Tainui Internet Log
October 2000
Recorded by Brian Fairweather
This month started out on the ocean, sailing to Vanuatu - we have been in Port Vila for a few days, having picked up Dan's friend Nick Brown, our newest crewmember. From here, we plan to head off to the remote islands and volcanoes... Next, it's onwards to New Caledonia, where there is a festival occurring that happens only once every four years - all the South Pacific islands will be represented, so Scott and Nick will get a short intro to the stuff we've been seeing for the last six months.
Vanuatu seems pretty good so far - Port Vila is clean, pretty and the people are very nice. One great thing about Vanuatu is that they speak English, French and the national language, Bislama (Pidgin). Bislama is a legitimate language, with a formal sentence structure, etc., but it derives from the English brought to the islands by the whalers two hundred years ago, combined with the English learned by indentured servants in Australia, who brought the language back to their homes in Melanesia (most notably Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.)
Vanuatu actually has over 100 other indigenous languages and is the most 'densely languaged' place on earth - on average, there is a separate language for every 1200 people here! Bislama is the common language that allows everyone to communicate, and it is tons of fun... here's an example:
When things like painos were introduced, the locals had no word for it, so they just used a description: "Bigfala bokis blong waetman, tut blong em sam i blak, sam i waet; team yu kilim emi singaot." Literally, this means: "Big box belonging to white man, some of its teeth are black, some white; when you hit it, it cries out!"
I think that this is fun, and having studied the book "Evri samting yu wantem save long Bislama be yu fraet tumas blong askem,*" I have started to try to speak it with the natives whenever possible. It is surprisingly easy when you understand the grammar and sentence structure - you just have to guess at some of the words, but you've got a pretty good chance unless you want to talk about things like pianos...
(* "Every something you want to savvy about Bislama but you are afraid too much to ask...")
So, welcome to the Bislama edition of the TAINUI log...
By the way, Nick brought a digital camera with him, so we should now get twice as many pictures!
October 1 – Bot blong mifela bin kam long Pango Point long sapa long seven klok. Pango Point emi no gat laet, GPS emi gudfela! Mifela i bin kasem Port Vila, bin dropem angka long ten klok.
Translation: Boat belonging to us came towards Pango Point in the evening at seven o'clock. Pango Point has no light, GPS is a good thing! We arrived at Port Vila, dropped anchor at 10 o'clock.
October 2 – Dan emi bin takem pepa blong mifela, emi wokbaot long Customs, emi kambak long dina. Mifela i bin askem long yacht club stop ia long wof. Wof emi no fulap, bot blong mifela bin kam stap klosap long "Miquette." Emi longfela bot blong Amerika - Kaptin blong bot emi yangfela nomo - twante-tre, twante-fo. Olgeta i askem mifela wantem sapa stap long bot blong oli. Mifela sayem tangkyu tumas! Oli kukem fis, emi gudfela.
Translation: Dan he took our papers, walked to Customs, came back around lunchtime. We asked at the Yacht Club if we could pull into the wharf. The wharf wasn't full, so our boat came in alongside "Miquette." She is a big American boat - the Captain was only a young guy - twenty-three, twenty-four. They asked us if we wanted to eat dinner on their boat. We said, "Thanks alot!" They cooked a fish, which was excellent.
OK, doing the entire log in Bislama is going to be a bit tough, since there are lots of things that I want to say that I don't know the words for - at least you get the point . When you talk to people, it sounds like you're an extra Indian in a bad spaghetti Western - "Me heap big chief, you fella go ride sunset..." I would love to sit down with a local for a frew hours and really practice - maybe out in the remote islands...
I did manage to get to the internet cafe and found that Vanuatu has very good connectivity - hooray! I finally uploaded all those photos! (If I get a chance, I'll do more today...)
October 3 – Mark, Alan, Russel and Katarine on "Miquette" headed off at about 9am, so we waved goodbye and watched them maneuver out... I went shopping for the first time in a long time and did something I should have done a long time ago - I bought a guitar. The truth is, I now have about seven guitars, but they are in storage all around the world. Three in Boston, one at my parent's house, a couple in Sydney... (I think.) I haven't really played seriously in ten years, but I still pick it up and practice every once in a while - it would have been perfect to practice on those long boring night watches!
I had just unpacked the guitar on the boat and was playing a few tunes for Scott, when I saw another guy sitting on the lawn near the quay, playing guitar, too. How bizarre - I haven't run into any other guitarists on the whole trip - I walked over and told him that I just bought one and sat down with him. Warrick is a younger guy on the yacht "Cordelia", just a few boats down from us - he was just starting out playing, so I showed him some basic stuff and before you knew it we were winding up a two-hour long discussion of music theory, from major and minor scales to triads and chord progressions! I had forgotten that I knew all this stuff and nothing is better than teaching to remind you of what you really know...
Dan, Scott and I had a big salad for dinner and watched the end of "Caddyshack." Dan and I have now seen that movie about 4000 times, while it was brand new for Scott...
October 4 – Decided to explore a bit today, so we rented scooters and went cruising around the coast, out towards Pango Point. You're suppose to stay on the main road, but of course we didn't! There was some beautiful coastline and a resort way out through the bush... we stopped in for a drink and found that there was only one guest at the resort - I generously offered to buy drinks for everyone in the place, which was the three of us, since the one hotel guest must have been in his room...
After that, Scott's scooter decided to stop working. Fortunately, we were back on the paved roads by then, so we didn't get caught... We rode the short way back to the rental place to tell them. The scooter rentals were from the local dive shop (obviously) and the guy who runs the place was later proven to be a real jerk, but we got the first hint here that he wasn't very bright, either. After we had just come all the way back from where we left the scooter, he took Scott in his truck back there. Dan and I diligently followed, as I thought, "give us a new scooter and go get the old one yourself!"
Of course, we rode all the way out there and the guy realised that he couldn't fix the scooter either, so now we would have to ride all the way back. Dan and I turned around and rode this path for the fourth time of the day, back to the shop. Finally on his new scooter, Scott joined us and he and Dan went west to find the Hideaway Resort, on a small island in the middle of Mele Bay. I went the other way to try to find the Meridien hotel, as I had one free night coupon that was about to expire, so I thought I'd use it up. I did find the hotel and booked myself in, then joined them out at the resort. It was a cool place, with supposedly the best snorkeling around Vanuatu. Unfortunately, the day was a bit grey and the water not exceptionally warm, so I paid 400 vt for a mask/snorkel, swam for five minutes and thought, "Great fish," then got out. We headed back to TAINUI and this is when the scooter guy proved to be such a mindless jerk.
I wanted to keep the scooter overnight, to make it easy to get back and forth from the hotel - he told me, "the scooter has to be back by 5:30pm" - as if the scooter's needs and desires somehow were known and were more important than mine. I told him that I was staying at the Meridien and the scooter would be safe with me, I would pay the extra money, etc., etc., etc. He didn't care - he kept saying that the scooter "needed" to be locked up. I looked at him like I thought he needed to be locked up more than the scooter did, then went and returned the thing to the clerk. They had the gall to charge me for an extra hour, after we spent all that time chasing this moron when Scott's scooter had broken down, plus the girl behind the counter had originally said we could just keep them out for a bit longer without saying we would have to pay. I didn't want to hang around for the sake of arguing, so I paid the three dollars extra and just want to say, "DO NOT RENT SCOOTERS FROM NAUTILUS DIVE SHOP IN PORT VILA!"
Ha. There's your three bucks in lost business, I hope.
I went back to the Meridien on the bus with a change of clothes and was planning to hang out for the night, but it was a bit boring, so I headed back to TAINUI, thinking I could at least pick up my guitar and get some practice in. Perfect timing - Warrick was just coming by in a fast dinghy to ask if I wanted to go to the big party on the three-masted schooner in the middle of the Harbour. I jumped aboard with a few beers and we were off!
Turned out that this massive ship was having a barbeque and party and that all sorts of yachties/backpackers and various other showed up. One guy named Francis brought a guitar and was playing all the standards really well. I considered this another omen - two guitarists in two days since I bought the guitar - and Warrick volunteered to take me back to TAINUI to get mine. I ended up playing along with Francis for about four hours and have nearly convinced myself that I should go home and join a band...
Finally, after a long night, I went back to the Meridian and slept in a king-size bed for the first time in months.
October 5 – I came back to the boat, where everybody was up a bit late again after last night's activities - Scott and I went provisioning and bought a couple trolleys full of food and drink for the next journey. Nick is due to arrive this evening and we're planning to leave tonight to head to some of the northern islands of Vanuatu. However, we forgot that it's a National Holiday today and the Customs/Immigration offices are all closed, so we can't get a permit for the inter-island sailing! Also, Dan can't get his laundry back until tomorrow. Once Nick arrives, we discover that the airline has lost his luggage and it won't show up until tomorrow anyway... looks like one more night in Port Vila, which is fine by me, since I can now get the log updated - maybe even new pix!
We had some drinks aboard to welcome Nick, then headed to the Rossi restaurant, which is meant to be the best restaurant in Port Vila (and therefore Vanuatu). It was excellent - I highly recommend the flying fox appetizer (yes, that's a 'bat' for all those back in the USA...) - tastes nothing like chicken and nothing like what you might expect a bat to taste like. It was more like a cross between goose and beef, but really nice and done well.
When in Vila, eat at Rossi's, as far as I'm concerned!
The rest of the night was spent stumbling from one fairly lousy bar to another, but in truth it was all a bit short lived and we didn't get home too late.
October 6 – That said, it is now 11:45am on the 6'th and Dan and Nick are still unconscious.
I actually woke up early today, to try to do some work on the website and just remembered something: I turn 1,000,000,000 seconds old on October 5, 2000 at 9:46pm Eastern USA time (seriously!) That just happens to be about 1 hour from now, due to the difference in time zones, so I think I'll go call my Mom and Dad and then have a nice lunch to celebrate...
Nick's luggage arrived at about 11:30 at night, so we are now ready to depart for Malakula!
October 7 – Left at almost exactly midnite, sailing through the morning with a following wind... it's not as rough on the water tonight as people in Port Vila seemed to think it would be. Arrived in the afternoon at Banen Bay on Malakula Island - there are six other boats in the harbour, including one that apparently makes pizza and will deliver it to your boat! You still have to cook it, though. We decline, but it's an interesting idea... That evening, we have drinks with yacht Big Easy (Mark) and Peace Frog (Micheal, Anna and Jamie)...
October 8 – Left about midday to head north - sailed up to Crab Bay, where we saw Peace Frog and Big Easy again... this time it's just the three yachts in the harbour... the guys on Peace Frog managed to hook a VERY big Trevally and had to get in their dinghy to land it, as it was about to break the line... they brought it over to us for advice, as they were concerned about ciguatera, a reef organism that fish eat that causes toxicity. Unfortunately, Trevally are predators and this one is so big, he has eaten enough small fish (which eat ciguatera) to be dangerous. They plan to return him to the sea - not sure how well the fish will do, but it's not worth the risk to eat him!
October 9 – Heading North again, towards Wala Island. Stopped in at Norsup Bay to get provisions, and I took the kayak out for a test drive, having never tried it. Managed to paddle over to the one other yacht anchored nearby, named Sapphire IV - John and Janet Read are aboard and we quickly work out that John's brother Kevin was the original builder/owner of our yacht TAINUI! It is a very small world, this fraternity of yachties...
I invited John and Janet aboard to have a look around - it had been twenty years since John was aboard - he sailed her to Tasmania once to deliver her down to Hedley Calvert, the second owner. He took some video, which I hope will be good fun for Kevin, who now builds custom kitchens in Melbourne...
We had to head off to go north to Wala Island, a small islet just off the coast of Malekula that creates a sheltered harbour, so we said goodbyes and sailed north again... made it to Wala at about 5pm and had a swim - this place has the best snorkeling of anywhere I have been, I think! I am not usually too excited about reef snorkeling, having had my fill over the last half year, but the scenery below the water here is spectacular - there are several coral heads in shallow water, with everything from sea fans to brain coral, starfish and a thousand fin fish, all different colours, sizes and shapes. It is remarkably undisturbed and undamaged, and we all spend a bit of time over the side.
There is only one other boat anchored with us, with an American couple on board - can't remember their names at the moment!
This evening, Scott and I went to the local kava bar, so Scott can try it out. The kava in Vanuatu is different to that in Fiji and Tonga, in that they grind it fresh, rather than dried. It is therefore about ten times stronger - in Vanuatu, you drink a couple bowls instead of the litres that they drink elsewhere. I practice my Bislama with Charles, a local who brings us to a hut (built by his nephew) that houses the kava bar. It is dark inside and the bar is at the far end, while there are benches around the other walls. The floor is dirt and the locals sit quietly on the benches, drinking the occassional bowl and then spitting onto the floor. (I am glad I brought shoes this time..) I follow suit, finding the kava very strong but somehow better tasting than the muddy water we have had elsewhere. It also numbs your mouth on contact, whereas the Fijian stuff took three or four bowls to have a similar effect.
It occurs to us that this is the farthest north (just north of 16 degrees south latitude) that we have gone or will go on this trip...
October 10 – We stayed the day in Wala, taking a walk around the island, which has some interesting coral/limestone features. We are not supposed to go inland, as there are many tabu (forbidden) places on the island that we should not disturb...
The smaller islands in Vanuatu, which are less influenced by modern western culture, are known as 'kastom' (custom) villages. Very few of them are accessible or frequently visited by outsiders - hence the 'less influenced by western culture' - but several other villages put on shows that demonstrate 'kastom' practices. We and the people from the other yacht are booked in to see kastom dancing in Walarano, the village on the main island Malakula, opposite Wala Island. It is just far enough to be a wet ride in our small dinghy, so we hire a boat from Wala island to take us across and back.
We are greeted by Stephen, who takes us up the hillside through this village and up to a special area that has been set aside for kastom dancing. Apparently, the chief and his helpers live up here, while the rest of the villagers live down in the main area by the water. I spoke French, Bislama and English to Stephen - between the three languages, we were able to get most eveything across.
When we arrive at the top of the hill after a ten minute hike, Stephen leaves us at the end of the path, to go and let the others know we are here, and to change into his ceremonial costume, which consists of a 'namba,' or penis sheath, and... well nothing else, really.
The local villages, along with the southern villages, are known as 'small nambas,' whereas their neighbors in the very north-west part of the island are known as 'large nambas.' (This probably refers only to the size of the sheath, but I'm sure there has been much historical tribal warfare based on insults and bad jokes...) As a side note, our guide book states that the last known cannibal feast in Vanuatu was held in 1969 and the culprits were the Big Nambas...
As we wait to be led into the ceremony area, it begins to rain... a lot. After a while, Stephen returns with some other villagers who bring large palm leaves for us to use as umbrellas! We head off down the path and arrive at a flat area, surrounded by several huts and trees. The dancing takes a while to begin, due to the rain, so we are entertained by the little boys who run around naked and play in the mud, while the young girls stayed with us under the shelter of a main hut.
The dancing itself was performed by the men, all dressed in nambas, with headdresses and body paint - there was a canoe dance, a bird dance and a few others - the women did a ceremonial chant and played a game with grapefruit that the young children then tried to imitate... Stephen took us to the ceremonial huts and explained the meaning and usage of various tools, drums and buildings... we headed back down the hill, slipping in the mud, and climbed into the boat to go back to Wala Island.
That evening, we sailed for Ambrym Island...
October 11 – Arrived at Ambryn at 5:30am, where we anchored on the western coast between the villages of Ranon and Ranvetlam, in Hot Water Bay. Speaking to the villagers, I found that there were no longer hot water springs in the area, but that there once had been, owing to the volcanic nature of the island...
We went ashore and walked around, towards the village of Ranvetlam, which offers tours of the local volcano - we met up with a local who took us up to the village and the home of the chief, Joseph Bong, who also is an accomplished carver. He told us that he had been to Europe to show his work and I bought a nice stone carving from him, since I didn't have anything in stone yet!
After we finished in the village, we walked back down along the coastline towars the mouth of the small river that we had anchored near. We walked right up the river bed, which was fairly dry in most places, but the small stream did cause some sinkholes, which were very exciting when you put your foot in one, expecting solid ground, and instead going in up to your knee! My heart jumped the first time, as I thought of quicksand, which I suppose there could have been - I think it's caused by slow running water through soft sand...
In any case, we made it up the river safely and reached a very large waterfall that poured down into a brackish pool - the one time I really wanted my digital camera today - why didn't I bring it?? Dan went up the hill to climb the waterfall and head towards the village of Ranon through the forest, while Scott and I decided to walk along the beach in the same direction and meet Dan up there. We were greeted with waves and smiles by most of the people we saw and walked up to another stream, then across to the main town. The schoolchildren were playing under a tree and came over to say Hello and ask our names - we said Hi and told them (all in Bislama), then walked to the small shop and bought some drinks. As we headed back, two teenage boys offered to show us the way back to Hot Water Bay, along some paths through the village. We followed, and when we got far away from the village, onto the beach, they pulled out some woodcarvings and offered to trade us for them... they were simplistic carvings of the tamtam drums that are supposed to be carved only by chiefs, so that is probably why they were being so secretive... we decided to take two of them in exchange for some rope. The boys were not very clear on how much rope they actually wanted - at first they said, "up to you," then I indicated about 15 feet and said I would give them that much. They said they wanted two that length to tie up cows, so I agreed and Scott and I took the carvings back to the boat. I found about 40 feet of our old roller furling line, which would hold any cow quite securely. Rather than cut it, I thought I would leave it to them to decide how long or short they might want the pieces. Here it started...
When I brought the rope back to them, they said thanks and I told them to cut it as desired. I headed back to the boat, then saw Dan walking towards the beach, so went back again to pick him up. When I reached the shore, the boys were there and complained that I had given them only one piece of rope! I explained that it was very long and good rope and they should cut it, but they insisted that it was not good enough. This really pissed me off - I had just traded forty feet of fairly expensive rope (probably originally cost $30AUD minimum) for a couple of mediocre carvings and THEY were complaining!?! All in your perspective, I guess... They insisted that it wasn't good enough and wanted their carvings back. I said, "Fine," took the rope back, dropped off Dan, got the carvings and went back to the beach again! It was all friendly, but I thought they were silly to reject the deal - they got nothing in the end and I wasted quite a bit of dinghy fuel going back and forth like that...
That evening, we met Od (Swedish) and Anu (Finnish) from Wild Rose, who are the only other boat anchored with us in Hot Water Bay - we had some drinks on TAINUI and then headed off to sleep...
October 12 – We woke up early, at about 5:30am, as we had made arrangements to climb the local volcano. We considered ourselves lucky, as the volcano is often closed from October to January, to avoid upsetting the yam gods - if the volcano is disturbed, the yam gods may not provide a good harvest this season, you see...
Od and Anu had planned to go along with us, but they came over early to tell us that the villagers had held a meeting last night and decided that the volcano should be closed! The chief had to agree, as he would be in big trouble if he took us up and then the harvest failed! So, no volcano tour and we left the anchorage at 7:30am to head for Lamen Bay, where we knew there was a friendly dugong, which is known as a cowfis - cow fish - in Bislama. They are vegetarian animals which graze on the grass at the bottom of a lagoon - they have tails like dolphins, a face like a jowly dog and they are mammals... very bizarre, so we really wanted to swim with one and everyone seemed to think the one in Lamen Bay was the most tame...
We arrived at Lamen Bay, Epi and saw that Waxwing, Aramia, and a couple other boats were already there. It was a bit late in the afternoon, and the water looked dark and uninviting, but we went for a swim anyway - no cowfis, but a few turtles were spotted, sticking their heads up above the surface.
October 13 – We got up relatively early and found that the morning sun cut right through the water, so that it was beautifully clear, and the bottom was easily seen all around the boat. I heard Susan and Peter from Waxwing, out in the anchorage, swimming and talking - the dugong was there! I went right over the side with snorkel gear, after waking the others. I managed to swim over just in time to see the dugong's tail flicking away. No dugong for now - we probably scared it off. We spent some time swimming with turtles, and then got back aboard TAINUI. After a brief while, I glanced over the side and saw the dugong just next to the boat! We all slipped in quietly and swam over - the dugong was on the bottom grazing, and we took turns diving down to swim alongside, and even pet him! My digital camera doesn't work underwater, but Dan's camera does and we got lots of shots - hope they come out!
After a good long swim and play with some turtles, we went for a walk in the village and booked ourselves into the small beachfront restaurant for dinner. The food was actually fantastic and not very expensive, with a huge meal of fish, taro, vegetables, meat, etc. We brought our own wine and were the only people in the restaurant...
We left for Port Vila that night after dinner, deciding to do an overnight and arrive early in the morning.
October 14 – We arrived back in Vila by 0930, took on some diesel and found a place to pull into the quay again. Not much done that I can remember, just hanging out.
October 15 -16 - Stayed in Vila to do some internet stuff - got into the Vanuatu Telecom building when it was closed, to do emails. The people there were really cool and didn't even charge me much, after I spent about eight hours over the weekend, uploading photos! Great value... we did a bit of shopping for food and relaxed...
October 17 – We had arranged to head south to the volcanic island of Tanna, to check out of Vanuatu and head to Noumea. They make it a bit difficult - you have to pay for a customs agent to fly down to the island, then if things take too long, you have to put him up for the night, etc. It's all a big drama and fairly expensive, so you usually get several boats to share the cost - we had several boats lined up to join us, as we had organised it all and bought a ticket for the customs man. However, the weather was not cooperating, with winds from the south, and most of the boats decided not to go... there are also many boats who check out at Vila and then go south to Tanna anyway - while this is technically illegal, it happens a lot. We were somewhat annoyed that a lot of the boats who had said they would go backed out, but there were four of us left, which should help with the costs...
We left Vila at noon, and by 4pm we had caught a large swordfish! It was very exciting, as we never had caught anything like this before - he was almost as big as the first MahiMahi we caught but with sharp teeth and a very long, thin body. They are also very good to eat! He was actually easy to pull aboard, as his body slipped through the water quite easily. A quick gaff below the spine and he was on deck - then it got interesting! The big fish thrashed around a bit before we got out our trusty bottle of Karlsbader Becker - a disgusting herbal liquer that is terrible to drink, but very good for paralysing fish - pour it in the gills and they get very relaxed all of a sudden. I wrestled with the fish and we got a bit of alcohol into him, then I stabbed him in the brain with a long knife - sounds bad, but at least it's quick.
We started to prepare the fish for bleeding - gill cuts, a cut behind each side fin, and one just under the tail - this alows his blood to flow out as you drag him over the side - supposedly makes the meat taste better and definitely saves the mess on the deck... You can tie them with a rope around the tail or through the jaw and gills to drag them with - I did the jaw this time, as it gets more water through the mouth and gills - he was over the side and bleeding well - I pulled him back aboard and found that there was more to go, so I lifted him back over the side - and watched in horror as his jaw separated and our big fish dropped off the line into the deep blue sea! We did a quick turn and circled around, but I knew it was too late - I could see the carcass sinking as soon as it had hit the water, and by the time we got back to the spot, he was long gone.
There was a lot of swearing.
October 18 – Arrived at Port Resolution, Tanna at 10:15am - a beautiful anchorage in a little cove, along with the three other boats signed up to go out with us, plus a few others who were doing the sneaky thing. One French yacht actually hadn't even checked into Vanuatu at all - they were just stopping here and then leaving for another country without ever registering! All very illegal. And a bit annoying, as we recognised a couple yachts that had been in Vila, so they knew we were coming down here, but had decided to check out in Vila and avoid sharing the cost of flying customs down here. Pretty low...
Jon and Janet on Waxwing let us know that we could climb the Mt Yasur volcano that afternoon if we wanted, which we all agreed to! Most of the boats in the anchorage signed up and we had a long, bumpy ride in the back of an open truck, up to the volcano - the scenery was awesome, and we reached the cone before sunset, so we climbed up and had a look around. There was quite a bit of steam, and the occasional low spurt of magma down in the inside of the volcano crater - it was all reassuringly far away, and the local told us that the volcano was quiet lately. We were standing around, talking in Bislama and English to the guides, who told us of a Japanese lady who had had her head removed by some flying magma a few years before, while one of the tour guides standing next to her was killed by another piece that drilled through his chest. The guide said that he had seen the man fly through the air from the force of the blow...
Just then, the volcano gave a loud WHOOSH and magma flew VERY HIGH in the air. You should have seen us run! Everybody had made an instinctive retreat of at least a few feet, then I turned and saw that, while magma was still flying high, it was not going to hit us... it did land about two thirds of the way up the side of the crater towards us, and when it hit the earth again, it glowed for a long, long time. Amazing, and from then on, as it got darker, the show began... with less light, it was easy to see each individual bit of super-heated rock that was projected upwards by the gases coming out of the bubbling crater at the centre of the volcano. There were a couple more big bangs that were very impressive and I am sure that a few undergarments were in need of washing by the time we were done at the volcano...
October 19 – Decided to go for a walk today... wanted to go to a waterfall, but found out that it was a bit too far. We met some locals, who offered to have two young boys guide us to the path towards the waterfall, that went to a river, where we could swim. We went past the road to the volcano, and ended up at a small river in view of the volcano cone, after a few hours. We threw rocks into the river, trying to hit targets or get closest to the opposite bank - the boys were amazing shots - they could skip rocks better than we could, and they were deadly accurate with the small stones. They even took a few throws at birds flying by - they would call to them, and when they came out of the trees, they would hurl a stone and often miss by inches! They obviously practised hunting this way and said that the birds were good to eat...
October 20 – Scott and I went into town with the other boats to meet the customs man, as the taxi truck driver had to go in to pick him up anyway. It was a chance to see the village and shop in the market - the drive and scenery turned out to be quite good, but the customs experience was ridiculous. When the agent arrived, he wanted to go back to the boats to inspect the duty free goods that we had purchased. We got upset that we had come all the way out to meet him and save time, but this was on the bad advice of the people back at the anchorage - it all went back and forth until a few of the ladies from the other boats had a go at the agent, saying that we had done it all the right way, while other boats were visiting illegally, etc. Finally, he backed down and we all checked out and received clearance... I thought it was all going well until it became clear that the taxi situation was a bit unstable. Dan had prepaid the taxi fare to the customs agent in Vila, but it now appeared that this was only to cover the agent's trip from the airport to the anchorage - since everything had changed around, there was a lot of confusion over who owed who money for our ride to the village, the custom's agent's transport to the airport, etc. It was all finally resolved with a bit of money back-and-forthed, wherein we ended up out of pocket an extra 100 vatu (about $1 AUD). The comedy of it all was that, while we were at the police headquarters in the village, awaiting the arrival of the customs agent, we had entertained ourselves reading the local Omsbudsman's reports on the misconduct of all the government officials in Vanuatu! Seems there's a bit of skimming going on at many levels, I think...
We left Tanna at 10pm to sail to Noumea...
October 21 – Sailed all day, not much exciting except the breakage of one of our pulleys for the staysail...
October 22 – We arrived at the outer reef in the morning, and were doing some fast sailing through Canal Woodin, up to about 10 knots - aided by a fast current. We got close to the city and I recognised the Meridien Hotel, where I had stayed with Kath back in March of this year. There were people out kite surfing, more on fast windsurfers and several in speedboats. One of them came a bit close and cut our fishing line! Hope he has fun getting that out of his prop...
We arrived in Port Moselle Marina in a strong wind, took a berth on the visitor's dock and saw lots of yachts we recognised: Cordelia from Vila (Warrick/John), Neverending from Tanna (Gordon/Margaret), Piquet from Opua (Peter) and others.
October 23 – Went out for breakfast and lunch, then to the internet cafe, where we were pleased to find VERY FAST connections - makes the rest of the south pacific look like tin cans and string... Had dinner at a pizza place with Warrick from Cordelia. It turns out that the Opening Ceremony for the Arts Festival was postponed due to rain - although we later heard that there was some friction between the locals (Kanaks) and the French organisers over the content of the ceremony... (more on that later!).
I hung out and played guitar on Cordelia, then saw Sapphire IV with John and Janet aboard, as I walked back to TAINUI at about 1am - I stopped off to say Hi and John pulled out a guitar, too! Does everybody suddenly play guitar out here?
October 24 – We went down to the Festival Village to have a look around - there were supposed to be a lot of canoes arriving into the beach at Baie de Citron, so we wanted to see them, but like most things during the festival, it appeared to be terribly coordinated and we missed it completely...
October 25 to 31 - The rest of the month was spent on the vistors' dock at Port Moselle Marina - we are waiting for our HF radio to be shipped to us from England, where Dan's dad had it fixed. Unfortunately, the courier company seems to have totally screwed up and now the radio will not be here for a while. I am also waiting for a package from Port Vila - seems I left the cable that connects my camera to my computer back in the Vanuatu Telecoms office! I ended up buying a new adapter for the photocard anyway, which transfers the photos at about 50 times the speed of the old connector...
During this week, we lazed around an awful lot, heading to the Festival events every once in a while, but finding that it was all pretty badly organised, slow and a bit boring! The delayed Opening Ceremony (now on the 26'th, halfway through the Festival) was an absolute travesty! We paid 500 francs for tickets and took a taxi out to the stadium where it was to be held. We saw Ian and Joanne from Endless Summer there, along with Mike (remember Mikeala?) from Rhapsody, so we sat with them.
So this is supposed to be a celebration of South Pacific Arts, remember?
The first thing that happened was a whole buch of schoolkids came out into the stadium, all lit up with glow-in-the-dark tubes around their necks, arms and ankles. Not exactly traditional island attire. Then, as night fell, the New Caledonian President came out and made a VERY LONG AND BORING speech about how wonderful the French were for supporting the festival, etc., etc. The crowd jeered and interrupted at the end of every sentence, which indicated the level of discord between the indigenous peoples and the French occupiers! Then, some other French guy came out and gave an equally boring (but shorter) speech about the exact same thing!
Isn't this a celebration of the indigenous cultural arts???
Now, all these schoolkids get up and start running around the field for twenty minutes, led by several latex-clad adults and accompanied by the worst French pop synthesyser music you could imagine... I didn't mind the latex ladies, but WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SOUTH PACIFIC ARTS???!!!??? So far, this is a celebration of French politics, French 'art' (if you call impressionistic neon glow-in-the-dark twelve-year-old meaningless running around 'art'), and French 'music' (if you call auto-play mindless Casio keyboard burbling 'music').
Then, after some delay, a bunch of people came out to wave long blue sheets of plastic (the ocean) while each visiting country was called out to walk through the field (er, ocean) carrying a small ship with the name of the country written on it. I think this was symbolic of... well, ships crossing the ocean from each of these countries... wow. (All still accompanied by bad synth music...)
It took a hell of a long time to announce every country, since they each then walked all the way around the entire stadium track and waved at the crowd. Believe it or not, this was actually the best part of the show.
Here's the point - I understand it's an opening ceremony, not an actual performance by each group, but how about spending some time actually allowing each place to demonstrate their own music/dance/heritage, etc. without totally overshadowing it with Francofied garbage?!?
Don't get me wrong, I actually like France, French people in general, the language, and many other aspects of their culture, including cheese, wine and very short skirts. However, this was complete crap, it pissed me off and I left just as the group of schoolkids got up to start running around like idiots again... as I walked away from the stadium, there were a few feeble fireworks as the ceremony closed, but Scott and Dan said I didn't really miss much...
A total contrast was the Tahitien Spectacular that we went to at the Tjibaou Cultural Centre the next night - it cost 2000 francs and worth every penny - more great dancing from the Polynesian Islands, who seem to be the most energetic and interesting people, as far as dance is concerned. On the way back to Port Moselle from the event, we were trying to hitchhike, when a car swerved towards us - it was Phillipe and Christale, whom we had met in Musket Cove on Dan's birthday! They live in New Caledonia and had spotted us on the side of the road - what a great coincidence! We went out to a few bars with them and met some friends of theirs, so now we are part of the Noumea club scene - we spent a few nights out dancing and drinking in the downtown clubs, including Halloween, where we got dressed up in silly wigs and masks, had a party on the boat and went out afterwards...
Not much else happened in Noumea during October, except that we rented a car, and drove to some scenic parkland areas, with Deb and Justin from yacht Good Eye Deer, whom we met way back in Rarotonga and have seen a few times around the Pacific. They are one of the few yachts tha are actually owned by people our age and we have had a great time with them! We did a bit of swimming, picnicing and sightseeing around the park, then drove back to the Marina and hung out a bit...
Noumea is alright, but I am definitely eager to return to Australia - we have had a long period of sitting on the visitor's dock and we are all ready to get sailing again soon...
Hope you enjoyed reading - please feel free to send news from home to [email protected] - catch you soon and don't forget the pictures!