The Millennium Cave Tour

It's really refreshing to come across initiatives that have been driven by locals, rather than foreigners, to benefit their villages. In Vanuatu, as in Tonga and Fiji, often most of the business enterprises in the more developed areas are run by incomers - for example in Luganville there is only one shop that's owned and operated by Ni-Vanuatu people, the remainder are Chinese and Vietnamese.

So, yesterday, Graham joined the crews of Sel Citron, Pacific Hwy and Iolea to do the Millennium Caves Tour. This began in 2000 when Sam, the eldest son of the Chief of the remote Vunaspef village, realised that the limestone cave and river gorge buried deep in the forest could become a tourist attraction. Once he'd cut a circular trail and trained some other village men as guides, he used an agent in town to market and sell the tours - they charged 8,000V per head but paid the village only 500V of that for all the hard work! In 2011 the village decided they'd had enough of that poor deal so built an office in Luganville, reduced the cost to 7,000V per person and invested all the the money into several villages up there in the forest. The funds have paid for a new school and kindergarten and provide employment for 19 guides who do a tremendous job.

The tour involves a bumpy 45 miinute ride in a minibus to Wambel village, a 20 minute tramp to Vunaspef (which has no vehicular access) and an hour and a half hike to the cave.

A bridge constructed from a bundle of long bamboo poles

Vunaspef village

Hiking towards the cave

The villagers have constructed lots of ladders in the steep bits

Once we arrived at the cave we had our faces painted to show proper respect to an area that was, until 2000, considered sacred and 'tabu'

Kerry gets the mud-paint treatment

Graham's new look

The cave itself is pretty spectacular - a lofty limestone cavern, probably 800m long, with a river running through it. We were provided with waterproof torches (vital as it's pitch black in there) and made our way slowly along the boulder-strewn river, with bats and swallows nesting in the walls above us.

Entering the cave

Swallow nests in the limestone

A waterfall at the side of the cavern, illuminated by torch light

Light at the end of the tunnel

Kerry emerges into the light

We had a guide for every three people and they were brilliant - they were mostly barefoot but know every foothold and pool and guided us safely to the next stage of the adventure. We worked our way down the Sarakata river, first 'canyoneering' through a stretch of huge boulders and then swimming down river. They have cut foot holds in the rocks and cemented in steel bar hand-holds but even so it was reasonably challenging in places. Breath-takingly beautiful, though.

One of the guides takes a well-earned rest at the lunch stop

Heading down the canyon

Wooden ladders have been built to traverse some of the trickier bits

Swimming down stream, hoping the waterproof bags actually are

After the final swimming section there was a very steep climb up the canyon walls and back to Vunaspef. We passed through some of the village gardens, which were surrounded by a dense creeper which is smothering everything. It's known as 'Mile-a-Minute' for the way it spreads and was introduced by the American army in the war as natural camouflage for their military bases.

There's no way of containing this stuff!

So, weary but elated after a long day we returned and were given fresh fruit and coffee at the village before the final 20-minute walk back to Wambel to be collected by Sam and his rattly van. We had an impromptu stop on the drive back on the remains of a WW2 airstrip to recharge the van's boiling radiator with water - pretty normal stuff for vehicles around here it seems!

A pitstop where once USAF bombers and transport planes thundered

All in all, just a brilliant day, made all the more special by the friendly and professional guides and by the knowledge that the whole thing is a locally-run operation.

Video links - drone activity over Uliveo

Thanks to Mark from Field Trip, here are a couple of links to his brilliant drone videos taken when we were in Uliveo Island:

This is the video of the new island: https://vimeo.com/177305298

and here's the film of the Independence Day celebrations: https://vimeo.com/177308302

More Island Life

The main road through the wonderfully-named village of Fartapo, Malakula Island

It's been interesting to chat to other yachties to compare notes on some of the places we have visited and to see how our impressions sometimes differ quite markedly. Often the difference in weather can cloud (sorry) our views about a place but mostly it's about our interaction with the locals.

In the outer islands, life is very simple and relaxed. The villages still look very traditional, with houses built from wooden frames, wall panels woven from palm leaves and shaggy roofs; unlike Fiji there isn't a lot of that corrugated iron roofing which becomes so lethal when a cyclone dislodges it. Each village will have at least one chief and a process known as grade-taking (involving traditional dancing and the killing of pigs) can, as far as we can ascertain, elevate anyone to the status of chief. Anyone who is male, that is - women have a pretty unequal status here.

For visiting yachties it's good form, on arrival, to go to say hello to the chief to ask permission to be there and to check for any tabu areas where we shouldn't stray. Unlike in Fiji, there is no formal sevusevu ceremony and so far we have been welcomed with smiles and firm handshakes. The chief of Fartapo had to be woken up at about 11.00am by his busy wife after, we suspect, a heavy night of kava drinking (again a male-only sport here) - it turned out he was Chief Graham and was probably only about 25 years old.

After the cyclone of last year we find lots of safety signage in bislama - this one is for the tsunami escape route 

Whilst the local houses are maintained with new leaves and panels, 'foreign' buildings such as this church don't see much in the way of maintenance

Children on the beach followed us to play

Writing names in the sand is a good trick as sometimes they are spoken quickly

Laura makes friends

 We have been invited to drink kava in a couple of places but otherwise the villagers seem happy enough for us to be around but don't actively seek greater involvement. The exception was in Uliveo where, after the naming ceremony of the new island, we were invited to a meal in a newly-built hut that's about to become a kava bar:

Kerry gets to grip with the roasted piglet

We have now moved north to Luganville, the second-largest town in Vanuatu, on the island of Espirito Santo. De desperately needed to fnd some food shops as we were getting pretty inventive with the dwindling supply of eggs, bacon, onion, cheese and bacon aboard.

on-passage lunch: fritata with feta cheese and creme fraiche topping

Laura has a direct flight from here to Brisbane on the 15th so we'll be exploring Santo until then - no hardship, we suspect, as it seems a great place

A new island appears!

A big topic of conversation in the village of Lutes was the curious arrival of a new 'island'. In the past three weeks an area of shallow water within the reef suddenly became shallower and a perfect, white sandspit rose up out of the water. We can only assume that this was the result of seismic activity - there was an earthquake in late May and we even felt a tremor on the boat last week.

At high water a little island, perhaps 50m by 10m, stands abut half a metre clear of the water and at low tide there's an area about 500m by 25m showing. We were invited to go out with the owners of the reef (every bit of sea shore is 'owned' by someone here) to witness the naming ceremony, complete with a blessing by the pastor.

The day started with a competition to see how many people would fit into a dinghy!

The official welcome onto the island; the pastor is in the foreground

Black and white footprints in the sand

Our proud hosts

a locally-built fibreglass sailing canoe brought more people

at low tide

Graham plotting the island on GPS - it'll be interesting to compare future plots to see if the upward movement is continuing

The island has been slightly curiously-named as 'Niel Fat Sunburn Floating Island'! Niel is the family name of the owners and they hope that this new beach will attract visitors - it certainly might be a great launching spot for kite-surfing.

School sports, island style

The two-day inter-schools sports even on Uliveo was well organised and entertaining. Three teams from neighbouring islands and the 'mainland' arrived to take part in athletics, football and volleyball competitions. These people love their sport!

Before we left we gave a CD of photos, as well as more prints, to Benson the headmaster and he was delighted.

The Uliveo anchorage

Thanks to Mark Silverstein on Field Trip for these photos from his drone:

Uliveo island, looking south. The vilaage of Lutes, with the school playing field, is in the foreground 

Field Trip, Sel Citron and Maunie in the village anchorage

Maunie 'dressed overall' for independence day

The yellow and green 'Windscoop' is rigged over the forehatch to direct a cooling breeze into the cabin

Graham now really wants a drone!!

Dugong photos and facts

We're hoping that Digicel will allow us to post a few photos this morning! These were taken in Gaspard Bay last weekend as we watched the dugongs.

An adult begins a rolling dive from close to the dinghy

An adult and calf come up to breath

The Gaspard Bay anchorage

Some dugong facts from our resident marine biologist:

• Dugongs can live for up to 70 years.
• Their gestation period is 13-15 months
• They have only one calf at a time and give birth  every 3-7 years
• The mothers lactate for 14 months 
• They have poor eyesight but good hearing
• They locate their seagrass food via whiskers on their upper lips and pull the grass up by its roots; they manage their seagrass beds and are selective about the types of grass they'll eat.
• Adult males (and elderly females) have tusks and will fight other males during mating. We saw a pair mating, we think, when we were anchored in Uliveo island.
• They were once thought to be mermaids due to their shape, human-like eyes and the females having boobs; the sailors making these observations were probably a bit desperate, mind you!