To Market, To Market

The fresh produce markets in Vanuatu have been a source of great fascination. Some communities hold them just once a week while Port Vila seemed to be open for business daily. All the produce is incredibly fresh and has likely been grown organically. The presentation is fabulous too with ingenious use of bamboo sticks to create wands to support fruits, palm fronds to secure heads of lettuce or to create baskets for root vegetables.















By and large the biggest issue from our own perspective was the volume of the bundles:-11 lettuce, 1/2 kilo of chilli's (so potent that you can feel your corneas detaching) etc. Even partnering up and splitting/sharing a purchase is too much for a couple living on a boat! This makes me wonder at why their veggie bundles are the size they are. One can accept that a weekly market might mean that people may want to stock up, but out in the villages, people generally have a garden so they are probably just topping up. Our suspicion though, having noted how families seem to cluster in a compound, is that shoppers are buying for a whole family group; or that families are generally so large to necessitate these volumes.



The markets also sold flowers, firewood for cooking and river pebbles(also used in cooking).

Air Coconut

In the general scheme of things the island of Epi in Vanuatu is quite well endowed with facilities. The community at Lamen Bay, for instance, despite the absence of any sealed roads, does have a Primary and High School, a hospital and one of the two airstrips on the island. There are a couple of scheduled flights per week but the majority of flights seem to be random 'taxi' style flights aboard what looks to be an 8 seater.



We took a stroll along the roads and beach along Lamen Bay to take a closer look at the set-up. The community is split by a river which was silted-in at this time of year (dry season). Walking or driving required a deviation onto the beach that had formed at the river mouth.



It appears that the sand at the river mouth is worth bagging and we observed a couple of young fellows spading some into bags each evening.

Storm damage from cyclones clearly set back community development. The High School, the wharf and Airfield check-in all showing signs of damage, repair and even upgrade.










Observations of flights in and out from the anchorage vantage point would suggest that being a passenger is not for the feint of heart. The airstrip is the only flat bit of land for as far as the eye can see and there's not much if it.















Incredibly the pilots negotiate the little strip banking this way and that to plant their landings on the grass runway bordered by white painted car tyres. Then they taxi down to a passenger terminal adjacent to a turning circle. Hopefully they have their own drop down steps because the bottom step of the steps stored at the terminal was smashed through. The baggage handlers must have a powerful voice here because the most modern and serviceable item on display was the luggage trolly. Coconut Airlines thinks of everything!

For God's Sake

We have been having a highly emotional time in Vanuatu. Previous posts may already have indicated this. Today has topped it even though we might not have thought it possible.

The much younger crew from Frozzie took a dinghy ride yesterday to Lorlow, one of the other villages in South West Bay on Makakula. (There are 5 and we have so far spent our time with only 1). Tristan and Claudia were most surprised to find a white woman there and spoke with her. It turns out that she was visiting for the first time in many years and had been raised there by her missionary parents. The reason for her presence was to accompany her father, aged 91, for a final farewell visit to the village where he had been a missionary between 1954 and 1964. His health is failing (cancer, congestive heart failure) and had made the trip, despite contrary advice from his doctors. Luckily his daughter Wendy is a nurse and was assisting him. She insisted that we should all attend the Presbyterian Church service the next morning and that it would mean a lot to her if we would attend. 6 Yachts: 12 people, all having traveled from Queensland. Wendy's father, Pastor Ian Taylor, is now retired and lives at Kippa Ring on the outskirts of Brisbane so it must have seemed like serendipity for 12 people also from Queensland to arrive quite literally out of the blue for this special occasion. So we paired up and took 3 dinghies to 'the village with the Airstrip' about 1Km away and went to church on Sunday.
We were blown away. The service was attended by people from all 5 local villages. Some had walked several kilometers along the beaches at low tide. Some had taken a ride on heavily overloaded boats. The church at the top of the hill was built by Pastor Ian Taylor and named after him. A group of 9 year old boys were allocated the task of leading us to the church located up the hill. The path from the dirt road to the church entrance was lined with brightly coloured leaves and flowers in special celebration. Unbeknown to us, we 'grotty yachties' became special guests and were led to reserved benches at the front. Before long we were draped in garlands of frangipani. That were were there at all was entirely random and all of a sudden we became a part of the show.
The singing was stupendous and all of us found ourselves with tear filled eyes several times, especially when we listened to the respect and praise being paid to Ian Taylor. He had A son was born during his Missionary yeard arrived as a young man with his wife and two daughters aged 3 and 6 months.s whilst on furlough in Brisbane, but from what we could glean, didn't survive his father's posting. During Ian's 10 years as Missionary in SW Bay. He was responsible for the creation of an airstrip (carved out of the jungle), building a church, and school, a clinic and a hospital. All of these have been named after him High praise indeed. He is revered here and he himself had no idea that his final visit (he is quite clearly a very sick man) would initiate the extent of celebration and appreciation. We witnessed the community's gratitude and gift giving presentations. We were embarrassed in the end to be beneficiaries of a feast prepared for the whole district. Men had been sent out into the hills the day before to hunt a wild cow for the meal. We sat as treasured guests in a long community dining hut and had to participate in the feast.
In church Ian surprised everyone. Despite looking ashen and very stooped, when he stepped up to the lectern he appeared to grow 6 inches and spoke with a strong voice. A man reborn! During his sermon he decided to address us for a good part of it instead of the main congregation, by speaking in English rather than Bislama (Pigeon English). Perhaps he knew that in terms of the locals it was a case of 'Converted and job done' and we were likely the only godless people in the congregation and his ministry not yet complete. A final opportunity to save a few more souls from an unexpected source. This is a fellow who bought the last of the New Hebrides (old Vanuatu) bushmen in and persuaded a population to cease annibalism!! What he has achieved is incredible. The people here revere him and the respectful things we witnessed today were most humbling indeed.
Claudia and Tristan - SV Frozzie greeting Pastor Taylor after the service All we can say is that we are not visiting Vanuatu and seeing stuff that is necessarily asphysically beautiful as New Caledonia, for instance; we are witnessing something much deeper and more moving. Emotionally, our visit here is very costly. We feel like we've gone through a wringer. We recorded all the singing in church today. It needs a bit of amplification and tweaking, but when you hear excerpts, you'll feel the joy too. When we get back to Brisbane next month, we have arranged to visit Pastor Ian Taylor and his wife Val and give them a CD with the soundtrack. 40 minutes of singing from a service lasting well over 2 hours and one song composed for him. Tomorrow we move on to Dixon Reefs and hope to snorkel and recharge emotionally. For a change we had sunny skies today and the smoke from the volcano on Ambrym was much less. We still have a lot'stuff' to give away and only 2 more planned stops before we reach Luganville on Espiritu Santo (Santo for short). Once there we'll bepreparing for our passage home (via Chesterfield Reef), then checking out.

Arriving in Port Vila

Our 80nm passage from Erromango to Port Vila on the island of Efate was an overnighter departing at 16;00 so that we would arrive in the morning. Four weather models indicated 10-15knots from the SE and nothing about an ENE with the swell from the SE. With our shallow keel it was a pretty uncomfortable ride and not the lazy reach we'd hoped for. 90%+ humidity but no actual rain reduced our comfort factor still further. The cockpit teak had absorbed so much water you could be mistaken for thinking The Bloke has just sluiced the cockpit with a bucket of water. The Bloke appeared in the companionway after his rest-break donning a cotton rugby jersey and was sent below to switch to a polar fleece that wouldn't immediately absorb the ambient moisture and become chilled as the night progressed -What was he thinking?

We were the last of 4 boats to arrive in Port Vila as we are quite happy to sail under 'genoa only' at night at 5knots following the 'Captain Paul' rule of easy albeit slower night passaging. The others arrived before daybreak having raced one another and for no benefit. Yachting World - the local marina wouldn't be manned before 08:00 and we couldn't get to visit Customs for our Inter Island Cruising Pass until office hours. We had chosen the 16:00 start time and Squander (5 foot longer) chose follow suit. If timing your departure is to time your arrival, they could have left at 18:00!

Having obtained our clearance via email to enter Vanuatu via an undeclared port - in our case Port Resolution so we could visit the volcano, we were a little confused about our 'clearing in' responsibilities at Port Vila. Our document asked us to merely call into the Customs Office to obtain our Cruising Permit & provide more identification of our vessel and all fees would be payable on departure when 'clearing out' of the country. Immigration? Biosecurity? Nothing mentioned. We weren't the only ones confused. Squander and Frozzie had the same issue. We'd already been in the country a week and a half on the strength of an email reply to our emailed forms but logic does say, that at the very least, our passports needed stamping and someone in authority needed to know that we had actually arrived. We decided to ignore our 'permissions' and go through the 'clearing in' process anyway, only stopping short of flying our Pratique/ Q flag.

To our joy, Richard on Tauranga radio'd on the VHF to welcome us in. We were delighted to know our Queensland playfriends were here waiting for us although sad to learn that it was largely because their fridge was still being repaired. An ongoing issue since Noumea. Richard was able to update us on where Customs had moved to - a new building at the shipping harbour near where the cruise ships come in. Immigration was now in the former French Embassy and the building was being renovated and looked more like a bomb site than a government office. The newly formed Biosecurity Department was housed in a cupboard at the back of the Customs building Richard informed us. Directions to one of many ANZ ATM's were also given which is as well as the Erromangans had ensured that we departed only once every opportunity to use up our last VT on THEIR island had been exhausted.

None of the cruising literature is up-to-date or accurate. There wasn't even any information on the charts to show that the Chinese had, in the process of doing the Port upgrade, recently blasted a channel through a reef enabling tall masted vessels (over 23m) to enter the mooring field at the back of Irikiri Island without passing under the power lines! We need a 19.5m clearance height and The Bloke was hesitant about taking a mooring buoy as it would require us to pass under the lines which the charts had noted as having only 20m clearance. As it was, The Bloke was so busy waiving and talking to Richard as we passed their boat that he didn't even realise we'd just passed under the lines! I on the other hand, was paying attention and knowing we'd be fine, declined to tell him.



For a modest 1,600Vt (roughly 20AUD)per night we are on a mooring buoy in preference to anchoring in uncertain coral rubble. The cruising guide reassuring says you are lucky if you can snag a coral head to secure your anchor. Mmmmm? The option of a Mediterranean style berthing against a sea wall at Yachting World was passed up. Noise, privacy, security and 'nervy parking' issues.


The shore of Irikiri Island, just behind our mooring does not really give us a greater sense of certainty. Smashed up vessels of various descriptions litter the shore like scattered bath toys. There are showers and toilets ashore but we'll be using our own facilities - thanks all the same! (I'm recalling the toilets at KL airport 40+ years ago that were too disgusting to even vomit in. These ones on a parallel scale). Our laundry will be taken care of and line dried and folded for 1,000Vt per load. I think we'll be OK in that department.

The marina Bar and Grill seems OK and Happy Hour is going down a treat as Marianne is demonstrating for your benefit!




Armed with the 'up-to-date' information we set off by dinghy to Customs. We tied up alongside the customs vessel. The Biosecurity vessel was absent as they don't have one yet. The contrast between the vast, modern and air conditioned Customs office and the Biosecurity office can't be understated. It's clearly under resourced and it will take a lot of cruiser's 5,000Vt payments before things change. In addition to lacking a vessel with which to board a vessel (and interdepartmental jealousy would suggest they don't often get a ride on the Customs boat), they also lack presence. Their office is basically a windowless storeroom afterthought at the rear of Customs and barely larger than a walk-in robe in which are located 3 staff, 2 desks, 4 chairs, 1 filing cabinet and a couple of cartons supporting their coffee mugs and lunch plates. If your shoe size were greater than 8.5 you'd probably have to stand on one leg or sit on someone's lap! We left the premises 5,000Vt lighter in the wallet.



We left Immigration for day 2. It was as Richard described, a bomb site. Filing cabinets were jammed along the balconies, workmen were haphazardly going about their thing and directed us up muddy stairs and passageways to the sound of jackhammers to Lyn's office. We knew her name was Lyne because every item surrounding her was labelled thus. Behind her was a server hub with wires spewing everywhere. We were invited to fill in Passenger Arrival forms and handed a biro that she kept in her fuzzy hair for ready access. It was pointless mentioning that we'd already submitted these forms on-line. They'd never have been passed on. If they had, she'd never find them in all this chaos. We were invited to sit at a little desk and free up the counter. At least the office was air conditioned amid the the dust, noise and humidity and was probably the reason 'Mummy' was seated in an armchair below the window and occasionally nodding off while reading her large-print library book. Lyne was multitasking.

Our passports were duly stamped and for the pleasure we were invited to contribute a further 4,800Vt to the Vanuatu economy. This created a slight 'situation' as our money was either too much or not enough. Payment must be in cash and the cashier was absent just now. Our smaller denominations left us 50Vt short. Lyne was searching her own purse to ensure she could tick us off in her KPI's for the day when a Kiwi Islander arrived and gifted a 50Vt coin with a huge grin!

Anyway, we are all 'legal' now and able to guiltlessly roam Port Vila which despite only being 80nm away from Erromango, might just as well be another planet!