi, Vanuatu– Arrival in Revolieu Bay |
