Retreat to Port Vila

We waved goodbye to the John Frum cargo cult guys, who I'm sure were disappointed that we didn't bring untold riches to their island, and departed Tanna Island on Sunday morning, Oct. 15th. A strong front was coming northwest from New Caledonia and we didn't want to get stuck in Port Resolution with a large swell curling around the point. We had a choice of trying to outrun the storm to New Caledonia, or retreating northeast to the protection of Port Vila. Given our past experience trying to outrun storms we opted for the conservative approach and headed to Port Vila.

We expected a pleasant downwind sail, but when we got between Tanna and Erromango Island the wind funneled and all of a sudden we were hauling in 25-knot winds. It calmed down a bit after that and we had a non-eventful downwind sail into Port Vila on the Vanuatu island of Efate.

This is the inner harbor at Port Vila. You can just make out the power lines at the far right edge of the photo. The trick was to get close to shore where they are a little higher up.

We only had some old cruising guides on Port Vila and there was a lot of discrepancy as to 1) the depth of the sandbars you sailed over to enter the inner harbor and 2) the height of the power lines you had to cross under. Our charts showed 8 ft. of depth for crossing the bar and 62 ft. of clearance for the power lines (our mast is 62 ft. high). Another guide said there was 90 ft. clearance. We finally raised Yachting World who rents out the mooring balls and they said "No problem" (in only the way French speakers can say it) and said they'd send out a launch that we could follow in. I kind of just closed my eyes as these guys took us on a weaving course close to shore, but I never saw less than 12 ft. on the depth sounder and we cleared the power wires by at least 10 ft. So much for cruising guides.

It felt good (as it always does) to get tied up to a mooring ball and be able to relax for awhile. We headed in to meet Customs at the Yacht Club (relax, it just a small sparse office) just as a bunch of French sailors from New Caledonia arrived. They had participated in the Noumea to Port Vila Sailing Rally and naturally thought they owned the world. More on this later. We finally got cleared in and headed down the main street of Port Vila to explore the town and search for frozen yogurt.

If you've ever read any of Martin Troost's books (Getting Stoned with Savages) you'll learn a lot about Vanuatu and Port Vila. At one point the town became an offshore money laundering haven with several casinos and fancy hotels. But after many indictments and imprisonment of government officals, things have calmed down and now it's just a nice little town visited twice weekly by cruise ships from Australia.

I was searching for a 12v to 220v inverter so I could run my new Windows laptop and suprisingly found a fairly decent Chinese made unit in a local shop. We bought our requisite phone cards so we could get Internet and even found several good ice cream stores. It's a nice town and they did a great job creating a waterfront walkway (where the cruise ships come in) with lots of good restaurants, shops, etc.

It's hard to explain how finding a nice air conditioned restaurant, and sitting down to a cold Coke and fish and chips is such a treat to us. Just like we're back in the real world again.

This is one happy lady after lots or tiring overnight passages to reach Vanuatu.

They did a great job with the redesign of the waterfront near the cruise ship terminal. There are kid's playgrounds and lots of great little restaurants to hang out in.

The round dome in the middle of the photo is the new convention center, perched on a hill overlooking downtown Port Vila.

Inside the convention center is this "coat of arms." If you know Bislama, the local pigeon English, you can figure out what the plaque says.

We took a long walk the next day and saw the huge new convention center that the Chinese financed for the locals. It's amazing the amount of influence China has garnered in the South Pacific, all looking for UN votes to support their various political goals.

Meryl loves smelling and pinching all the local foods, much to the chagrin of the stall's owner.

Fresh yams are packed in local palm leaf carriers.

The entire family typically works at the Public Market stalls helping clean and parse the vegetables.

We ended up at the Public Market, a fairly good one as public markets go in Third World countries. Meryl always loves exploring the various local food offerings and trying to figure out what everything is. I mainly tease the young kids hanging out with their moms working in the stalls and try to learn the English names for the various foods. The kids always get a laugh from my feeble attempts at pronunciation.

As mentioned in an earlier post, the Vanuatuan's come from Melanesian stock and don't have the fine features of the Polynesians or even the Fijians. They are very nice and gentle people and it's always fun to try and strike up conversations or ask questions.  We've gotten so good at sign language and other ways to communicate that not knowing the language has never been a problem.

These women from a remote island were very proud to have "Best Display" in the competition at the Agricultural Fair.

The second place team poses for their photo op.

Sweet chili sauce has become one of our favorite condiments.

We had a fun time during one of our our walks when we discovered a huge agricultural fair (just like the one on Tonga) called the Pacific Week of Agriculture. Hundreds of tents were set up with various displays of local agriculture, fishing, and farm animals. We loved visiting the various tents representing goods and products from different islands/regions. The ladies were all dressed in similar dresses and one team had just been awarded the "Best Display" while we were there. Quite fun.

The big draw at the fair was the portable saw mill, which ripped large logs into usable lumber.

The most popular booth was one with a portable saw mill set up and three guys cutting lumber from large trees. Reminded me of the booths at the Western Washington State Fair every September. Loud, noisy machines still draw a crowd.

Jaywalking is easy here since the traffic crawls along at a snail's pace.

One thing that was hard to get used to was traffic. They use private mini vans for their bus system and the roads were literally grid-locked with hundreds of these vans bumper to bumper. The good news was you could get places fairly cheaply, it just took awhile. We had a fun time riding around trying to find a propane (BBQ) lighter for our stove. That took one half a day.

Site of the near international incident when I politely refused to go to the back of the line. The Brits just out of the picture gave me a big thumbs up.

On Friday the 20th we went up to the Yacht Club to check out for our trip to New Caledonia only to have all our friendly Frenchmen from the sailing rally show up again. I was near the front of the line when the rally leader came over and politely said I should go to the end of the line so the rally participants could clear out first. I politely explained to him why that was not going to happen. Several Kiwis and Brits sitting nearby smiled at me and gave me a thumbs up. We've had lots of experience with various local and round-the-world rally's blowing into town and thinking they owned it. The cruising community takes a very dim view of this practice and tries to avoid these rallies like the plague.

We departed later that day once riding on the coattails of a front that had just passed through, hoping the seas had calmed down enough for a pleasant voyage.