July 24-August 30, 2006

 We spent these days at anchor in Noumea and provisioned the boat for passage to Vanuatu.  Our visas were good until August 14 in New Caledonia but we learned that diesel fuel prices were due to be raised on August 1, 2006 and we wanted to take advantage of the lower price for duty-free fuel on check-out.  Therefore, we planned on checking out of New Caledonia on Monday, July 31, with purchases of duty-free fuel and alcohol. It was a very busy week as we prepared the boat for the passage of about 170 miles.

 Monday, July 31, 2006

 We officially exited New Caledonia in the morning; however, instead of going directly to Vanuatu we headed for a stop in the Loyalty Islands, which are part of New Caledonia.  Boats are usually given permission to make this stop when requested – we did not ask permission in case the answer was “no” (given our experience with different answers when getting a visa extension, we didn’t want to chance it).   We learned from speaking with other yachties that most boats don’t ask permission and we just hoped that no Customs boat would come into the bay where we were with other boats doing the same thing!

 The first stop before the Loyalty Islands was still on the mainland, in Baie de Yate.   Here we would wait for a good wind to head east to the Loyalty Islands.  We get our weather reports through the computer.  By the time we were successfully connected with our email on Wednesday night and got the Grib file, it was late.  The Grib showed the possibility of strong winds out of the northeast on Saturday and light north-easterlies for Thursday and Friday.  Not the wind direction that we were hoping for but we made a quick decision to head for the Loyalties in the light winds.  Thus, we quickly put things away, grabbed a few hours of sleep and left at 0300h (couldn't see a thing in the pitch dark and followed our track out on the electronic chart). 

 Unfortunately we had north-easterlies ranging from 15-25 knots all day (on the nose, as we sailors say!) and the ride was bumpy.  Neither of our stomachs does well in those conditions so we felt queasy all day.  We motored for 13 hours and arrived at Ile Mare in the Loyalty Islands at 1600h - only to be hailed on the radio by John and Heather, a young American couple that we had met two weeks ago.  They were the only other boat anchored at Pede, south of Tadine.   It's a bit of a difficult place to get into but John talked us in a bit and Paul kept a sharp lookout for coral bommies.  We needed to work our way around easily seen bommies and there was a lot of coral on the bottom. 

 We had caught a skipjack tuna on the way in and John and Heather had caught a Spanish mackerel so we combined the two and had dinner that evening on Bella Via.  Just before 5 p.m. another boat came in and it was a French family whom John and Heather had met earlier - Cathie and Paul, with their daughter Maele.  This family has lived aboard for 17 years and their daughter is 10.  So, we invited them over and had a great evening.  Everyone was exhausted and the other people more than us as they had actually left the day before and tacked (sailed zig-zag) their way over the 65 miles - they figure that they actually sailed 150 miles.  They don't carry enough fuel to motor great distances.

 We waited at Ile Mare for a southerly change in the weather, which meant better sailing to Vanuatu.  The change came in on Saturday, August 5 and we spent a “rock and roll” night at anchor, as the anchorage was not protected from the south. 

 August 6, 2006 – Destination: Vanuatu

 There are four ports of entry into the country of Vanuatu. Most yachties prefer to check into Port Vila because it has all of the amenities associated with a city.  We chose Tanna for three reasons: 1. The trip from New Caledonia would only be an overnight passage. 2. We wanted to see Mt. Yasur, the most accessible, active volcano in the world. 3. We wanted to keep the prevailing southeasterly winds behind us as we visit the islands south of Port Vila.

 The problem with clearing into Vanuatu at Tanna is that the customs and immigration officials are located in the village of Lenakel on the west side of the island and the only safe anchorage is Port Resolution, (named by Captain James Cook) which is located on the east side of the island.  Our yachties’ network had informed us that transportation could be arranged at a reasonable price from Port Resolution to Lenakel and back within a single day. The yachties network said that the trip over the mountains and by the volcano rim was one of their most memorable experiences. 

 The passage from New Caledonia to Tanna was a relatively easy, open ocean, overnight passage of 160miles.  We left Ile Mare at 7:00, Sunday morning, August 6^th prepared to be at sea for approximately 33 hours.  However, a strong tail wind brought us to Port Resolution, Tanna Island by 9:00 Monday morning. 

 After being awake half the night you might think that the first thing on our minds was to catch up on some much needed sleep.  Yes, we did think about it, but not for very long. There is just too much happening when you enter a new country, especially one as remote and as unique to our experience as Vanuatu.

 The anchor had barely been set when we were approached by an outrigger, dugout canoe paddled by two young, and very friendly Ni-Vanuatu (native to Vanuatu) women wanting to trade a brightly decorated, handmade basket for gasoline.   Paul politely declined the trade but had a pleasant conversation with the young women while Mary was putting the boat back in order after the ocean passage.

 The next visitor was Stanley, the chief’s son and “Harbour Master” of Port Resolution.  Don’t let this official title mislead you into thinking that Port Resolution is like any harbour that you have ever seen with docks, a marina, a restaurant, some shops and officials dressed in uniform.  Port Resolution is nothing like this.

 Port Resolution is an excellent natural harbour sheltered from the prevailing south easterlies, with good holding and absolutely no amenities other than a beach on which you can land your dinghy.  From the beach you can walk up to the village where approximately 200 Ni-Vanuatu live a very traditional life style in thatched homes.

 On the point overlooking the harbour, the locals have built a large, open-air, thatched shelter, which they call the Port Resolution Yacht Club.  This was built by the people of the village as a focal point for hosting yachties’ activities, sponsored by the villagers as a means of raising money for the village.  There were about twenty boats in the harbour during our stay.  We were told that there have been as many as a hundred in the busy cruising season.

 As for Stanley the “Harbour Master” - dressed in old shorts and T-shirt, he paddles up to the boat in his outrigger, dugout canoe.  He greets and welcomes every boat that enters the harbour.  With his pleasant and engaging manner, he welcomes you to the village on behalf of his aging father Chief Ronnie.  He offers to make arrangements for the trip to Lenakel or evening tours to the volcano.  In Paul’s case, Stanley became much more than harbour master.  By the end of the trip to Lenakel, they were almost best buddies.

Checking in at Lenakel

This trip began with a dinghy ride into shore at about 8:00 in the morning.  Since there were six yachts that needed to clear in and only one vehicle, the spouses decided to pass on the trip and, only the six men boarded the back of a pickup truck, followed by another half dozen locals including Dorah Reuben, the local grade four teacher who had some photocopying to do in Lenakel for end of term exams.

This was NOT a North American size pickup truck.  To say that the truck was crowded is a gross understatement.  Everyone sat on a foot-high bench that surrounded the perimeter of the truck.  Just barely above their heads was a flimsy metal frame that supports an old, leaky poly tarp.  It was raining when Paul boarded the truck.  He made the mistake of getting in second, which placed him at the front end with his feet resting on the spare tire and his knees in his face.  As well, a couple of the locals stood on the back running board, hanging on to the metal framework.

Paul is still talking about how bumpy the road was and how slowly the truck had to move to manage the road conditions.  Because it was raining, the tarp was down and he could see nothing of the lush mountainous scenery except for brief glimpses when they tolerated the rain long enough to take a quick look.

Things got a little more comfortable when three passengers got off the truck at the top of the mountain in the middle of the volcanic moonscape.  Paul asked them if they were visiting the volcano.  Their answer was “no, this was the location of a meeting of representatives of all of the many villages on the island”.  The yachties had difficulty understanding this meeting location and someone joked about “where they kept the white board and markers for this meeting”.

It was shortly after this when thoughts of life and death were forefront in Paul’s mind.  It had been raining for a few days and the truck was about to descend a narrow mountain road made of clay.  In fact at one point the driver stopped the truck because there at the bottom of the steepest most slippery hill was a car that had slid off of the road.  A dozen or more people were tugging on a rope trying to get it back onto the slippery road.  Once the people cleared the way, the driver slipped and slid away down that road, very nearly wiping out on more than one occasion.  In fact, it is the first time in Paul’s memory that he was truly afraid for his life.  Paul reported later that although everyone was silent in the back of the truck during the tense moments, all the yachties commented afterward on how crazy it would have been to have safely crossed oceans to get here only to die in the back of this little truck as it slipped sideways down this mountain road.  All at the bottom of the mountain breathed a big sigh of relief as they entered the sleepy village of Lenakel.

Another Lesson Learned!

It was in Lenakel when Stanley and Paul began to connect.  For security reasons, we have not been carrying a lot of extra cash aboard Bella Via because we have always been able to get the cash that we need from ATM’s in each new country.  However, although the island of Tanna has a bank - sort of - it does not have an ATM and the bank is not able to give you cash on a credit card or bankcard.  Basically the only thing the bank at Tanna can do is currency exchange.

We knew that we needed 2,000 vatu to pay Stanley for the truck ride to Lenakel, 3,000 vatu for customs clearance, and 2000 vatu for immigration.  With Stanley as his “agent”, Paul managed to have the customs fee deferred until we checked into customs in Port Vila. Unfortunately, the immigration officer would not be sweet-talked into this deferred payment plan.  Of course it was in Stanley’s best interest to help Paul because he knew that Paul wanted to spend his available vatu on the 7,000 vatu fee to do the evening volcano tour with Mary.  In the end, Paul had no money left when he returned from Lenakel and our newest New Zealand friends, Craig and Liz on “Scarper” loaned us the 7,000 until we met up again in Port Vila.

So again, we learned a valuable lesson – don’t assume that there are ATMs everywhere.  Ask questions ahead of time and plan better!

The truck with the guys returned to Tanna late in the evening and the tired, wet sailors climbed aboard their boats, had late dinners, and climbed gratefully into their bunks.

Wednesday, August 9, 2006

One of Paul’s hopes in this cruising life is to visit schools in the developing countries and interact with the teachers and children.  Our entry into the Port Resolution Primary School was made easier by having Dorah, the Grade 5/6 teacher, as a passenger on the truck to Lenakel.  Paul made arrangements during the long ride to visit the school the next day.  We spent a very enjoyable few hours in Dorah’s classroom.

Paul stopped to take a picture of a house under construction and he couldn’t resist taking a picture of these two little ones in the doorway.

The Grade 2 classroom at Port Resolution.  A far cry from a North American classroom.

At the base of the mountain are several places where the water is boiling hot and steam rises.   Another yachtie reported that he saw a Ni-Vanuatu cooking eggs in the hot water.

August 20 - 23, 2006

We left Port Vila after breakfast and travelled 30 miles to the north end of the island.  There we entered Undine Bay and headed for an anchorage beside Nguna Island, across from the mainland of Efate Island (where Port Vila is).  This was a place recommended to us by Bob and Judy from Siddiqi, ham radio friends, who have spent several years in Vanuatu.  On the way to the anchorage we had caught a nice size skipjack tuna and, as soon as we anchored, Paul went ashore and offered the tuna to the Chief and asked permission to explore the village.

The very next morning, we went ashore with the dinghy and introduced ourselves to Tomas, a Ni-Van who was collecting coral from the beach to use in the construction of a friend’s house.  After speaking with Tomas for a few minutes, we started to walk along the beach towards the village, only to realize that we were being hailed by a group of tourists approaching the shore in an aluminium runabout.  What are the chances, we ask, of running into someone who you have only spoken to in New Zealand by ham radio, on a remote island?  This is in fact what happened.  We had been asked by Bob and Judy from Siddiqi to watch out for, and try and connect with, Fin Bruce from New Zealand.  He was going to be flying into Port Vila and then on to another island.  We sent Fin an email but never managed to connect while we were in Port Vila.  When the runabout motored by Bella Via, Fin loudly exclaimed to his tourist mates that he had been trying to connect with us.  It was Fin who was hailing us on the beach.