VUREAS BAY FESTIVAL

The festival here this year turned out to be a bust because the organizer, a chief from up the coast a bit who had asked for the job months before, for some reason never did anything.  Our friends in Vureas Bay only found this out when they asked him a couple of weeks ago.  They felt obligated to put something together, and even though it was rather short notice, they organized a one-day affair.  As it was, only one other boat showed up.  If we had been the only boat there, we would have told them not to bother, but ….  The result was a little low key, but quite nice anyway.

We of course would have enjoyed a full festival, but it was enough to spend the time with our friends in the village there.  After a few days, though, it was time to head south again.  The season was progressing and we had a long way to go upwind to Port Vila, before we could even think about departing for New Caledonia.  

Our first stop was back at Lakona Bay, a convenient stop for the night.  We probably wouldn’t have gone ashore, since we were leaving early the next morning and we had already said our goodbyes.  We were anchored in full view of the village, though, and we didn’t want to be rude, so we did go ashore, not intending to stay long.  They don’t fully understand our desire to be back on board before dark, and it’s sometimes impossible to get away, especially when they insist that we stay to drink some kava with them — this being a somewhat significant ritual.  We’ve been through this before, and it’s always been meaningful, but we were somewhat taken aback by the level of ceremony this time.  This was more of a formal acceptance of us into their community, well more than as just casual visitors as we’ve experienced in other places.  The kava was prepared strictly according to tradition, pounding in a stone mortar, soaking and squeezing, with multiple repetitions, a time-consuming process.  When it was ready, Chief Starr and his wife Susan each filled a shell, asked us to stand before them, and gave a brief speech.  We replied as best we could in Bislama, whereupon they handed us the shells simultaneously, which we then downed together in one motion as per custom.

We were touched.  I don’t know if we will ever return to either Lakona Bay or Vureas Bay, but we hope to, and we know that if we do, it will be to rejoin a community which we feel somewhat a part of, and which we are sure they feel much the same.

We are in the final preparations for departure from New Caledonia to New Zealand, planning to leave early tomorrow morning, so I’ll leave you here for the time being.  I’ll be back after we get this passage behind us, and fill in more gaps.  It looks like this passage might be a little more “interesting” than we would like, but the potential for cyclones is increasing, so we need to take this opportunity.  It should be safe enough, but maybe not very comfortable.

LAKONA BAY FESTIVAL

We had only been to one other festival in Vanuatu, in Vureas Bay on nearby Vanua Lava two years before.  It was colorful and exotic to us, and we have very fond memories of it and the people there.  There are other, much more elaborate (and both more publicized and more expensive) festivals in Vanuatu, though, of which we had only seen pictures and heard stories.  Our expectations, then, in such a remote and less traveled place, were modest, based on our limited experience.

Well, were we ever surprised.

The morning of the first day, we were met on the beach by hostile warriors wielding clubs and bows and arrows.  After an initial threatening display, a chief came down holding a tabu leaf (a symbol of his authority), called off the warriors, and escorted us up to the festival grounds where we were welcomed with song and flowers by the entire village. 

Festivals in Vanuatu are typically spectator affairs, but not this one.  There were activities in which we could participate, such as a bow-and-arrow competition and a tug-of-war between married men and single men.  We got to paddle in a dugout-canoe race, one yachtie and one local in each canoe — Robyn’s canoe won!  Besides the activities, there were demonstrations of traditional cooking and weaving.  There were magic shows (pretty well done, even if not believable).  Mock war and peace making.  A mock wedding ceremony.  Lots of high-octane bamboo-band music.  Traditional “water music”.  And eye-popping custom dances.  All of this was terrific, but the dances were the highlight.

We had arrived a few days early (actually, our second visit there), and had already gotten to know a number of the people, including the head chief, John Starr, and the anglican minister, Father Levi.  The latter was the organizer for this year’s festival, and he deserves a great deal of credit.  Being known somewhat already, and having some modest ability speaking Bislama — English is not a strong point here — Father Levi announced that I would be his liaison with the yachties.  Oh, joy.  Robyn could have done just as well, but it is a male-dominated culture.  Anyway, the job didn’t amount to much, other then taxing my language abilities, but they did present me with a gift at the end of the festival, a walking stick carved with a seahorse motif.  Cool!

I have numerous video clips from the festial, as well as a short movie that I made, but I have not been able to upload any of them from here.  If and when I succeed with that, I’ll put links on the blog.  But it’ll have to be just still shots for now.

From here, we made the short crossing back to Vureas Bay on Vanua Lava for their festival, and the next blog entry.

Father Levi (center), the Anglican Minister

One of the Spirits

Dugout-Canoe Race

Bamboo Band

Archery Competition

Traditional Cooking Demonstration

Chief Starr demonstrating weaving thatched roofing

Robyn loves to dance

Men's Dance

Chief Starr and Me

Robyn also loves baskets

Traditional dugout canoe

Village Men

Village House

Men's Dance

Open, Friendly People

Men's Dance

More Spirits

Bamboo Band

Basket Weaving Demonstration

Men's Dance

STILL AFLOAT, NEW CALEDONIA, NOVEMBER 19

Well, it has been a while.  The internet connectivity in Vanuatu was problematic, to say the least, and then one thing led to another ….  Sorry about that, but I’ll try to catch up a bit now before we launch off back to New Zealand.

So, where are we?  In a nutshell, we left Vanuatu on Friday, 30 September, for a magnificent two-and-a-half-day passage over to New Caledonia.  We’ve been here ever since, and are sitting at anchor now at Ile des Pins (Isle of Pines, the southeastern extremity of the southern lagoon), waiting for suitable weather for the passage to New Zealand.

We came down here a week ago, with a good forecast for departure earlier this week.  The weather gods changed their minds, though.  It then looked good for today, but that didn’t pan out either.  No idea now how long we might have to wait, but it looks like it might be another week or more.  Then again, considering the trouble and expense many people go to just to visit here briefly, I don’t expect much sympathy.  There are worse places to be stuck for a while.  There are a number of other boats waiting here with us, and we are friends with most of them, so it’s a rather social time.

I left you about to sail back to Lakona Bay on Gaua, in the Banks Group of northern Vanuatu, for their festival there.  That extraordinary event is the subject of my next post.

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.