Vanuatu Wrap up - Photos

Port Vila, Efate (9/22 - 9/27)



Finally on the 22nd we figured it was as good as it was going to get, and spent the next 12 hours beating against the winds for Port Vila.  Luckily the seas weren't too bad, and we were able to point pretty high into the wind, making good time and good heading.  Unfortunately we didn't leave quite early enough, and therefore found ourselves racing against the setting sun.  We need about an extra hour, but with Island Sonata helping us we were able to make it safely to our mooring ball in the dark.



We couldn't believe when we first rounded the point to Vila's bay ... there wasn't a single cloud hovering over Vila!  Never had we seen Vila so clear ... it was a bit ironic, as it seemed the clouds had been following us around over the last few weeks.  Once inside the bay, with the sun just having set, we were motoring up the channel, when a huge cruise ship was making it's way out of another bay into the channel.  Although we knew he was going to turn, and had given him ample space, having such a massive ship pointed directly at Billabong was a bit nerve-racking!  When the cruise ship finally turned, and passed just along side us (heading out the channel while we were heading in), we could feel it's vibrations!

The next five days it was cloudy and rainy ... go figure!  We did our usual 'get the boat ready' routine, some last minute internet-ing, and of course the typically weather watch.

On Thursday, the 28th, we said good by to Port Vila, and Vanuatu, and headed for New Caledonia.

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Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jog

Whew, made it back in one piece... First thing I did was stop by Ed's (the local coffee shop) and get a nice steaming hot Mocha. I haven't had a good one of those in a while! All coffee in SE Asia is Nescafe...which you do get used to after a while, but bleck, I would much rather have a nice espresso. So I stopped at Ed's, said a quick hello, slurped down my mocha in about 4 seconds (S, you would be proud) and got down to business - Laundry.

When you are travelling, and especially when you are travelling light, you go by the "underwear theory". This is that...until you don't have any clean underwear left, there is no need to do laundry. So, if you take 14 pairs of undies, you only need to do laundry...every two weeks. That having been said, I REALLY needed to do laundry by the time I got home. I had worn my bathing suit as much as possilbe just to save those few extra pairs of undies... I know, some people my think that gross. S is one of them; he was begging me to find a laundry place about every two days... What he doesn't understand is that usually the people at the laundry place do not have dryers. So you have to wait at least 24 hours for the laundry to be cleaned and dried. If it is even dry when you get it back, you are lucky. If it smells good, you are even luckier. After getting mine back a couple of times still smelling like not so dry, semi moist, little bit dirty laundry, I say 'forget it, I would rather go without'. So I'm sticking with the "underwear theory".

I finished my laundry, went and got a huge burrito (another thing I always miss when I am away from home) and promptly fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up, I figured that was the last of my jet lag, but alas, that was not the case. I slept 13 hours last night....from 11:30 pm to 1 pm. I am wondering what time I will finally be able to fall asleep tonight...(or tomorrow perhaps?)

Next Stop: Tomorrow I am off to Lake Oroville for some fun in the sun and waterskiing with the Keesling family... I have not been waterskiing since I was about 10 so am looking forward to showing off my (lack of) skills. After that, I have decided to go up to my parents house, hang out with them and finally...fix my car (her name is Sadie - she has been dented for a few years, but since I have been living in the city and travelling, I have not really needed a car so I have let her sit). I will be doing it myself, so it will be a good learning experience (maybe teach me some patience...haha, yeah right) for me and then she will also be ready to roll for the next time I need her....

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Revolieu Bay, Epi

Revolieu Bay, Epi (9/18 - 9/21)



We had been dreading heading back to Vila, as it is against the winds, and we'd have to really watch the weather, waiting for a shift or lighter wind.  The trip to Revolieu wasn't too bad, but it was still to weather, and by the time we set the hook in Revolieu we were worn out.  For only the third time in the last two weeks the sun was out and the sky was clear when we entered Revolieu.  That night the sky was lit up with thousands of stars.  We were highly disappointed when we woke the next morning to clouds and rain!

We spent four nights in Revolieu, mostly just entertaining ourselves while waiting for decent weather to finish the trek south to Vila.  Twice we walked the dirt road to a nearby village and school (about 45 minutes one-way).  Here we met a young Peace Corp's worker, Kevin.  We ended up having him out to Island Sonata for dinner, where he entertained us with his guitar playing and singing.  He writes his own songs/music and they are amazing.  We also ended up leaving the solar oven with him, to pass on to the village.  Kevin and Beth, from Red, had given us the oven in Majuro.  We had originally hoped to pass it on to 'our village', Naviqiri, in Fiji, but we never had enough sunny days to teach them how to use it.  Most of our time in Vanuatu had also been cloudy and so we were getting worried we'd never find a place to leave it.  Since Kevin will be in Revolieu for a couple of years, we figure he'll have plenty of sunny days and plenty of time to show the locals how it works.This text will only appear on after the reader clicks "continue reading.." Delete if NOT needed

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What Day Is It Anyway?

Today is the longest day ever... I am leaving Manila at 11:45 p.m. on the 20th. Next I have about a million (well, two) layovers and about a million (well maybe more like 27) hours before finally arriving in San Francisco on the 21st at 9 a.m. Using the points program for United Air has been nice on the pocketbook, but man, do they make you work the clock! There were no direct flights from Manila to anywhere I wanted to go and of course no layover is shorter than, um, 5 hours.

Ah well, I am headed home!

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A small Vanuatu loop: Malekula, Ambrym, & Epi

Current Location: Revolieu Bay, Epi Island, Vanuatu
Current Position: 16°43.68' S 168°08.68' E
Next Destination: Port Vila, Efate Island, Vanuatu

Over the last eleven days we've completed a small loop, visiting three anchorages on the South-Eastern side of Malekula (Maskelyne Islands, Port Sandwich, and Banam Bay) and one anchorage on the Northern side of Ambrym (Ranon Bay).

We enjoyed our time in the beautiful and calm anchorage of the Maskelyne Islands, but after three days of on and off sun, the clouds rolled in and have hovered over us ever since. We've been desperately praying to the sun gods to part the clouds and clear the rain, but as of yet they are ignoring us.

From the Maskelyne's we moved up the coast about 12 n.m. to Port Sandwich, a very calm spot to be anchored during some shifty winds. In Port Sandwich we enjoyed some time with a very funny local couple, Ezekiel and Serah. Ezekiel was quite the character, talking non-stop in his heavily accented English, of which we understand about one out of every ten words! They were an extremely giving couple, loading us up with fresh eggs, fruits and veggies after only knowing us less than a day!

Banam bay was terrific, but crowded .... the most boats we've been at anchor with in a long time (about 15)! The village caters to tourist by offering crafts and custom dancing (at a cost of course). The dancing was terrific and energetic, but couldn't compare to the thousands dancing at the Nekowiar festival in Tanna. Still it was great fun, and as always the locals were more than welcoming. The following evening we enjoyed dancing to the tunes of a local string band. We continue to be impressed with the creativity of their musical instruments (a 5-gallon barrel for the drum and a box-stick-string contraption for bass). The fishing just off the nearby reef was outstanding. One afternoon Chris went out in the dinghy and in under ten minutes had caught a dog-toothed tuna! Chris seems to be becoming more and more well known amongst the cruisers for his love and knowledge of fishing, and creative home-made lures. He has now hosted over five
lure-making sessions aboard Billabong!

We motor-sailed to Ranon Bay specifically to hike the ash planes of Ambrym's active volcano, only to learn they had "closed" the volcano for the planting of yams (for spiritual beliefs). So instead we spent the afternoon viewing various wood-carvings by
the locals. Unfortunately Ranon Bay is extremely keen on tourist, so much so that they charge for EVERYTHING (cruise ships visit this bay, so they are used to getting money for everything/anything). To walk through the village and view the various carvings we had to pay for a "tour" .... granted it was only $4 each, but it seemed weird to be paying to go 'shopping'! Ranon Bay has a beautiful long black-sand beach, which Chris was
quite excited about, as it was his first [black sand beach]!

With our visas close to expiring and still having to beat our way back south to Port Vila, we departed Ambrym for a hard on the wind sail back to Revolieu Bay on Epi. We had stopped briefly in Revolieu on our way north, but hadn't had a chance to explore, so yesterday we went on a great walk to a nearby village. There we met a local Peace Corps worker from Idaho. Kevin joined us on Island Sonata for Mexican night and music (he
is an outstanding guitarist/singer).

Now we are just hoping for a half-way decent weather window for the remaining trek south to Port Vila. We figure it's going to be a hell-ish trip, but luckily is under 70 n.m., so we'll just have to tough it out! Once back in Port Vila, we'll prepare to check-out and move on to New Cal. As usual we feel our time has been cut short .... but we must keep moving if we are to have any time in New Cal before departing for cyclone season. Oh woe is us ... having too many wonderful places to visit!!!

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Ranon, Ambrym

Ranon, Ambrym (9/17)



It was another motor-sail over to Ambrym.  We anchored near Ranon Village, as we knew they offered tours to the volcano.  Ambrym's active volcano is purportedly not as impressive as Tanna's, but the ash planes are supposed to be an impressive site.  Unfortunately, we learned that the volcano was 'closed' for the planting of the yams (related to spiritual beliefs).  Typically they don't close the volcano until October, but this year they had planted early.  We joined some other cruisers who had also just come over from Banam bay and were taking a village tour in order to look at the wood carvings.  We had to pay for the tour, 400 vatu ($4) each (normally 800, but on special then), which according to the little paper we had been given included tour-like stuff, such as pointing out various plants & foods, demonstrating weaving and carving, and so on.  What we got was a person taking us around from one wood-carver's home to the next, showing us the carvings that were for sale.  Granted, we wanted to see carvings, and even purchase some, but where was the "tour"?  Chris and I only bought a couple of items, but the cruisers we were with spent tons of money ... and still at the end of the day we were all charged for the "tour".   Ranon is definitely one of the places in Vanuatu who has taken tourism and making a buck a bit too far.

Ambrym is also where the Rom dance takes place.  Originally I had really wanted to see the dance, but a few other cruisers didn't give the dance that great of reviews.  The costume is quite impressive, but paying $40 bucks each just for the costumes seemed a bit pricey, so Chris and I decided against it. With no Rom, no volcano, and everything else at Ranon costing money, and with our visas running out of town, we decided it was time to head back towards Vila.

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600 Meters Under The Sea: Palau Sipidan

After leaving the Kinabatangan, we boarded the bus, went back down the bumpy road, and headed to Semporna, which is the gateway to Palau Sipidan (Sipidan Island) where we would be doing most of our diving. I thought Semporna would be a biggish city, with all the amenities of home, but S and I walked from one end to the other in about 20 minutes, then looked at eachother and said "what now?"

We found hawker stalls - our favorite. This is my idea of Malaysian fast food. You go into an area that resembles the food area at your local county fair. There are tons of different things to choose from, all being made on the spot, right in front of your eyes. You point at what appears to not have chicken in it (and cross your fingers) and 2 minutes later you are sitting down having a wonderful meal. I have gotten lucky; nothing has had hidden meat (similar to hidden charges?) in it; somehow with all of my grunting and pointing I got my point across.

We spent the next three days diving in Palau Sipidan...this is a wall dive, which means that the coral reef at the shallowest is about 5 Meters down, but then falls off into a wall formation down into the deep sea. At the deepest, this wall goes down to 600 Meters!! That is about 1800 feet! You wouldn't want to accidently get stuck going down there! We saw so many cool things: sharks, tons of turtles, lots of HUGE fish (that's a huge fish!), schools of hundreds of fish, many different types of corals, anenomes, sea cucumbers, starfish, shrimps, eels, rays, triggerfish galore (watch out, they bite!) and even some weird animals I could not identify (I saw one fish(?) that looked like a lump of mud. It hopped along the ground and the mouth was on the top! what kind of animal was it...I don't know!) We stayed on an old oil rig which had been coverted to a dive rig. You could go diving any time you wanted...you just took a lift down, then jumped off the rig and took off. We also just jumped off the rig anyway for fun (it is about 25-30 feet off the water).

We left Sipidan and headed to Tawau, where we would catch a plane to go back to Kota Kinabalu...

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Banam Bay, Malekula

Banam Bay, Malekula (9/15 - 9/16)



Banam bay was an easy motor-sail up the coast from Port Sandwich.  It was again a bit crowded, the most boats we've been at anchor with in a long time (about 15), but it's a big bay and there was plenty of room.  We went in that afternoon with a number of other cruisers to see the dance performance.  At the Nekowiar I thought I had gotten used to the nambas (penis sheaths), but as we entered the dancing area for the men, I found myself trying hard to not stare!  Apparently there are different types of nambas, and some cover quite a bit more (or less) than others.  Here, they wore minimal coverage, with, as we call them, "the boys" hanging right out there!  I had seen pictures, and some men at the Nekowiar had these type nambas as well, but still it was shocking to be around twenty men raging from 17 to 80 years old, all practically naked.  We were greeted by a line of about five men, who all shook our hands, and then one would put a leaf wreath over your head; you had to bend forward, and holy-moly, look at what you're looking directly at now!



The men performed four dances for us, and they were all terrific.  They were laughing, singing, and energetically jumping around.  They wore bean pods around their ankles to add to the beat of the older men playing the drums and tam-tams (ni-Van carved drum).  A few 'photography' friends, as well as some of the books on photography, have said that when filming or shooting, try to get at a different angle; either lower or higher.  So I was squatting down, filming, I glanced away for a minute, and when I turned back and looked through the viewfinder, one of the dancers had turned and was enthusiastically jumping towards me ... and oh my gosh the 'boys' were coming right at me!  I nearly dropped the camera!

We moved to a different area to watch the women's dance, where the main attraction was a little girl trying to keep up with her mom.  The women's dance wasn't quite as exciting or energetic, but we still enjoyed ourselves.  Afterwards the men had us introduce ourselves and then provided us with drinking coconuts and their local dish, lap-lap.  We had to pay for the dancing, but it was well worth the small fee, and one of the things I feel they are totally justified in charging for.

We returned to Billabong, just before sunset, and Chris decided to make a quick dinghy fishing run. About ten minutes later I saw him coming back and figured he had broken something or tired quickly.  Imagine my surprise when he returned with a dog-toothed tuna!  Word got around the fleet quick, and the next day he was hosting more fishing lure 'sessions'!  Besides the barracuda which we threw back, we caught two other good-eaten fish during our short stay!

Banam Bay has a great beach with thousands of neat shells; we spent part of our morning just walking the beach and admiring the shells ... usually joined by curious children checking out what the whities are doing!  On our second evening in the bay we walked inland a bit to another village, who had string band.  They had the box-stick-string bass instrument as well, and a five-gallon barrel for the drum.  The locals and cruisers all danced, and there was an abundance of laughter.

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Taming the Kinabatangan

Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my! Welcome to the Jungle! Actually, there are no lions, tigers or bears, but...there are: wild boars, elephants, snakes, monkeys, orangutangs, crocodiles and birds (oh my!).

After leaving Mt. Kinabalu, S and I took a detour on our way to Sipidan Island, where we are planning to go diving. We stopped at the Kinabatangan River, which is nicknamed "the Amazon of Malaysia". Well, I have never been to the Amazon, but this was pretty cool.

The first day we arrived, we got settled and then jumped right into a boat to explore the river. We saw tons of Probiscus Monkeys, which have huge fat bellies and big bulbous noses (hence the name). They can leap...(small buildings with a single bound) from tree to tree, clearing about 20 feet or so easily. We also saw a couple other types of monkeys, but the money shot was the elephants. There must have been easily 20-30 elephants all together eating, playing and swimming. We sat and watched them for a long time before it finally got dark and we went home for dinner. The place where we stayed was very secluded; to get to it you had to take a boat from the "town"; there were only 4 other people staying there when we were there.

The next day we were up early for another river boat ride... we saw 2 orangutangs! That night we saw about 4 crocodiles, which apparently you are not supposed to be afraid of, because they only eat small fish and...it takes them a month to digest that! Hmph.

We left the Kinabatangan with a newfound respect for the animals. Now I think that I not only want to take home a monkey, but also a Pygmie Elephant. Do you think it will fit in my suitcase? I may be a little over the weight limit!

Next stop: Sipidan Island for some very fine diving....

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Port Sandwich, Malekula

Port Sandwich, Malekula (9/13 - 9/14)



We decided to stop in Port Sandwich mostly because we were ready to leave the Maskelyne's, but wanted to wait out the shifty weather before going into Banam Bay.  It ended up being a very pleasant stop thanks to two extremely generous locals, Ezekiel and his wife Serah.  Ezekiel was quite the character.  When we first arrived he was wearing a white (now mostly brown) button up shirt, that didn't quite fit - the buttons were all stretched, and his small belly protruded from the gaping wholes.  He had an enormous smile, and enthusiastically shook our hands, all the while talking non-stop.   He wanted to know our names, where we were from, where our kids where (what, you don't have any, well what are you waiting for), and on and on.  He invited us inside to wait for Serah, who had gone to the garden.  Inside he sat us all down, and then ran off, returning with a couple of huge photo album books.  While we looked through his photos, he went off to peel some pamplemouse for us.  His photo album confused us all (we were there with Island Sonata).  There were pictures of obvious family, and photos from other cruisers we knew, but there were also tons of photos of all these white people; riding horses, getting married, prom photos of teenagers, and so on.  One photo actually looked like it could've come from a magazine, then I looked closer, and sure enough it had indeed been cut out, we could see the magazine print.  Very strange and funny.  He served us the pompelmouse and continued to talk a mile a minute.  His English was heavily accented, and we could only understand one out of every ten words or so.  Many times he mentioned the "big man", to the point that we were all wondering who this apparently fat man lived and why Ezekiel was so taken with him.  It was until we had to pray prior to eating the pamplemouse that we realized that the "big man" was God!  We also learned that Serah had only become 'Serah' when she married Ezekiel, prior to that she had some non-Christian name, which Ezekiel stated with obvious horror!

Chris tends to get antsy sitting around and likes to explore, so he asked if we could look around. Ezekiel, said yes, of course, but we had to wait for Serah first.  So we just sat there, waiting.  Finally I guess Ezekiel got bored too, because he said, okay we could walk until we saw Serah ... apparently he likes to be in charge of things!  He gave us a tour of his land, which was beautiful.  He owns a pretty large stock of cattle, and processes coconuts.  The coconut trees were on a hill that sloped upward away from his house and church.  Near the bottom of the hill was a huge pile of still husked coconuts.  Just as I was wondering who collected all those, CRASH-BAM, a coconut fell from it's tree, landed to the ground, then bounced and rolled down the hill, landing in the pile of coconuts!  Ezekiel laughed and made a joke about what a good coconut collector he was!  On our way back, we spotted Sera returning from the garden, loaded full.  We accompanied them back to the house, and started to say goodbye, when they told us to wait.  Serah separated all of the fresh goods into two piles and then told us one pile was from each of us!  There was a huge amount of food there, bok choy, tomatoes, eggs, papaya, and bananas.  We tried to tell them it was too much, but they wouldn't hear of it, and so away we went, once again amazed at the giving and friendliness of the locals.

We took a dinghy ride a long ways up one of the rivers.  It was a bit eerie, with the muddy still water, funky mangrove trees, and overwhelming silence.  If ever there was a place for a spooky movie with crazed mean wild animals, this was it.  We returned to Billabong in the rain, with the wind increasing.  The wind had shifted and our anchor hadn't re-set so we had dragged just a bit, and had to re-anchor ... in the rain of course!

The next morning Chris and John returned to Ezekiel and Serah to say goodbye and bring them a few gifts as thanks for the gifts of the previous day.  Chris said it was funny, because they once again had to hold hands and pray, and since Ezekiel prays in Bislama, some of the wording just comes out a bit funny.  Apparently Ezekiel wanted to ask God for us to be safe on our boats which came out sounding a bit like, "Oh, Big Man, please no killem .... no makem big waves .... "!!!

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