The Good and the Bad

We’ve been hijacked by Vanuatu, which is so lavishly vibrant and distracting that I haven’t blogged for ages.  Apologies to our fan (that’s you Mama).

And since we’ve arrived my opinions about the place have see-sawed and changed about every five minutes so that blog posts that I’ve been composing in my head have become redundant by the next day.

So, here’s some stuff about Vanuatu; not all of it, because that would take too long.

The good:

Hoist the plantains!

Fresh food! In New Cal we couldn’t afford to eat bananas, which cost about $20 a hand.  In Vanuatu, people keep giving us bananas.  We’re like, sinking under the weight of bananas.  We have banana pancakes, banana cakes, fried bananas, curried bananas, baked bananas, grated and steamed bananas.  Some of the bananas are actually plantains, but when they ripen they’re essentially a banana.  Everywhere you go you can get fresh fruit and veg.  Sometimes it comes out to you in a canoe, sometimes you have to go and find it, but it’s there and it’s cheap, local and organic.

Riding in the back of a ute!  Everywhere we went on Tanna we travelled by ute and before the novelty wore off, we all crammed in the back to bounce along dirt roads hallooing at locals, dodging pigs and chickens and marvelling at the massive banyan trees passing by overhead.  Er, then the novelty wore off, but that’s another story.

Thermal activity!  Visiting Mt Yasur, “the world’s most accessible volcano”, has been on our to-do list for two years.  By “accessible” they mean that it’s possible to misjudge your step and find yourself sliding down a vertical beach into an exploding lava pit.  The tours run at dusk, so the chances of tripping on the way down in the pitch dark, perhaps startled by the earth-rattling boom of another eruption, are actually quite high.  Some of us struggled with that.  At one point Budi went into the foetal position, pulled his hoodie over his head and tearfully refused to move.  “You’ve wasted all your money on me,” he wept.  It’s true, the volcano tour is an expensive trip and that did occur to me as I tried to cajole him to his feet and get his damned money’s worth.  But one of the exceptional guides gently took his hand and led him to the top of the crater rim from where you get the really spine-tingling experience of looking down into three lava pits, which reliably explode and toss molten rock up at you every ten minutes or so. 

“How come you went with him and not us?” Miles asked Budi afterwards. 

“I didn’t think I had choice,” said Budi. 

He’s glad he went all the way to the top though, and as soon as we got back down to the lower viewing area his bravado came back in full force and he started shouting typical Budi-like things at the volcano like, “Is that all you’ve got?  Come on big fella, show me some lava!”

Lava

Shiny happy people!  Okay, the Ni-vans are unbelievably friendly, crazy friendly.  When we wave at an overloaded boatload of folk driving by, they all wave back, some of them stand up in spite of zero freeboard, and many of them do the two-arm wave.  People are helpful, generous and endlessly amused when they see me (for example) trying to get a volleyball back over the net.  We’re talking doubled-up, legs-crossed, eye-wiping laughter.  I’ve never been so funny.

Look at the size of Morris's yam!  And look how stoked he is about it!

No plastic!  The island of Tanna officially discourages plastic bags, and the rest of Vanuatu is following suit.  Instead of plastic bags at the markets, there's these awesome baskets woven out of coconut leaves.

 

Reminy making a shopping basket with the help of the wonderful Jill.

Trading! It’s possible to get your laundry done by someone in the village for the price of a few op-shop t-shirts.  You can trade a couple of litres of petrol for a crayfish, a pawpaw, some bananas, a bag of limes, and some things that you thought at first were cucumbers but which turned out to be weird squishy gourds.  But here the awesomeness of trading starts to get muddy and it’s time I moved over to:

The Bad:

Trading! Okay.  So all we wanted was a pawpaw.  We’d anchored up in a bay on Erromango and motored in to the village to find some fresh fruit.  Before we knew it we’d been siphoned up the hill to a guest house run by a lovely couple who sat us down under their shady pergola, promised us fruit and veg “for free” and insisted that they cook us dinner or lunch the next day.  Then the talk turned to our boat.  How big was she?  How many people could sleep on her?  How much cargo could she hold?  Alarm bells were blaring in my head but Nobnuts on the other side of the table was blithely talking up the cargo capacities of our boat and before we knew it we’d been roped into taking half a tonne of Sandalwood and its grower to Vila, a 20 hour trip.

On the upside, we got two free meals (one with lobster), lots of free fruit and veg, a tour of the food gardens and permission to swim in the local swimming hole.  Also, the boat smelled amazing, especially the front cabin which we don’t use on passages and which was piled high with bags of sandalwood.

One of our trading meals.  Note large platter of lobster.

On the downside, we had to strap 8 tree trunks and their root balls to the deck, climb over bags of sandalwood to use the aft head and find room for another body to sleep in an already full boat on an uncomfortable overnight passage.  And our guest had a nasty cold, which we all caught.

Oh, one more upside: when the sandalwood was unloaded and the boat went back to housing a measly 5 people, Pandion felt HUGE.  But our childlike enthusiasm for trading with the locals has become slightly tempered with caution.

Pandion: Pacific Island Trader

Disease! Since arriving in Vanuatu gastro has swept through the boat twice, Miles has been on antibiotics for a nasty sea ulcer and we’re just weathering the tail end of the Sandalwood Influenza.  From here on northwards, we run the risk of contracting malaria if we’re not diligent.

Land ownership! Every beach, every reef, every anchorage, every piece of land in Vanuatu is owned by somebody, so dropping the pick, tendering ashore and going for a leg-stretching walk is suddenly not as straightforward as it’s been in New Cal and Oz.  I’m not complaining – I love it that Ni-vans own their land and I’m sure it contributes to their obvious well-being – but it means a well-timed conversation with people on shore soon after arrival and a possible bout of “coutume” before everyone feels comfortable.  For someone who likes to walk solitary long distances as often as possible, it can feel a little stifling.

No cheese! A 2 kg block of gouda (the only kind available) costs $56 in the Port Vila supermarche.  I couldn’t justify it, so as well as being on strict peanut butter, honey, tahini and esiyo rations, we’re also down to two small blocks of Colby, muled in by Mama and Poppy a week ago (thank you!).  

Cheese substitute.

 We're currently anchored in Havannah Harbour waiting to go diving for RJ's 15th birthday present.

Love rainbows, hate boats

I once made myself unpopular with a group of kiwis (people not birds) by announcing that I hate rainbows.  Rainbows are up there with kittens, fairies, balloons and babies and you’re supposed to like them.  I wasn’t being flippant, I really don't like rainbows very much.  Rainbows usually mean the end of rain and I can never get enough rain. 

Or so I thought…

Rain in a house is a fabulous thing: cosy, refreshing, soothing…

Rain on a boat just sucks.  Everything gets damp (including spirits), everything starts to smell (including people) and everything’s just that little bit harder. Rain is great for filling up the water tanks.  It's rotten for getting sheets dry.  

If the person you love most insists that once through the industrial marina dryer will definitely get the clothes dry and then when it doesn’t you discover that the marina office has shut and there won’t be anyone to sell you little gold laundry tokens for two days, your salon might end up looking like this:

You will want to wash yourself because like everything else on the boat, you’re beginning to grow mould, but all the towels will be sodden rags hanging on the railings growing their own ecosystems.  A spell of sunshine will send you into a pegging out frenzy and the outside of the boat will rapidly disappear under a hopeful, brightly-coloured patchwork tent of damp fabric, but then the skies will darken and you’ll scowl and go into a different kind of frenzy, shaking your fist at the sky as you throw all the still-damp fabric back into a compost heap on the cockpit floor.

All the things you once took for granted - clean clothes, dry linen, a ready supply of fresh food, a car to get from A to B, a bath, white goods, a room of your own - will all seem tinged with a golden, mythical, otherworldly glow.

I would give anything for a boring, easy life on land, you will think.  Anything.

But then the sun will come out, really come out, a towel-drying breeze will blow up, and you'll finally get to that varnishing job on deck, watching turtles and sharks cruise around the boat in water so clear it gives you vertigo to look down.

Love boats.

Snorkelling underground

Mama, it's okay, we all lived.

In the Company of Cats

Not much blogging from the Pandion crew lately; we’ve been too darn busy.  We left Noumea and sailed down to the opening of Bay de Prony on the south west tip of Grande Terre where we rendezvoused with two CatsWithKids, Bella Luna and Gonyonda.  Cruising with kids is such a random and illogical thing to do that the chances of running into PLU (people like us) is relatively high and we have loved hanging out with these two families. The wind was out of the northwest, unusual during the trades, so we took the opportunity to sail south to Ile de Pins.  We hooked along at 7.5 knots and blitzed the 40 mile passage in just over five hours, but were still roundly outstripped by The Cats, who averaged 10 knots.  That’s one thing about traveling with cats: they will always outpace you.  Another thing is that they can anchor in shallower water, so while we are being tossed (gently) around on the edge of the deep water, they can tuck up into a placid swimming pool about 2 metres from shore.  (My mild bitterness is leading me to exaggerate.)

Cat in a swimming pool

The whole time we were at Ile de Pins the trades were blowing with gusts up to 30 knots, but we huddled in Kuto Bay and behind various islands and barely noticed the weather. 

We traveled out to a couple of islands (Moro and Brosse) where the kooky New Cal “Island Beautification” trend was in full swing.  I didn’t have a camera on Moro, but one corner of the tiny island had been totally manicured: raked sand, mobiles made of shells, old man’s beard draped decoratively under the archway made of driftwood, solid timber furniture, fire pits, swings for the kids and an open-sided kitchen.  These islands remind us so much of the islands in the Capricornia Bunker Group back home – they even smell the same – but we giggle when we think what QLD National Parks would do if someone tried to “pretty up” their pristine islands.   

The pass into the lagoon at Moro was a boat length wide, which I helmed through with white knuckles and very terse monosyllables.  “If it stresses you out so much, why don’t you let me helm through sections like that?” asked Miles afterwards.  Because I don’t trust you not to get distracted by that surf over there and run us aground, I could have answered.  And tricky helming is strangely addictive.

After the scarcity of kid boats the whole way up the east coast of Oz, we have been truly spoiled on this leg of our journey.  With The Cats we have kids aged 14, 11, 11, 10, 9, 7, 7 and 7.  It’s been a social whirlwind: pizza nights, movie nights, adults only card nights (we played Rat-a-tat-cat) and raucous romps on the beach. 

In spite of the absence of teenagers, Rems has been happy as a clam. She drifts from the kids to the adults as the mood takes her and says at least once a day, “I just love sailing.”  She’s happier than we’ve seen her for years and we’re loving seeing her silly side re-emerging.

We hired a car on Ile de Pins because we wanted to go caving and to visit the Natural Swimming Pool.  We jammed a lot into that day (see Milo’s vid) and saw so much.  First we hit the local marche where kanak women chuckled at the kids’ faces as they politely refused a bags of (live) snails.  It’s handy having kids in tow; one old lady pressed a free pamplemousse on us “pour les enfants.”  These markets were much cheaper than the Noumea ones so we stocked up on fruits and greens (but not molluscs).  Then we hit the first cave, trekked in to the natural swimming pool, an azure expanse of salt water completely protected from swell, with stunning coral and enough Christmas tree worms to satisfy Sylvo.  We “slammed down some lunch”* and trekked out again before making our way to the second cave.  We dropped the car off at dusk, tendered out to Pandion and collapsed into bed by eight having ingested large bowls of pasta.  “Why am I so tired?” Miles asks every night, completely mystified.

Funky trees and Xmas tree worms

Ile de Pins is seriously covered in these funky pine trees, weird elongated members of the family that clad every headland and the flat interior of the island.  

The swell had been beefy for days, so we planned our passage back to the mainland on a day when the seas had purportedly dropped to two metres, but it was ugly out there, in spite of winds and swell at our backs.  Sailing directly downwind spurred Milo on to trial a new sail plan – twin headsails. Look how happy he is.  We’re calling it The Stingray.  It got a bit hairy when the autopilot conked and sent us veering out to port and backwinding the starboard headsail, and also when we took the darn thing down and Miles had to lie spreadeagled on top of the sail to stop it going over the side as Reminy dropped the halyard.  (Loving using all this sailing jargon.) 

The Stingray

With much relief, we pulled back into the lake-still Baie De Prony and have spent the last week exploring her many inlets, peaks, rivers and hot-springs.  Baie de Prony is surreal: delicate filigrees of coral growing out of muddy banks, red boat-staining dirt wherever you walk, mangroves giving way to crystal clear rapids in the space of a few metres, reef sharks swimming around the base of the jetty leading up to the hot springs. 

So, when I say Hot Springs, technically they should be called Tepid Springs.  We first tried to visit them on a weekend, when enthusiastic Noumeans pour out of town in their hundreds and go adventuring all over the place, and the spring had almost disappeared under a mash of bodies.  The next day we rose at 7 (which is super early for us) to zoom up to the springs, determined to beat everyone else there.  Foiled.  A motor boat was already tied up to the jetty so we left, unsatisfied.  This morning we got up really early (6.30) and triumphed.  We found some other hotter springs that bafflingly appeared on our chart in the middle of a tidal mudflat. Closer investigation at low tide revealed a bricked in pool and several chimney-like structures to direct the hot water into it.  Unfortunately in the years since the chimneys were built the vents have moved several feet, so the pool was cold.  

Personally, I don't think it was worth the effort...

Four of the crew of Pandion were scarred for life by one of Miles’ “Nah, this’ll be great!” moments.  We were moving from one anchorage in the bay to another in 20 knot winds and Milo decided it was the perfect opportunity to jump into the tender and grab some photos of Pandion under full sail (“See ya!”).  Long story short, the swell picked up, the wind picked up, the boat was seriously overcanvassed, Miles disappeared in our wake dragging his prop-wrapping painter beneath him, both fishing lines out, one snagged around the big boat’s prop, the main preventer wrapped around the jib sheet and flogged against the side of the boat, Sylvie inexplicably tottered around the very busy cockpit with a bowl full of water trying not to spill her “pretty red leaves,” cliffs approaching at speed, etc etc.  The kids and I managed to get the sails in and hove to and Milo caught up with us, unwrapped the prop and came up grinning.  “Wasn’t that awesome?” he said.  Er, no, not especially.  We’re still debriefing and Sylvie can only just talk about the incident without bursting into tears.

Tomorrow we might head out to Amadee Island for a few days before heading back to Noumea for a lunch date.

Budsa keeping us well stocked in coconuts

*We’ve noticed that as well as starting every video with “Here we are…,” Milo also likes to talk about eating in a curiously violent way: “I’m just going to punch down some porridge,” or “Let’s just slam down some crackers and get out of here.” It’s all part of his endearing Must Adventure Every Second Of My Life, Food Is Fuel character trait.