We spent a relaxing and fairly uneventful week in Port Vila. For me the highlight of the week was running into our very good friend Roy Dickson who sails on a boat called Peggy West. We originally met Roy in 2008 in the Marquesas and it has been our pleasure to run into him again many times. The only small problem this time was that Irene, who is another of our favorites wasn't currently on the boat with Roy since she was on her way home to Ireland to visit her family. We had a couple nice nights with Roy this time. One was out for Friday night happy hour and one night he had us all over for a lovely dinner aboard his boat. He also helped Fred and Jeff repair our dinghy. Thanks Roy!
On the way back from Friday night happy hour we were walking along the waterfront and I was drawn to the sounds of some serious hip-hop music coming from a big bandstand set up in the park. There was some sort of break dance competition going on and one of the Ni-Vans was busting some old John Hughes moves up on the stage. We only saw a couple performers before some sort of break occurred but I was pretty impressed. In the daytime in this same park there are stalls set up selling woven bags of varied construction. Apparently each island has their own style (I got an orange and white strappy number). The contrast with those and the break dancing is the kind of thing I love about the towns in the South Pacific islands.
Port Vila was also the site of our first visit to a kava bar. Kava is a drink found in many South Pacific countries, which is embraced very enthusiastically here in Vanuatu. We've been told by many people that the kava in Vanuatu is quite a bit stronger here than anywhere else, and here there are actually bars set up where you can buy the kava prepared already. The other countries we've been in you could buy kava root in the markets and make it yourself, but we were a bit confused as to how exactly you were supposed to make it. The traditional preparation calls for the root to be chewed by young boys and then their spit is collected in a bowl and that concoction is drunk later. We neglected to bring any young boys with us on the God Spede, so that method was out for us, and although we'd been told there was an alternate method that involved straining stuff through a sock, the instructions for this method were always vague, and we know where our socks have been, so we never tried this method either.
In Vanuatu, however, there are bars where it is sold ready to consume, so we decided to give it a try. We went with Rueben and James, two nice guys we had met earlier that evening when they drove us to dinner. We hailed them down thinking they were driving a taxi. We we asked if they were a taxi, and they said yes, but something about the way they looked at each other first, then looked around a bit and shrugged, made me suspect that they were just two guys out driving around. We later learned that all taxis in Port Vila have a T or a B on their license plate, but at this point we had just arrived in town and were still learning the ropes. Anyway, Rueben and James were very friendly and chatted with us on the way to dinner, and gave us their phone number, so we called them after dinner and asked them to take us to their favorite kava bar. They took us to Ronnie's, which we had read in a book was the place all the ex-pats and government officials liked to drink their kava. I was a little surprised that it was an open air place with plastic garden style tables and chairs on a dirt floor under some big trees with parts under a roof. I guess the word "bar" had led me to expect something else, but open air really is the coolest way to go in these parts, so it makes sense.
We all walked up to the bar and got our first bowl of kava. It was served in little plastic bowls, something like you'd use to serve cereal to a five year old back home, and looked exactly like muddy water. It got scooped into the bowls out of a big plastic bucket. It tasted pretty much like muddy water with pepper added. Truly vile, but we had read enough to expect that and knew to just slug it down and not sip and savor. Even having been forwarned, I was surprised at just how bad it tasted. It's giving me shivers writing this thinking about it. Ugh. Anyway, I thought the effects were quite nice. The first bowl made my mouth a bit numb and gave me a very mellow feeling. The second bowl gave me a nice little happy glow, much like a second glass of wine. I decided to stop there because we'd just had a big dinner (we found out later that you're supposed to eat after having kava) and one of the bad effects of the kava is that it will upset your stomach if you drink too much. As we sat there having a nice conversation with Rueben and James, I became of all the spitting going on around me. It does leave a nasty taste in your mouth, so apparenlty spitting on the ground next to your chair is considered perfectly acceptable. Then I noticed some people getting their kava and taking it to a trough that seemed to be built for that very purpose. They'd drink their kava, take a sip of some beverage, and spit it out into the trough, then repeat the rinse and spit then rinse their bowl and return it to the bar. This was all well and good, but I'm glad that I was completely oblivious to the fact that there was a gentleman a few tables over who was occasionally leaning to one side of his chair and throwing up. Yes, I'm really glad I missed that part!
After a bit Rueben and James drove us back to the dinghy dock and we all went home and slept like babies. Kava was traditionally used for ceremonies and rituals, and women were not allowed in the same room as the kava bowl. Now, it is touted by many people in the US as a cure for anxiety, insomnia and back pain. After talking to lots of people here in Vanuatu, I'd say it's just considered the normal thing to drink after work with your friends. It's kava time, so you go have a few "shells" before dinner.
We also did a day of diving at Port Vila. We dove a wreck in the harbour called the Star of Russia. This was an old sailing ship designed by the same people who built the Titanic. This was my first time inside a wreck and I just wasn't super impressed. The visibility in the water was not great and another group of divers went into the wreck before us and I think they stirred up a bunch of silt, so it just seemed like swimming amongst a bunch of sharp things without seeing much. We have a lot of supposedly good wreck diving coming up so I was sad to be so nonplussed by this first experience, but decided to wait and see, and since then we've done some truly awesome wreck diving, but I'll get to that later. The next dive was on some very nice coral just outside the harbor.
Sorry, for some unknown reason we took no pics in Port Vila.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Vanuatu, Tanna
We did it. We stood on the rim of an active volcano in Vanuatu. We heard it rumble and saw sparks and some pretty big chunks of lava fly up out of it into the air. It was pretty impressive, and a little bit scary, but not terrifying as I had read it can be, and as I'm sure it is when the volcano is more active. I was a bit concerned when our guide pulled us aside when we first got to the rim and said, very calmly, "When the volcano goes off don't be in a big hurry to run. Stop and look to see where the lava is going and only run if some is coming towards you". Don't be in a big hurry to run? RUN? I might need to run from lava? On this skinny volcanic lip that has little lava rocks sticking up everywhere? Seriously?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As always, we hope all is well with all of you!
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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.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Arived in Vanuatu
We made it safe to Vanuatu. Anchored in Port Resolution on Tanna at about 4 PM. Have not left the boat yet, but looking forward to checking out the local scene tomorrow. Also looking forward to an full night's sleep - no getting up in the middle of the night for watch tonight!
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Sailing to Vanuatu
As of Friday morning Fiji time, which is Thursday afternoon US time, we are about 200 miles away from Vanuatu. Hopefully we'll be able to reach the anchorage Friday before dark. The trip has been pretty uneventful so far - which is just how I like a passage to be! Fairly light winds and big waves, but we are motorsailing right along making good time. We plan to check in on the island of Tanna so we can visit it's active volcano. I just hope it's not too active while we are there!
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Vanuatu Bound
As of today everything looks good for a Vanuatu departure tomorrow. We will do a final weather check in the morning, then if all is well we'll do last minute provisioning in Lautoka and then clear out with customs and immigration. Should be a 4-5 day sail to Tanna, the island we plan to make our landfall in Vanuatu. Hoping for a boring passage - that's my favourite kind!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Rest In Peace Tom Kollmer
Most of you who read this blog probably already know that the recent interruption in blog posts was due to the very sudden and very shocking death of Tom Kollmer. Tom has featured prominently in the last couple boat blog entries because he came sailing with us in Tonga and Fiji. On August 2, shortly after Tom returned to the US, he died suddenly while hiking in Vermont. We were devastated, but very, very glad we got to spend two extremely fun months with him when we did. He still seems very present on the boat because of all the fond memories we have of him from that time. We miss him very much.
Jeff and I learned about Tom's death while we were on the boat in Musket Cove. We are very grateful to the staff there for all the assistance they provided. With their help we were able to leave that very afternoon. Patrick and Sophie on the marina staff were particularly helpful with arrangements for the boat and many other staff members were extremely sympathetic and also very helpful with travel arrangements during this stressful time, and we are very grateful.
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On October 10 Fred, Ashley and I flew back to Fiji while Jeff remained in the US to finish some business. Ashley, Fred's girlfriend, is the newest member of the crew and appears to be unfazed by the fate of our last fourth crew member.
Our first few days in Fiji were spent unpacking the 300 pounds of gear and supplies we had brought back with us from the land of plenty, and putting the boat back into cruising shape. We also enjoyed a few of Musket Cove's many amenities including drinks at the tiki bar, beach lounging, windsurfing, paddle boarding and the Thursday night pig roast followed by a demonstration of the local dancing skills. When the dancers came in to begin the program they passed close by my chair. As he went past, one of the warrior dancers lunged at me and let out a war yell right in my face. I let out a very girlly scream in response, much to the warrior's and Fred's delight. This may have been Fred's favorite part of the evening, winning out over even the delicious cracklin they serve as part of the feast.
Next we went to Vuda Point for some repairs. Ashley got certified for scuba diving while we were there also. Unfortunately, Vuda Point was every bit as hot as I remembered it being. The only relatively cool working hours are from 6 AM to 8 AM. Any time after that the place is like a giant open steam room. Fred, who always sweats a lot, was literally drenched with sweat the entire day, and I was not much drier. Thankfully most of the work got done quickly and we were able to rent a car and escape the heat for a few days.
We drove over to Pacific Harbour and tried to do the infamous Beqa shark dive, but found those dives were booked already for the days we were able to be there, we did soft coral dives instead and saw an underwater wreck, and some really cute, little, blue and yellow ribbon eels.
After that we went into the big town of Suva for a mad provisioning spree. Much to our amazement we found a Costco-like store and got so much stuff there that the car was scraping a bit each time we hit a dip on the way home. Suva itself seemed like most big cities in that there were some great parks and other seeming nice attractions (we didn't actually see any, only the inside of grocery stores), but also some areas you wanted to avoid entirely.
After that we drove back to Vuda point and sailed the next day back to Musket Cove for a joyful reunion with our friends Lisa and Lester on Obsession. It is always a joy to see these two! We were also happy to note that most of the repairs made in Vuda seemed to have taken, with the unfortunate exception of the refrigerator, which just wasn't working quite right.
Next day we sailed back to Port Denerau on the mainland for another joyful reunion with our last arriving crew member Jeff who flew in Tuesday morning. Hooray, Jeff is here!!!
Fred was also able to arrange that a part for our fridge got flown up from New Zealand with an incoming crew memeber for Obsession, which was quite fortuitous as the part is not available here and we know from previous experiences that having something mailed to an island in the Pacific is an extremely slow and frustrating process.
Our plans for the near future are to finish the repairs on the fridge (Ali is working on it as I write this), then head for Vanuatu as soon as the next weather window presents itself. We are all very excited about Vanuatu despite the fact that shark attacks occur there more frequently than anywhere else in the Pacific. Great. We are told, however, that the problems occur mostly in specific areas and if we follow local advice about where not to swim we should be ok. The "mostly" and "should" are a bit worrying, but we are still excited to go and see for ourselves.
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| Tom Kollmer |
Jeff and I learned about Tom's death while we were on the boat in Musket Cove. We are very grateful to the staff there for all the assistance they provided. With their help we were able to leave that very afternoon. Patrick and Sophie on the marina staff were particularly helpful with arrangements for the boat and many other staff members were extremely sympathetic and also very helpful with travel arrangements during this stressful time, and we are very grateful.
On October 10 Fred, Ashley and I flew back to Fiji while Jeff remained in the US to finish some business. Ashley, Fred's girlfriend, is the newest member of the crew and appears to be unfazed by the fate of our last fourth crew member.
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| Ashley |
Our first few days in Fiji were spent unpacking the 300 pounds of gear and supplies we had brought back with us from the land of plenty, and putting the boat back into cruising shape. We also enjoyed a few of Musket Cove's many amenities including drinks at the tiki bar, beach lounging, windsurfing, paddle boarding and the Thursday night pig roast followed by a demonstration of the local dancing skills. When the dancers came in to begin the program they passed close by my chair. As he went past, one of the warrior dancers lunged at me and let out a war yell right in my face. I let out a very girlly scream in response, much to the warrior's and Fred's delight. This may have been Fred's favorite part of the evening, winning out over even the delicious cracklin they serve as part of the feast.
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| These guys are scary! |
Next we went to Vuda Point for some repairs. Ashley got certified for scuba diving while we were there also. Unfortunately, Vuda Point was every bit as hot as I remembered it being. The only relatively cool working hours are from 6 AM to 8 AM. Any time after that the place is like a giant open steam room. Fred, who always sweats a lot, was literally drenched with sweat the entire day, and I was not much drier. Thankfully most of the work got done quickly and we were able to rent a car and escape the heat for a few days.
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| Angie windsurfing at Musket Cove |
We drove over to Pacific Harbour and tried to do the infamous Beqa shark dive, but found those dives were booked already for the days we were able to be there, we did soft coral dives instead and saw an underwater wreck, and some really cute, little, blue and yellow ribbon eels.
After that we went into the big town of Suva for a mad provisioning spree. Much to our amazement we found a Costco-like store and got so much stuff there that the car was scraping a bit each time we hit a dip on the way home. Suva itself seemed like most big cities in that there were some great parks and other seeming nice attractions (we didn't actually see any, only the inside of grocery stores), but also some areas you wanted to avoid entirely.
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| Musket Cove Beach |
After that we drove back to Vuda point and sailed the next day back to Musket Cove for a joyful reunion with our friends Lisa and Lester on Obsession. It is always a joy to see these two! We were also happy to note that most of the repairs made in Vuda seemed to have taken, with the unfortunate exception of the refrigerator, which just wasn't working quite right.
Next day we sailed back to Port Denerau on the mainland for another joyful reunion with our last arriving crew member Jeff who flew in Tuesday morning. Hooray, Jeff is here!!!
Fred was also able to arrange that a part for our fridge got flown up from New Zealand with an incoming crew memeber for Obsession, which was quite fortuitous as the part is not available here and we know from previous experiences that having something mailed to an island in the Pacific is an extremely slow and frustrating process.
Our plans for the near future are to finish the repairs on the fridge (Ali is working on it as I write this), then head for Vanuatu as soon as the next weather window presents itself. We are all very excited about Vanuatu despite the fact that shark attacks occur there more frequently than anywhere else in the Pacific. Great. We are told, however, that the problems occur mostly in specific areas and if we follow local advice about where not to swim we should be ok. The "mostly" and "should" are a bit worrying, but we are still excited to go and see for ourselves.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Fiji, June 24 - July 15, 2010
We had an uneventful three day passage from Tonga to Fiji. It was a bit uncomfortable at first because we had some big waves coming from right behind us which makes the boat rock quite a bit side to side. Nobody got much sleep the first night, but we recovered the next day just before one of our fan belts shredded itself to bits. This belt was for the intake water pump which cools the engine, so the engine immediately overheated, and we had to shut it off and wait for the engine to cool down before Fred and Jeff could begin attempting to fix it. We had the replacement belt, but it put up a fight going on, but eventually Fred and Jeff convinced it to cooperate it, which was good news because we were just a few miles away from a pass through the reefs that we did not want to negotiate under sail power alone. But all ended well, and we made it through the pass and arrived in Savusavu on Vanua Levu, the next day. We were very impressed with the efficiency and friendliness of the officials here. They all came out to the boat and we were cleared through in about a half hour, which is pretty amazing, especially considering that we arrived late in the afternoon.
We really enjoyed our time in Savusavu despite the fact that it was unbelievably hot while we were there. The anchorage in Savusavu is a little ways up a wide river,
backed by fairly steep hills, so the anchorage area is very protected. This is a nice feature when the wind is blowing, but makes it very hot when it's not. The river was also not very inviting for swimming, which is our usual method of cooling off. Fortunately, we were on a mooring at the Copra Shed Marina which is a very nice place with very friendly staff and free showers onshore. Onshore showers are a pretty big luxury since fresh water is always in short supply on the boat. We took many long, cooling showers ashore while we were in Savusavu.
Savusavu has one main road that follows the river with about six blocks of businesses along it. Both the town and the people who live there seemed much
livelier than Tonga. We found the people in Tonga to be very nice, but also very reserved. Not so in Fiji. You hear "Bula", the local greeting here, everywhere you go, even from strangers passing you on the street, and it's usually delivered with a big smile. One day, when I was walking by myself just to look around a bit, an Indian lady got out of her car and crossed the street just to ask if I needed a ride anywhere. Then after we chatted for a bit she invited us all out to see the sugar cane plantation she and her husband manage. I told her we would come if we rented a car one day (which we did not get around to doing) and she then assured me that if we had any car problems in Fiji we should just walk to the closest house and knock on the door. She told me that anyone would give us any assistance we needed from use of their phone, to food and drinks, and a place to stay for the night if we couldn't be rescued before then. Nice.
We also liked the food in Savusavu. There are a lot of people of Indian descent in Fiji. They are called Indo-Fijians, and luckily for us, some of them run restaurants. We became quite fond of Indian style curries while in New Zealand, and we've been looking forward to more since we left. Fred and Jeff particularly enjoy very spicy curry dishes, and it's rare that anyone not of Indian descent makes them hot enough. The Indians, however, seem to have no qualms. You tell them you want hot and head sweating hot is what you get. I have no idea how anyone can eat more than one bite of many of the meals they get, but those two seem to love it. We also had some very good Chinese food in Savusavu. They even had potstickers (fried dumplings) which are another God Spede favorite. And did I mention that the food is quite reasonably priced in Fiji? So much so that we rarely ate a meal on the boat while we were there. It just didn't seem practical. Woohoo, no dishes to do!
We went diving with KoroSun Divers while we were in Savusavu. They are not actually located in Savusavu, they operate out of the Koro Sun resort which is on the other side of the peninsula, but they came to the marina and picked us up, and then apologized for having to detour one of their homes along the way, but since it was at the top of a ridge with fantastic ocean views, we just figured we were getting a little extra bang for our buck - a driving tour in addition to the diving. We did two dives with them, one with lots of swim throughs and one near a pair of gigantic coral mouintains. The coral here was really amazing and we enjoyed ourselves very much. Colin, the owner and head dive guy, was also nice enough to tell us about a marine reserve that was too far away for him to take us to, but that we could dive ourselves if we went there on God Spede. He told us many of customers said this reserve was their favorite dive spot in all of Fiji, and he gave us GPS co-ordinates for a couple dives there, so we decided to make that our next stop.
This marine reserve is in the lagoon surrounding Namena island (sometimes called Namenalala) and located about 25 miles southwest of Savusavu. The island is surrounded by a huge stretch of reef that juts out from the mainland and encompasses Namena island. The island is private, with a small resort on it, and boaters are not welcome ashore, but the resort maintains a mooring ball that you can stay on for free, and it is off of a lovely beach with great snorkeling, so we didn't mind not going ashore too much. While snorkeling in the anchorage we saw a five foot long moray eel swimming out of it's hole, which was pretty cool.
We planned on staying there two nights with one full day of diving in between, but our first dive there was so spectacular, and we got some more co-ordinates to other dive spots in the reserve, so we decided to stay for three more days and dive as many of the spots as we could find. I'm really glad we did. This was some truly world class diving and our fee for diving it all was $25 per person which you pay to dive in the marine reserve. The only other people diving this huge area while we were there was one guy from National Geographic who was staying at the resort on the island, and some people on a big charter live-aboard dive boat. The dive boats guys were very nice about helping us find more dive spots and invited us to come aboard one evening, but they anchored very far away from us at night, so we never took them up on that offer. Every single dive we did near Namena was amazing. Some were big coral pinnacles and some were drift dives. The first pinnacle we dove was 65 feet deep at the bottom and the top was at about 15 feet, and it was about 30 feet across. We went down deep and then spiraled slowly back up. It was beautiful, and amazing how many different types of coral there were, how healthy it all was, and how much things changed with depth. We came spiraling up about 5 feet shallower each go round and some something different each time. The top of the pinnacle was like an underwater aquarium. The drift dives were also very cool and we saw white tip and black tip reef sharks as well as a turtle on one of them.
The only bad part of our time at Namena was that I managed to burn my leg on the dive compressor while we were trying to quickly fill our tanks so we could dive again the first day. The compressor shuts off after one tank is filled and then you have to disconnect and reconnect the hoses to the next tank you want to fill and then restart the compressor with the pull cord. When I pulled the cord I did it at a funny angle and the compressor tipped over onto my leg. I didn't think it was a big deal at first, but it turns out I cooked my leg a little. Not need to go the hospital cooked, but I did lose a bit of skin. It's healing up nicely now, and I'm well past the possible infection stage, but am still wearing a bandage for sun protection until it heals completely. The bandage also makes me look more piratey, which I like.
After Namena Island we made our way down to Lautoka on the big island of Viti Levu. This trip wasn't very far as the crow flies, but it took a few days since we had to wind our way around some of Fiji's many reefs. Looking at this place on a regular map is very deceptive. It looks like big stretches of open water between the islands, but in fact there are these huge reefs everywhere and you have to go miles out of your way to get to a pass through them. We did NOT want to travel at night
in these conditions, so it took us two and a half days to get to Lautoka. We caught another Blue Trevally along the way. Those fish are delicious!
At Lautoka we stopped just long enough to do some food shopping and some official paperwork before heading off for Musket Cove Resort which is west of Nadi on a small island called Malololailai. We had to thread our way through more reefs near the resort and as we rounded the corner we were amazed to see all the pleasure water craft that were buzzing around. There were kayaks and hobie cats, and windsurfers and jet skis and day sail boats and boats that had taken people out to an offshore sandbar for picnics and snorkeling. Since then we've also seen helicopter tours and parasailing. I know these are all normal activities at resorts in the US and the Caribbean, but it's NOT been the case in any other place we've been in the South Pacific. It's been ages since we've seen anything like this and it makes a great change! Things got even better when we found out that for a very small fee we could join the Musket Cove Yacht Club (you must have arrived on a boat from another country to be eligible) and then we were welcome to use all the resort amenities. Not necessarily for free, but we are welcome to use them. Oh, and also their are free onshore showers and a spa. Did I mention the spa? And a pool. And the special beach bar which is on a peninsula near the dinghy dock where they serve cheap drinks and have wood fired barbecues that the boaters are welcome to use for free. And they give you plates and wash them for you afterwards - heaven! Now, to be honest, I must admit that I think they built this bar special in the hopes that the rowdier boaters would stay out there and the resort guests wouldn't necessarily have to deal with them, but hey, whatever makes it so that I can have free reign of the place works for me!
After a few days of soaking up the resort ambiance, and a day of diving for the boys, we sadly left Musket Cove and headed back to the mainland to prepare for Tom
and Fred to fly back to the US. The marina at Vuda Point is where we went, and it's a bit strange, but I'll explain about it later, since Jeff and I will be back there next week also. On this first visit, Fred managed to co-ordinate some different people to do some repairs and engine maintenance starting next week.
On Fred and Tom's last night in Fiji we treated ourselves to a very nice dinner in Nadi and then went out to Ed's bar, which we were told was THE place to drink in Nadi. I can't speak to that, since we haven't tried anywhere else yet, but drink at Ed's we did. And then we drank some more. And then we had some shots. Great idea. I don't know what time Ed's closes, but I finally threw in the towel and convinced the boys to take me home at 3:30. Ed's was still going strong. When we got back we turned on the boat stereo, forgetting to fade out the outside speakers, and managed to wake up our neighbors who called security. Great. I woke up the next morning with the worst hangover I've had in a long, long time. Will I ever learn? The boys felt better than me to varying degrees, which is good, especially since two of them had big, big travel days ahead of them. Tom flew out in the early afternoon, then Fred left later that night, and now Jeff and I are on our own for a bit.
We did some mainland provisioning the next day and then brought the boat back out to Musket Cove Resort, where we have gone into serious relaxing mode. We'll stay here for a week, then we go back to Vuda Point Marina while the boat is being worked on which will probably take about a week. After that, maybe we'll come back out here, or maybe we'll rent a car and tour the main island some. A lot will depend on how long the boat work actually takes and whether or not Jeff will be returning to the US also, and if so, when. Maybe, if we tour with a car, we'll save money on hotels by showing up at people's houses late in the evening and telling them our car is broken down... we'll keep you posted.
We really enjoyed our time in Savusavu despite the fact that it was unbelievably hot while we were there. The anchorage in Savusavu is a little ways up a wide river,
backed by fairly steep hills, so the anchorage area is very protected. This is a nice feature when the wind is blowing, but makes it very hot when it's not. The river was also not very inviting for swimming, which is our usual method of cooling off. Fortunately, we were on a mooring at the Copra Shed Marina which is a very nice place with very friendly staff and free showers onshore. Onshore showers are a pretty big luxury since fresh water is always in short supply on the boat. We took many long, cooling showers ashore while we were in Savusavu.
Savusavu has one main road that follows the river with about six blocks of businesses along it. Both the town and the people who live there seemed much
livelier than Tonga. We found the people in Tonga to be very nice, but also very reserved. Not so in Fiji. You hear "Bula", the local greeting here, everywhere you go, even from strangers passing you on the street, and it's usually delivered with a big smile. One day, when I was walking by myself just to look around a bit, an Indian lady got out of her car and crossed the street just to ask if I needed a ride anywhere. Then after we chatted for a bit she invited us all out to see the sugar cane plantation she and her husband manage. I told her we would come if we rented a car one day (which we did not get around to doing) and she then assured me that if we had any car problems in Fiji we should just walk to the closest house and knock on the door. She told me that anyone would give us any assistance we needed from use of their phone, to food and drinks, and a place to stay for the night if we couldn't be rescued before then. Nice.
We also liked the food in Savusavu. There are a lot of people of Indian descent in Fiji. They are called Indo-Fijians, and luckily for us, some of them run restaurants. We became quite fond of Indian style curries while in New Zealand, and we've been looking forward to more since we left. Fred and Jeff particularly enjoy very spicy curry dishes, and it's rare that anyone not of Indian descent makes them hot enough. The Indians, however, seem to have no qualms. You tell them you want hot and head sweating hot is what you get. I have no idea how anyone can eat more than one bite of many of the meals they get, but those two seem to love it. We also had some very good Chinese food in Savusavu. They even had potstickers (fried dumplings) which are another God Spede favorite. And did I mention that the food is quite reasonably priced in Fiji? So much so that we rarely ate a meal on the boat while we were there. It just didn't seem practical. Woohoo, no dishes to do!
We went diving with KoroSun Divers while we were in Savusavu. They are not actually located in Savusavu, they operate out of the Koro Sun resort which is on the other side of the peninsula, but they came to the marina and picked us up, and then apologized for having to detour one of their homes along the way, but since it was at the top of a ridge with fantastic ocean views, we just figured we were getting a little extra bang for our buck - a driving tour in addition to the diving. We did two dives with them, one with lots of swim throughs and one near a pair of gigantic coral mouintains. The coral here was really amazing and we enjoyed ourselves very much. Colin, the owner and head dive guy, was also nice enough to tell us about a marine reserve that was too far away for him to take us to, but that we could dive ourselves if we went there on God Spede. He told us many of customers said this reserve was their favorite dive spot in all of Fiji, and he gave us GPS co-ordinates for a couple dives there, so we decided to make that our next stop.
This marine reserve is in the lagoon surrounding Namena island (sometimes called Namenalala) and located about 25 miles southwest of Savusavu. The island is surrounded by a huge stretch of reef that juts out from the mainland and encompasses Namena island. The island is private, with a small resort on it, and boaters are not welcome ashore, but the resort maintains a mooring ball that you can stay on for free, and it is off of a lovely beach with great snorkeling, so we didn't mind not going ashore too much. While snorkeling in the anchorage we saw a five foot long moray eel swimming out of it's hole, which was pretty cool.
We planned on staying there two nights with one full day of diving in between, but our first dive there was so spectacular, and we got some more co-ordinates to other dive spots in the reserve, so we decided to stay for three more days and dive as many of the spots as we could find. I'm really glad we did. This was some truly world class diving and our fee for diving it all was $25 per person which you pay to dive in the marine reserve. The only other people diving this huge area while we were there was one guy from National Geographic who was staying at the resort on the island, and some people on a big charter live-aboard dive boat. The dive boats guys were very nice about helping us find more dive spots and invited us to come aboard one evening, but they anchored very far away from us at night, so we never took them up on that offer. Every single dive we did near Namena was amazing. Some were big coral pinnacles and some were drift dives. The first pinnacle we dove was 65 feet deep at the bottom and the top was at about 15 feet, and it was about 30 feet across. We went down deep and then spiraled slowly back up. It was beautiful, and amazing how many different types of coral there were, how healthy it all was, and how much things changed with depth. We came spiraling up about 5 feet shallower each go round and some something different each time. The top of the pinnacle was like an underwater aquarium. The drift dives were also very cool and we saw white tip and black tip reef sharks as well as a turtle on one of them.
The only bad part of our time at Namena was that I managed to burn my leg on the dive compressor while we were trying to quickly fill our tanks so we could dive again the first day. The compressor shuts off after one tank is filled and then you have to disconnect and reconnect the hoses to the next tank you want to fill and then restart the compressor with the pull cord. When I pulled the cord I did it at a funny angle and the compressor tipped over onto my leg. I didn't think it was a big deal at first, but it turns out I cooked my leg a little. Not need to go the hospital cooked, but I did lose a bit of skin. It's healing up nicely now, and I'm well past the possible infection stage, but am still wearing a bandage for sun protection until it heals completely. The bandage also makes me look more piratey, which I like.
After Namena Island we made our way down to Lautoka on the big island of Viti Levu. This trip wasn't very far as the crow flies, but it took a few days since we had to wind our way around some of Fiji's many reefs. Looking at this place on a regular map is very deceptive. It looks like big stretches of open water between the islands, but in fact there are these huge reefs everywhere and you have to go miles out of your way to get to a pass through them. We did NOT want to travel at night
in these conditions, so it took us two and a half days to get to Lautoka. We caught another Blue Trevally along the way. Those fish are delicious!
At Lautoka we stopped just long enough to do some food shopping and some official paperwork before heading off for Musket Cove Resort which is west of Nadi on a small island called Malololailai. We had to thread our way through more reefs near the resort and as we rounded the corner we were amazed to see all the pleasure water craft that were buzzing around. There were kayaks and hobie cats, and windsurfers and jet skis and day sail boats and boats that had taken people out to an offshore sandbar for picnics and snorkeling. Since then we've also seen helicopter tours and parasailing. I know these are all normal activities at resorts in the US and the Caribbean, but it's NOT been the case in any other place we've been in the South Pacific. It's been ages since we've seen anything like this and it makes a great change! Things got even better when we found out that for a very small fee we could join the Musket Cove Yacht Club (you must have arrived on a boat from another country to be eligible) and then we were welcome to use all the resort amenities. Not necessarily for free, but we are welcome to use them. Oh, and also their are free onshore showers and a spa. Did I mention the spa? And a pool. And the special beach bar which is on a peninsula near the dinghy dock where they serve cheap drinks and have wood fired barbecues that the boaters are welcome to use for free. And they give you plates and wash them for you afterwards - heaven! Now, to be honest, I must admit that I think they built this bar special in the hopes that the rowdier boaters would stay out there and the resort guests wouldn't necessarily have to deal with them, but hey, whatever makes it so that I can have free reign of the place works for me!
After a few days of soaking up the resort ambiance, and a day of diving for the boys, we sadly left Musket Cove and headed back to the mainland to prepare for Tom
and Fred to fly back to the US. The marina at Vuda Point is where we went, and it's a bit strange, but I'll explain about it later, since Jeff and I will be back there next week also. On this first visit, Fred managed to co-ordinate some different people to do some repairs and engine maintenance starting next week.
On Fred and Tom's last night in Fiji we treated ourselves to a very nice dinner in Nadi and then went out to Ed's bar, which we were told was THE place to drink in Nadi. I can't speak to that, since we haven't tried anywhere else yet, but drink at Ed's we did. And then we drank some more. And then we had some shots. Great idea. I don't know what time Ed's closes, but I finally threw in the towel and convinced the boys to take me home at 3:30. Ed's was still going strong. When we got back we turned on the boat stereo, forgetting to fade out the outside speakers, and managed to wake up our neighbors who called security. Great. I woke up the next morning with the worst hangover I've had in a long, long time. Will I ever learn? The boys felt better than me to varying degrees, which is good, especially since two of them had big, big travel days ahead of them. Tom flew out in the early afternoon, then Fred left later that night, and now Jeff and I are on our own for a bit.
We did some mainland provisioning the next day and then brought the boat back out to Musket Cove Resort, where we have gone into serious relaxing mode. We'll stay here for a week, then we go back to Vuda Point Marina while the boat is being worked on which will probably take about a week. After that, maybe we'll come back out here, or maybe we'll rent a car and tour the main island some. A lot will depend on how long the boat work actually takes and whether or not Jeff will be returning to the US also, and if so, when. Maybe, if we tour with a car, we'll save money on hotels by showing up at people's houses late in the evening and telling them our car is broken down... we'll keep you posted.
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