MOVING ON TOMORROW, 12 September 2016

I'm not caught up with posts from the past few weeks, but I'm out of time.  Currently at Luganville on Espiritu Santo, but heading to Ambae in the morning.  I'll catch up at the next opportunity.

BACK TO LOSALAVA, 21 August 2016

Losalava Anchorage

Chief Mika & Grandson

Lake Letas & Mt. Garet

Some unruly weather was predicted, so we chose to go back to Losalava on Gaua (the site of the Bamboo Band post), this being the most protected anchorage in the Banks.  There was a so-so cell signal here, so we could access the internet and Skype, but only from the airport, a half-hours walk away.  Did that walk quite a few times this week.

Met one of the local chiefs, Mika Moses, close to the airport — I should mention that the airport, as all in Vanuatu except Port Vila, consists of a grass strip and a tiny, unattended cement building.  We arranged to have Mica’s 11-year-old son, Jason, guide us on a hike the next day up to Lake Letas, high on the flank of the volcano here — pretty much all the islands in Vanuatu have volcanoes — and the largest lake in Vanuatu.  We were also invited to a birthday party afterwards for Mika’s first grandson, just one year old.  The first birthday is a big event here — huge party well into the night, friends and family from all around, lots of food and kava.  Robyn baked a cake to bring, and found some baby clothes in our stock of trade goods as a present.  

The morning dawned with foul weather, so we just wandered up to the airport to beg off with Jason.  That done, we sat at the airport for a while using the internet.  Mika came by to chat.  We discussed politics and the difference between parliaments and the American system.  Quite the challenge in Bislama.  Then we all went up to his house for lunch, where we also presented the cake and baby clothes, not expecting to just hang around all afternoon waiting for the party.  Mika wanted us to return at four o’clock, though, for kava.  Didn’t seem appropriate to refuse, so I resigned myself to killing the afternoon.  We walked further up the road for a while, then back to the airport for more internet.  Having a couple of hours yet to kill, we went in search of a cup of tea.  There is a small guest house next to the airport, so we tried there.  We weren’t one of their guests, but they are such nice people.  Had a nice chat with the woman there while we drank our tea.  Also met one of their guests, a film producer from Britain.

This is bizarre.  A reality show in Britain was recreating the open-boat voyage of Captain Bligh, where, after the “Mutiny on the Bounty”, he and his few loyal crew rowed and sailed a small, open boat from near Tahiti to Indonesia, with very brief stops in Fiji and Vanuatu.  This was one of the most spectacular feats of small-boat navigation and seamanship in the by-gone age of sail, when “ships were wood, and men were iron”.  Well, Bligh and his men had no choice, but these fools volunteered.  Actually, there were over a hundred thousand volunteers.  It doesn’t seem like any of them had any clue as to what they were asking for.  Well, the producers were trying to do it right, with an accurate boat replica, and starting with the same food and equipment that Bligh had.  After weeks at sea, they landed only in uninhabited places, one in Fiji and then near here on Gaua, so as not to have any contact with the modern world.  They even had to forage for food and water at these places.  We did not meet any of “Bligh’s” crew, of course, but we did meet a number of the film and support crews.  The show should air in Britain (and on the internet) next February or March.

Back at the guest house, it was now four o’clock, so we walked back over to Mika’s house nearby.  Amid the preparations for the evening’s party, Mika prepared kava to drink with us.  This is a bit more elaborate than cracking a few beers, with quite a process of grinding the root, mixing with water, squeezing and straining, and multiple repetitions.  Finally, he hands us each a cup, which we drink in the prescribed non-stop manner.  Kava doesn’t do much for me, looking like dirty dish water, and tasting how I imagine the same would.  But it’s the social thing here.  We have drunk kava a number of times, and always gotten away with only one cupful.  This time, Mika handed us each a second cup.  Oh well, down the hatch.  I might also mention that the sanitary conditions make one wonder about the whole idea, but “when in Rome …”  Vanuatu kava is stronger than in Fiji or Samoa, and Gaua kava is one of the stronger strains in Vanuatu.  We still had the half-hour walk back to the dinghy, and it was getting near sunset, but we did manage to get there and back out to the boat.

We had rescheduled the hike for the next day, but Jason was tied up with a school project, so Mika guided us instead.  Almost three hours uphill through the jungle to the lake, fifteen minutes sitting on the shore, than over two hours back down, with the half-hour walk on either end.  I could have done without it, but Robyn was hot to go, and it did turn out to be a good experience.  At least, I can say that now that I’m clean and comfortable back on Mintaka.  The lake was beautiful, and we had a great view across to the volcano.

Almost time now for the big festival at Lakona Bay, around on the west side of Gaua, so that’s our next stop.

TIME TO MOVE ON, 5 August 2016

A week before in Sola

It has been said that the two constants in this cruising life are that you’re always lost, and you’re always leaving.  You’re always lost because by the time you know your way around, you leave.  A corollary to that saying is that you know it’s time to leave when you start running into familar faces.

Well, it’s hard not to run into familiar faces in a little village, but this was too much.  When we left Sola, we wanted to stop briefly at the Reef Islands.  These are a small group of uninhabited islands surrounded by a fringing reef.  The anchorage is on the outside of the reef on scattered sandy patches between the coral bommies.  It’s on the lee side of the reef,  but the wind was quite strong that day, causing a vicious wind chop.  Even though there was no ocean swell on the lee side, that wind chop made it difficult to see under the water to find a good spot to drop the hook.  It also made it hard to judge the water depth over the bommies, making me very nervous.  Anyway, we bailed and went on to the next island, Ureparapara.  We had a great time there for almost a week, as I hope you’ve read in the previous post.

We left Ureparapara this morning in company with friends Mark and Susan, bound for a second try at the Reef Islands.  The wind being much less today, and forecast for even less tomorrow, we thought we’d try again.  Found a great spot to anchor, went snorkeling around the bommies — saw two huge, spotted eagle rays, a turtle, one shark and lots of fish — and were enjoying “sundowners” on Erie Spirit in this wild and very remote place.

It’s pitch black out now, but we see a light approaching.  Now, no sane yachtie would be wandering around these coral waters at night, so we are floored when a small island boat pulls alongside with a crew of men to spend the night fishing here.  We all exchange greetings.  One of the men asks if we like pamplemousse — to which I heartily reply yes — and then hands up several bags of them.  In the process, one of the men looks up at Robyn and says, “I met you in Sola last week.”  Must be time to move on.

REUNION AT VUREAS BAY, 30 August 2016

Chief Godfrey & son John

Today was a special day.

After the wind came up and blew us out of the anchorage at the Reef Islands, we sailed on to Twin Waterfall Bay and then Vureas Bay, both on the west side of Vanua Lava, still in the Banks Group, and both of which we had visited two years ago.

Anyway, we came down here yesterday from Twin Waterfall Bay, but didn’t go ashore.  There was quite a surf running, so we joined Mark from Erie Spirit in his motorized dinghy to check it out.  The tide was low, exposing the rocks just below the beach, and the surf was high, and none of us liked the look of it.  We saw no activity on shore either, so we opted to wait till today at a higher point in the tide.

The surf wasn’t as rough today, certainly no worse than many other such landings.  We rowed in close, waited briefly just outside the surf line, watching the wave pattern, then chose a good wave to ride, and landed without mishap.  I should say, though, that I was wearing only my Speedo, with my clothes in a dry bag, just in case.  Susan, Mark’s wife, had just waded in from their dinghy, which is too heavy to carry up out of the surf, and Mark chose not to anchor off and swim ashore, so there was just three in the shore party.

We were met ashore by John, one of Chief Godfrey’s sons.  We had gotten to know him and his wife Christina two years ago, and it only took a moment for him to recognize us.  There had been no activity at the family compound on shore yesterday because they were now living up the hill in the main village.  Chief Godfrey had seen the two yachts from up there yesterday, though, so he and his wife Veronica, together with John and Christina, had come down to welcome us this morning.

We didn’t really know what to expect coming back here.  We had left with deep feelings of affection for the chief and his family, as well as for a number of others here, but we were just visitors then, and two years had gone by.  What kind of reception would we get this time?  Well, we needn’t have worried.  We were greeted like long-separated family.  These are such warm, welcoming people anyway, but this was special.

Christina speaks passable English, John less, Chief Godfrey very little, and Veronica none.  This is why we have been studying Bislama.  Yes, we enjoy languages in general, and yes, it opens doors here, but what we really wanted was to be able to talk with these people here, especially Chief Godfrey.  It’s hard to express my feelings for a man I really hardly know, but when we left two years ago, I felt in some small way that this was my village, and that he was my chief.  We had a delightful conversation, on a variety of topics, and almost exclusively in Bislama.  I didn’t understand everything perfectly, but there were few words that I didn’t recognize, and think I got the gist of everything.

One of the topics of conversation was “kastom”, their ancestral culture, and its gradual loss here, and this is where the day became truly special for us.  Their beliefs, involving spirits and magic and such, are alien to us and completely irreconcilable with our understanding of reality, but we are interested in them, and we respect them.  And they respond to our interest and respect.

Some background first.  Chief Godfrey is one of the two paramount chiefs on this (rather large) island.  Chief Kerely of Twin Waterfall Bay is the other one, but junior to Godfrey.  Initially, chiefs are elected by their communities, but once elected, they retain the title indefinitely.  It gets very complicated, and I understand only a little, but there are numerous grades to being a chief, each one requiring a certain level of kastom knowledge, as well as a pig-killing ceremony — what I wouldn’t give to see one of those!  Godfrey is of grade three.  Kerely, grade two.  All the other community chiefs are of grade one.  Godfrey’s son John was elected here a while ago and is also of grade one.

Somewhere in the conversation, Godfrey decides to show us his personal Kastom altar where he goes to speak with the spirits.  I’m not sure if he’s ever shown this to other outsiders or not — I think I caught the word “never” in Bislama, but I’m not sure.  At any rate, this is unusual.  This altar is a raised, stone-bordered platform, obscured by the jungle, with two carved, stone faces, one male, one female, resting side-by-side.  As we approach, he breaks off some leaves and tosses them onto the altar — to announce our presence, perhaps?  He describes the place, what it means to him, clearly a deeply spiritual place, a very personal, private place.  Only he and I think his son can go up onto it.  It is tabu for everyone else.  It is only for Kastom.  Anyone who goes onto it for any other purpose will die (not be killed, will just die).  It is where he will be buried when he dies.  His father’s altar and grave is adjacent, as is his grandfather’s.  John’s will be adjacent, too.  Just before we leave, he steps up onto the platform to speak with the spirits, then we all leave.  We feel very priviledged.

UREPARAPARA, 3 August 2016

Ureparapara is unique in my experience.  The island consists of a single volcanic cone with one section blown out, forming a harbour ringed by towering walls.  It is also the most remote of the Banks group of islands, which is one of the two most remote groups of islands in Vanuatu.  Fortunately, the entrance faces nearly perpendicular to the trade winds, so neither much wind or swell penetrates.

The people in this settlement, as in others similarly distant in the supply chain, have come to see yachties as a source of goods that are otherwise unobtainable.  We understand this, and have come stocked with various goods that they might need or want, such as used clothing, vegetable seeds, fishing hooks and line, etc.  It’s a good arrangement.  We need fresh food, and an occasional souvenir.  They need what we bring.  Most of the time, we trade.  Sometimes, if we’ve developed friendships, it turns more into giving gifts on both sides.  The people here were unexpectedly generous with produce, and we reciprocated in kind.  One of the men here still uses a sailing rig on his canoe, so we left another defunct sail for him to refashion.

In the two years since our last visit to Vanuatu, the use of solar panels, 12-Volt batteries, and cell phones has proliferated, partly due to the decrease in price of such panels.  The people here did not grow up with any kind of technology, though, and they do not have a clue how it works or how to take care of it.  I am repeatedly asked to check their batteries and panels (the former being flat), and I invariably find the panel size to be inadequate, leading to consistent undercharging, and all too often, ruined batteries.  I gave a presentation here about panels, batteries, and such, but it seems that without any familiarity with any kind of science or technology, the people are not prepared to understand even simple (to me) technical concepts.  They are intelligent people, and they hold a wealth of knowledge about and skill in using their environment, but there is no shared basis of experience and knowledge to build on.

Chief Nicholsen, head of the village here, asked us if we could make a promotional video for them, featuring local women performing “water music”.  Of course, we agreed, with the caveat that we are only amateurs.  I will upload it to YouTube when I find the opportunity, then post  link here.

We’ve had every anchorage to ourselves for a couple of weeks now, ever since leaving Luganville.  Our old friends Mark and Susan, on the boat Erie Spirit — they come from the Lake Erie area of Ohio — came in here right behind us, though, and we have really enjoyed their company.  We actually shared the next several anchorages with them, as I hope you will read in succeeding posts.