Ambrym Island

Saturday 11th July Ambrym Island

A full days run to Ambrym Island Is with a good trade wind breeze and sheltered run along the North coast of Ambrym. We looked in at the anchorage at Craig Cove on the North West corner but decided there was too much swell for comfort so continued on to the villages of Ranon and Ranvetlam. This was a good decision as the villagers were very friendly and welcoming.

 They stocked us up with fresh fruit and veges and we were able to help a few with bits and pieces, especially rope for tethering the family cattle in the bush.

some reading glasses and a "cow" rope for the local chief. He was delighted!

We bought bread from a little “bakery” which one enterprising lady had set up in her hut. It was very good!










 The local kids walked with us wherever we went and were keen on the hairclips and ballons Di and Aileen were handing out.

 

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We picked up a few souvenirs including this stone statue being held by the carver

 

 

About to go for a bath - in the sea!

 

Epi Island

Thursday 9^th July Epi Island

After the anchor exercise we had a great sail to Epi Island (Lamen Bay) which took most of the day--all downwind for a change.

Friday 10^th July

After a look around at the local village and airstrip in the morning we spent most of the afternoon walking to the top of the island to take in the view and lush tropical gardens the locals were tending. Another friendly village with many locals commuting in small (overloaded!) boats to Lamen Island after school had finished for the week.








Photo by Sue Dall

This is a well known dugong grazing area, but we didn't spot any this trip



The main jetty here is a wreck so all cargo has to be unloaded by hand onto the beach in front of the village

The airport "terminal"

Its a long walk to the top of the Island

Port Vila (Efate Island)

Wed 1^st July Port Vila (Efate Island)

 After a sleepy start we spent the day moving onto the marina wall, organising customs and quarantine. Port Vila is the nation’s capital and the port where all of the cruise ships visit.

All around us were signs of the damage caused by Cyclone Pam. The harbour is still littered with damaged yachts and fishing boats

Thursday 2^nd July

We were keen to start unloading the boat so hired a car and went and found the Paama Seaside school and church where we were to deliver the 5 computers from the Uniting Church in Castle Hill. After meeting the headmaster and looking around the school we decided they would benefit from some of the school supplies we had on board and they were keen to get the Grade 7 maths books donated by Launceston Grammar.

This school was started by some Aussies who recognised the kids from the local slum wernt going to school and over the past 10 years volunteers have been coming out and building a new classroom every year so it is now a very tidy school and the students here are very keen to get an education.

Friday 3^rd July

Library books from Friends of the Library Launceston

Drove around the island. The villages on the East coast were worst hit by the cyclone and 4 months later little has been done to repair the school buildings. We dropped off library books, school books and children’s clothing to several schools and towels to the local regional hospital.

The government school of Manuur has lost the roofs of more than half of classrooms and these are now covered in tarps and some lessons are conducted in tents.

Staff at Manuur School, Jimmy on the left

Most of the teachers have been living on site in local huts but all of these have been destroyed and the school principal Melizabeth Steele and her family are living in one of the classrooms along with 2 other teachers and their families! They are doing it really tough and to make matters worse the Vanuatu Government is broke due to corruption so these buildings won’t be repaired/ replaced unless some foreign aid is supplied by Australia, New Zealand or similar.

Main Road around Efate still covered with sand

 

The Chinese Government is doing a lot with infrastructure aid such as roads, wharfs and public buildings but they bring in their own labour and materials and don’t employ the local people.

Saturday 4^th July

One of the teachers (Jimmy) drove in to Port Vila and picked up the 70 school shirts and some other gear we had on board. Rainy day so most of the day on board.

Sunday 5^th July

John and Aileen arrived on the evening flight

Monday 6^th July

Another lap around the island with our visitors and Pete in the car, mainly sight seeing and to drop of the remaining linen to the clinic near the Manuur School.

abandoned resort near Port Vila

Tuesday 7^th July

We escape Port Vila for the great little snorkelling area at Hideaway Island of underwater post office fame. In fact we were greatly entertained watching the locals loading a new post office onto their little barge and offloading it into the water. We spent the night at anchor here and said goodbye to Haven 111 who was staying in the Port Vila area a bit longer.

Wednesday 8^th July
 

 

In the morning it was a short sail to Havannah Bay, where we managed to drag anchor when the anchor foul a large rusty iron lid. There must be heaps of debris from the war here as the next morning it was a huge struggle to pull the anchor up as it was caught under a 1” (very old) wire cable! We slowly winched this to the surface and eventually managed to untangle ourselves much to our relief.

Erramango Island (Vanuatu)

 Monday 29^th June. Erramango

We made our farewells early in the morning and set sail to Erramango Island, 45 miles to the North west, once again in the company of the Bavaria 42 Haven 111. This was another bouncy ride in the strong trades but fortunately on a broad reach this time with our usual conservative rig of 3 reefs and No4 headsail.

Our arrival at Dillon Bay didn’t go unnoticed and no sooner was the anchor down, we had David in his red canoe alongside inviting us to visit his village.

The village is known as Port William and has a population of 500, of which 300 are children!

The cyclone in March knocked this island around a lot and the scars are everywhere. They are slowly getting back to normal and there is a lot of rebuilding and garden planting happening.

One of the many new gardens with "leafy" vegetables

selecting Tarro for replanting

Ausaid at work

Jason, the chief was very happy to see the donations we were able to leave and spent some time telling about his village. These people were very tough on the early missionaries and a few ended up on the lunch table, but now they have seven different churches to choose from!  David was keen to show us the skull cave at the back of the village but we declined (saw some of these in the Louisiades!)

They are much more advanced here than at Tanna with many huts having solar power with battery banks and mobile phones but they have no idea on how to maintain them so much of the infrastructure doesn’t work. They appreciate the visits they get from passing yachts as many bring in items to make their life a little bit easier, but these visitors have been rare since the cyclone with most yachts bypassing the Southern Islands in favour of a landfall at Port Vila.

David is keen to attract tourists and most of the villages are working towards lifting their profile and providing basic accommodation in the form of guest houses (huts) for future visitors.

David is building a very grand structure which he also calls his “yacht club” and we spent some time with him discussing his plans for the future. A remarkable man, and anyone reading this who is planning to cruise this area should make an effort to call in.

Tuesday 30^th June.

We delivered 5 bags of donations to the medical infirmary and school before departing in the late morning. The plan was to sail to the top of the island and overnight in one of the small bays mentioned in the sailing guide, before heading to Port Vila.

However as we sailed north we found the South East swell was wrapping around the Northern part of the island. The anchorage we had selected was basically a narrow partially uncharted fiord and although we had google earth images of the spot we decided there was too much wind and uncertainty so both boats decided to bear away and make a night run to Port Vila as this was a much safer option.

This proved to be a good decision and we had a quick run over the 70 miles to Efate. The anchors went down at about 1.30am 
 
 
 
 

Tanna Island

 

 Thursday 25^th June, Tanna

We left the marina at dawn in company with Haven 111 bound for Port Resolution on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, 160 miles away.

This was another bumpy and wet passage, best forgotten, and hopefully the last windward work of the trip. An easier route would have been to make our entrance at Port Vila further to the North but we wanted to go to Tanna to drop off most of the donated goods to the locals who had been hardest hit by Cyclone Pam in March this year and to visit the volcano.

Friday 26^th June

There are two anchorages where you can clear customs at Tanna. The main one is Lanakel, the Capital on the west coast but this is normally a very rolly, shallow bay.

We chose Port Resolution on the NE tip of the island as this is a deep bay with good protection from the trades with little swell. It is also closest to the volcano. We had been emailing customs and had arranged for a customs agent and emigration agent to come to us. Willy from Immigration and Tiun from customs made the 2 hour trip over on the back of a truck to do our clearance.


Locals netting the jack Mackerel schools

Di with a one day old local

 Later in the day we had our first look at the village and were shown around by Johnson and his brother Stanley.

We were impressed by the persistence of the locals who spent many hours each day casting nets from their canoes into the bay to catch the small Jack Mackerel. These fish turn up for about a month each year but this year fortunately had been around for two months and are a great source of protein.

When cyclone Pam went through this island it not only destroyed a large part of their village buildings but also the slow growing root crops and bananas that they rely on for their basic diet. The Vanuatu government had been supplying basic food items such as rice, flour and sugar but this was to stop on the 30^th June. As it will take many months for their traditional foods to regrow they have been supplied seeds for fast growing leafy vegetables such as beans, cabbages, Chinese style veges, tomatoes, corn and chillies. These have been planted under supervision from people from the local agricultural department in Port Vila and have grown like wildfire; the local people have taken to this new style of food supply with enthusiasm and even had enough to bring some as gifts to us. The rebuilding of their village is progressing well but the local guest huts built for the occasional tourist have all been destroyed and this source of income is sorely missed, as tourism has virtually stopped.



remains of the guest houses- just a slab and a hand basin!



damaged house -still being lived in

slow progress cleaning up

a new house under construction

 

We dropped off supplies to the local school and medical dispensary as well as some children’s clothing. Peter had a treat for the local kids with a big supply of old surfboards and boogy boards.

Surfboards donated by Haven 111

There is a white sand beach on the East coast near the Port Resolution village which has attracted a number of international surfers in the past and the local boys are getting into this sport so the boards were an unusual but very acceptable gift to the village.

Saturday 27^th June

The day started with a long walk through two other villages to the hot springs which bubble up onto the beach in the SW corner of the bay. This water is so hot you can cook your veges in the rock pools and the local ladies also do their washing here. The bay has many hot water and steam vents compliments of the local volcano and the area is subject to violent seismic activity.

 

In 1928 the floor of the bay rose from a depth of over 10 metres to less than 5 metres and now prevents trading vessels from entering. The recent erosion of the surrounding hills during the cyclone has further reduced this depth and we could only access about the first third of the bay in Allusive.

Sunday 28^th June

We pottered around the boat in the morning and made a couple of trips ashore in the early afternoon.

We had arranged with Stanley to visit the volcano (Mt Yasur) and in the late afternoon spent a bumpy 40 minutes in the back of a local truck driving over a bush track to get to the ash plain. It was then a steep hike to the rim of the volcano following our local guide Phillip. This was a once in a lifetime experience with the volcano rumbling underfoot and the lava being thrown up to 100 meters in the air not far from where we stood. The glow of the lava in the gathering dusk was better than any fireworks display we had seen.


The long walk up to the top

 This is a fairly popular natural attraction and people fly down from Port Vila regularly to see this awesome display. The OH&S is non-existent and it is a steep drop from the inside edge of the rim into the volcanoes maw on one side and just as steep on the outer side which is a long steep slope down the side of the mountain.


the viewing edge

 

The volcano is quietly erupting all of the time with the occasional big bang when the larva is thrown up higher than the top where we were standing but drops down safely inside the crater.

This guy had a drone with camera which he was flying over the crater. Luckily it wasn't shot down by flying larva! Note the long drop to the valley floor

Di and I were very impressed by the experience.

 

 

 

 

Loyalty Island of Lifou

Tuesday 23^rd June,  Loyalty Islands

Allusive arrived at the small port of We on the East coast of Lifou which is the central of the 3 Loyalty islands not long after dawn.

This is an exposed port but there is a new marina cut into the shore which will hold about 30 boats and the rates are very cheap at about $20 per night. There was one other Aussie boat “Osprey” a new Bavaria 42 from Brisbane here when we arrived and Haven 111 arrived a few hours after us having sailed from one of the New Caledonian East coast anchorages. We had pre-arranged this meeting as we were sharing clearing expenses out of New Caledonia and into Vanuatu. Pete is sailing solo and is good company. We have also been able to help one another with a few boat jobs which makes life easier.

This little fleet of immaculately maintained Elliot 5.9 yachts intrigued me. They are owned by the local school over the road and are used to teach the students from the area the basics of sailing.
they also bring in students from other areas to sample the sport. Unfortunately there didn't appear to be a local yacht club and they couldn't advance in the sport.

The local community is mainly Kanak  and we saw very few Europeans. Our  school French has is improved dramatically as very few people here speak English and we had to find some way to communicate apart from sign language.

We didn’t move far from the boat today as we needed to catch up on some sleep.

Wednesday 24^th June

A hire car had been dropped off at the marina for the 3 of us and we spent most of the day touring the island and trying out the local foods. The scenery is spectacular in many areas and the beaches and foreshores are from a tropical island paradise picture book.
we did not see many tourists on the island and most of the beaches appeared deserted.

Late in the afternoon we drove to the airport to pick up our passports. Chloe had cleared us out through immigration in Noumea and put them on the plane for us. This cost about $70.00 each and is a godsend, as all outward clearances have to be done in the capital. Once cleared we are supposed to leave NC waters within 24 hours.