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| Volcano rim with lava rocks |
Well, I guess sometimes people do have to run because those lava rocks on the rim weren't placed there by some landscape designer, they got there when the volcano blew them out. However, the day we visited the wind was pretty stong at our backs and the lava chunks that reached our height stayed comfortably far away horizontally, which was fine with me. I was also happy that we weren't seeing a big lake of smoldering lava when we looked down into the volcano, which was what I had imagined. Actually, I had hoped to see just that before we got there, but once I saw how skinny the rim we were walking on was and how steep down both sides went, I was pleased to see that if I fell off into the volcano there was a big rim about 50 feet down to catch me. Now, I'm sure it's warm on that rim, but not as warm as molten lava, and I was grateful for it.
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| Lava fireworks |
But I'm getting ahead of myself here, let me go back some and tell you about our stay from the beginning. We had a nice calm four day passage from Fiji to Vanuatu with unusually large seas being the only real problem. These waves had been kicked up by some bad weather farther south of us. We motorsailed most of the way trying to get in before some thunderstorms which were on the way reached us. As we were approaching the harbour, Fred saw a bunch of birds working the water near us and Jeff threw in the fishing line and caught a little skipjack tuna almost immediately. We find that skipjack tuna is delicious when eaten the first day, but gets bit strong tasting the next day, so catching a little one is perfect, and we had just enough for dinner for four. Jeff made a great stirfry with this one, which we all enjoyed, while also enjoying our first dinner in four days where we could put our plates down on the table without having them fly off into our laps. On passages most our meals are eaten out of bowls while we brace ourselves in the cockpit.
We got into Port Resolution on Tanna at about 4 PM. We enjoyed some arrival cocktails while we got the sails covered and the lines coiled and the shade awnings put up and caught our breath. We also enjoyed knowing that nobody would have to get up in the middle of the night for watch duty. No matter how good a passage goes, I'm always happy for it to be over and can just feel myself relax.
The next day we went ashore to see if we would be able to check into the country on Saturday. Some places you can, but you usually have to pay an extra fee. We pulled the dinghy up on the beach and Fred went up to the yacht club to make enquiries, but the place was deserted. In the meantime a very nice gentleman named Phillip came down to the beach to say hello. I was surprised out how excellent his English was. We had read that there are more than 100 local languages in Vanuatu, and that the common language, Bislama, was a form of pidgen english that includes some French and spanish words thrown in for good measure. We read that the correct way to refer to the Pope in Bislama is "numba wan Jesus man". So, given that and that Tanna is a fairly remote island in Vanuatu, I was afraid we would have a very hard time understanding anyone, but Phillip's English was outsanding. Possibly better than mine. He explained that he was not from Port Resolution, but had come over from a nearby village for church services. He was a member of the Seventh Day Adventist church and their services were held on Saturday. He told us that we would not be able to check into the country until Monday, but that it was OK for us to walk around the local village and the nearby areas before then. This was good news, since sitting the on the boat for two whole days was not super appealing. Phillip was nice enough to walk up us the trail a bit and point us towards the village, which really was a village. This is one of the few places I've been which really seemed like a village. Most of the houses were made of local materials. The walls were woven from leaves with a very nice diamond pattern on them. A few of the homes had some corrugated tin for some of the walls, and some had concrete foundations, but most of them looked probably as they looked 100 years ago.
We saw a gal walk across a field with some buckets and fill them up with water from a well, and saw another lady doing her laundry in some similar buckets under a tree. Everyone we saw was very friendly and gave us a big smile and some came up and introduced themselves to us and welcomed us to their village, which I thought was very nice.
We walked across the peninsula and came to a lovely beach with fringing reefs which formed a safe, shark free place for swimming, and there was a big group of kids down a ways having a grand time playing in the water. There were some homemade benches under some shade trees here and we sat down there to admire the view. Johnson came up then and introduced himself to us. He said he was the one in the village in charge of people on yachts and he would arrange us a car on Monday to take us across to Lenakel, on the opposite side of the island, so we could check in. He also said we were welcome to enjoy the village until then. Ashley and Fred took a quick dip and then we headed back to the boat to rest up a bit more. Sunday was mostly spent relaxing also.
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| Swiming hole |
On Monday we went ashore and climbed into the back of a Toyota pickup that had very skinny benches built all around the outside edges and a big metal cage overhead with a rain covering over it. We were told it was two hour ride to Lenakel. we went about half a mile and then stopped to pick up a lady with a live chicken and a few kids. We went another half a mile and stopped to pick up some more people. Another half a mile and we stopped for a few more people. We began to suspect that the trip to Lenakel wasn't very far distance wise, but it would take two hours because we were going to make a million stops. Eventually, when there were 16 of us plus the chicken in the back, the driver must have decided he had a full load and we were off to Lenakel. I passed out some bubble gum and everyone had a good time trying to blow the biggest bubble. My pathetic efforts were greeted with gracious smiles. After we asked a few questions about what we were passing everyone began calling things out as we went along. Schools, Churchs, and markets abounded. We also went through ash plains generated by the volcano. They looked like big grey sand dunes. Then the road got pretty steep and there were a few times that the truck was slipping and sliding and I thought we might have to get out and push, but our driver, David, got us through it each time without any assistance from us.
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| Bubble blowing contest |
We were pretty happy to get out of the truck and stretch our legs when we reached Lenakel. We hit the bank, then Fred went and checked us into the country officially, then James, our guide for the day, took us to the market where they had all the taro and kava you would ever want for sale, but not a whole lot else. We did buy some sweet bread pastries that were for sale, but passed on the rest. Next we stuck our heads in the some of the small stores next to the market. For some reason, Lenakel has at least 20 stores, most of which are tiny. There were lots of big bags of rice, and local sugar, and then a very random selection of other non-perishable items. We saw some Pringles in one store, and were excited until we got a look at the flavors. I kid you not when I say that the three flavors were Soft Shell Crab, Shrimp and Blueberry with Hazelnut. Has anyone else ever seen these? I certainly hadn't. We decided to pass on them and got back in the car for the long bumpy ride home.
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| Lenakel outdoor market |
Later that day the same truck came to get us and we went to the volcano. This time we were accompanied by only our guide, a few young boys, and two rather serious looking fellows with machetes. I offered the bubble gum around again and was surprised that the machete weilding chaps were vert excited to get some. They did not look nearly so menacing once they were chewing gum. They got off fairly soon, but the kids came with us to the volcano and had a great time. They were running around rolling rocks down the side of the volcano. Jeff called it lava bowling. Then as we were walking down from the high point of the rim we looked up to see them doing a truly crazy dance and laughing their heads off above us on the rim. It was great.
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| Dancing boys |
We arrived at the volcano in the late afternoon, while it was still light, then walked around a bit and picked our spot for later. James gave us our briefing and showed us some photos on his digital camera that he had taken the night before, so we would have some idea what to expect. Once it got dark the real show started. They call it fireworks and I can see why. It really did look like someone was lighting an enormous roman candle down there. Then a big boom would come and everyone would gasp and that's when the larger chunks of lava would come flying out. The closes one came to us was to land on the big lower rim below us, but it was a pretty amazing show.
On the jolting truck ride home in the dark I started thinking how ironic it was that James had a cell phone and a digital camera but the cooking in the village was done over open fires and the laundry is done in buckets. I had seen one bank of solar panels in the village about the size of a big door, and a wind generator, and I expect there were some mechanical generators as well, so I guess it makes sense that you could have small electronic devices when you don't have running water or propane tanks, but given that we'd read that in Vanuatuan society the women are expected to do almost all the work, while the men make almost all the decisions, I suspected that the housekeeping conveniences simply aren't given a very high priority. If we had had more time to spend in Port Resolution I may have come away with a different impression, but then again, maybe I would have found that the huts had big screen TVs inside and been even more convinced of my half-baked theory. In any case I would have been happy to spend more time in Port Resolution getting to know the friendly folks there and finding answers to some of my questions, but our time in Vanuatu is going to be limited because we need to leave here and head north out of the cyclone area before the cyclone season begins in December, so on Tuesday we pulled up the anchor and headed off to Port Vila.
We had downloaded weather information and were expecting 10-20 knot winds for this 130 mile sail, but instead we got more like 20-30 knots and quite a bumpy ride. Fortunately it was only an overnight sail, as it was a bit unpleasant. The harbour in Port Vila is very protected and we felt like somebody had turned the wind off as we came in. We were able to pick up a moooring ball in the harbour and have been enjoying the town very much, but I'll write more about that in my next entry. Our current plans are to stay here till Tuesday to do some minor repairs and take advantage of the excellent stores here, then head north to Santo where there is some very good wreck diving.
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