A Welcome Break From Life's Ups and Downs

The long weekend spent anchored off Luganville was great - we restocked our food lockers, found some (relatively) cheap but very drinkable Australian wine to put into the empty drinks cellar and, of course, enjoyed the football. However the downside was that the anchorage is pretty exposed and is on what we sailors call a 'lee shore' - in other words the land is to the lee (down wind) of us so if the anchor dragged we'd find ourselves aground pretty quickly. The good thing was that the anchor was buried deep in very good-holding sand but the wind-driven waves meant that Maunie was never still so it wasn't exactly a restful place to be.

So we decided to move around the corner and head north:

The prevailing wind is south easterly here so we had an entertaining sail, short-tacking eastwards out of the Segond Channel and past the wreck of the Coolidge, and then turned northwards to tuck inside Aesi island, out of the swell, and up towards Oyster Island.

Our electronic charts are not hugely accurate here (according to our Navionics chart, we are currently anchored firmly on shore!) so we downloaded some very detailed Google Earth images to use on the iPad.

The route into Oyster Island - we had detailed waypoints from the cruising guide that we bought this year 

The really scary bit - we had just 40cm under our keel as we went through the pass and it looked even shallower from the deck!

 The minor palpitations were all worth it, though, as we are now anchored in a perfectly protected spot, with not a wave to be seen, just off the very friendly Oyster Island Resort. The calm conditions allowed us to drop our yankee to put a patch on some chafe and to give Maunie a bit of a clean and polish.

Chafe is your enemy! - damage to the blue UV protection strip at the leech-line block

Unlike Sel Citron's sails, Maunie's will fit in the sewing machine so a leather-lined patch was added.

 Ashore at the resort we had an excellent  'cook's night off' meal and went to watch a combined youth choir / bamboo band / water-music team rehearsing a new song that they are entering into a Pacific song contest. We'll see the first official performance on Sunday here so will post some photos and, if possible, a video of the event.

Dianne's sadly unsuccessful audition to join the Bamboo Band

 There are two winding rivers that flow into this lagoon so we joined Sel Citron in their big dinghy to motor up one of them yesterday. It was absolutely stunning and we reached the Blue Hole, where the limestone really does turn the water into a lovely shade of blue, for some great fresh-water swimming.

Graham doing the Tarzan thing from a huge Banyan tree

The Beautiful Game

Those that know Graham will remember that he's madly keen on football (soccer for American and Australian readers); he just can't stop talking about it. Well, perhaps not... in reality, he's definitely in the 'Rugby's the only game worth watching, those footballers just keep falling over pretending to be hurt' camp.

He admitted that he hadn't actually ever been to a 'proper' football game so when we found out that some of the qualifying matches for the Oceania Under 20 World Cup were being staged here in Luganville, we just had to go. Graham managed to watch two games and said he enjoyed it, though I suspect the whole spectacle of being in a Vanuatu crowd had as much to do with that as the football itself.

Damian (who really IS keen on football) watches the game whilst Kerry, Di and Graham pose for a selfie

The Cook Islands and Tahiti teams stand for the national anthems. 

Spot the white faces in the crowd - at half time.

There was definitely no need to wrap up warm for these matches - if anything, more sun cream was needed. 

For the record, New Zealand and The Solomon Islands drew 0-0 in a pretty dull game but the Cook Islands vs Tahiti game was much more exciting (3-1 to Tahiti and it should have been more).

Don't think Graham has been converted but it was a fun day off the boats!

Amateur Sailmakers

We have mentioned before that one of the great things about this trip is the camaraderie that builds up between the crews of boats. We have made friends with some amazing people and we yachties share help whenever we can.

So last week we were sailing up the coast of Pentecost with Sel Citron when we saw their foresail suddenly come fluttering down. It transpired that the webbing loops at the head of the sail, through which the halyard shackle is connected, had blown out on a sail only two years old. Luckily we'd attended a very informative training session at a sail loft in Opua so had the material and knowledge to help make a repair, so we spent a day and a half aboard Sel Citron helping Damian and Kerry get the sail back into working order (with superb email support from sailmaker Roger Hall in Opua).

Starting the slow process of hand-sewing. Unfortunately the sail and webbing was just too thick for our Sailrite sewing machine

"When I nod my head, you hit it." Every stitch hole had to be made in advance and the needle pushed through with a sailmaker's palm and then pulled through with pliers. The hardwood board we are using to protect the table came from Fulaga, Fiji, during the canoe-building project with Damian and Kerry last year.

The job done!

A glass or two of wine to celebrate the result, looking over to Maunie as the sun set

Thanks to Kerry for these photos (and for all the motivational food & drink!).

The Famous Rice Tossers of Bwatnapne

If you ever wondered about how your food gets delivered...... here's a quick video of the unloading of the supply ship at Bwatnapne. It made us giggle, anyway, and the rustling sound was great!
https://youtu.be/U3_xvV5I6G0

Now THAT'S a Fish

Caught this lovely 22lb Wahoo yesterday just as we were about to reel in the line as we approached the anchorage of Vanihe Bay, Ambae. 

These fish are pure muscle, speed machines and are very tasty. Fillets vacuum packed and in the freezer.

Pentecost Photos

Here are a few photos from the past week:

Loltong anchorage, with Maunie and Sel Citron

Village Nakamal (meeting house) - this one a mix of traditional materials and some concrete posts

Inside the nakamal - preparing manioc (a starchy root vegetable) for 'lap-lap', the traditional Ni-Van food (ground manioc and coconut milk baked in an earth oven), whilst a bit of butchery goes on

Mary and friend weaving 

Three year old with bush knife - perfectly normal here!

Searching the reef at low tide for clams - fishing, gardening and cooking is a major part of the day for people here

A future meal

A nakamal under construction, utilising old and new timbers

The Loltong 'Yacht Club' set up by the enterprising Mathew and Mary

Mathew inside his Yacht Club

Di buys another bag from Mary

Another 'taster' course at the Yacht Club supper - with Kerry (Sel Citron) and Sarah, Micheal and Elizabeth (Field Trip)

Bwatnapne anchorage

Happy kids who followed us as we walked through the village

A game involving pushing coconut shells on the end of sticks. ????

A traditional Vanuatu building.....

... and a very nontraditional one! We couldn't believe our eyes when we saw this being built in a village that otherwise consists of wooden, thatched buildings. It the the dream of two Ni-Van brothers who own a lending society that now has 22 branches across the country. On the ground floor is a supermarket, just opened (we were the first foreigners to shop there), and there will be hotel rooms, a sports arena and a music venue.
 

Interesting technique to hold the shuttering in place whilst the concrete is poured to form the next wall..

Notes from a small island

For the past week we have been anchored in the lee of the lush, densely-forested island of Pentecost, first at the village of Bwatnapne and now off the slightly larger settlement of Loltong. The two are only about 7 miles apart but Bwatnapne's school teaches in English, Loltong's operates in French. The island, just 35 miles long and 5 miles wide, has three distinctly different local languages and a common one of Bislama, the Pidgin English brought to Vanuatu in the nineteenth century by foreign traders. It's difficult to imagine a more complex linguistic challenge.

Pentecost's main claim to fame is that it's the home of the land-divers. Every May, tall, rickety towers of wood and bamboo are constructed in the southern part of the island and young men throw themselves off, with long vines attached to their ankles; it's said to be the inspiration for the sport of bungee jumping. Unlike bungee, the vines have only limited stretch in them so the towers are cleverly constructed so that elements collapse as the vines become taught, to slow the jumper's progress as they approach the ploughed earth below.The season for this madness finishes at the end of June so we haven't witnessed it ourselves but we've seen lots of footage on the internet.

We think it's fair to say that we're secretly relieved to have missed the land-diving as it's allowed us to spend more time really getting to know the villagers and explore other parts of this beautiful island. Out of the Vanuatu Islands that we've visited, Pentecost is probably our favourite.

What we have witnessed is some wonderful welcomes from the people here. In Bwatnapne we were invited to join a family for supper on our first night; Frederick and Melanie were just lovely folk and Frederick's brother Hensley, a teacher at the secondary school, gave us a great insight into island life. The following morning Dianne and Kerry spent several hours with Melanie learning about her amazing skills weaving baskets from soft pandanus leaves; the skills of the Pentecost weavers are renowned throughout Vanuatu and everyone here, both men and women, carries a strong, practical and decorative woven bag over their shoulder. Needless to say, Dianne & Kerry got some retail therapy in here.

In Loltong, we joined up with three other boats to make a party of ten to enjoy a true feast laid on by Mary at the small 'Yacht Club'. Matthew and Mary organise these events and we'd heard other yachties rave about them so, when we were in Loltong a couple of weeks ago, we promised that we would return for the feast n our way back. We weren't disappointed. Mary had prepared fourteen courses of locally sourced food all cooked in the traditional way. Each course was brought to the table by Lavaty who explained what they were. You may think the number of courses would be too much but the servings were just enough to give a flavour of the real variety of food here.

Sadly the internet here isn't up to the challenge of posting photos so they'll have to wait for a few days. We're heading back towards Luganville for a much-needed food shopping expedition and to start planning our next voyage - the 900 miles or so to Australia.