Chapter 4 - Vanuatu, Land of Fire
As we turned the corner and Musket Cove was lost to sight we headed for the
pass through the barrier reef on a sparkling clear blue morning.
Three dolphins took up station on Aliesha's bow and we felt this was a good omen
for our sail to
Vanuatu. James was really looking forward to an
ocean passage, albeit a short one for Dick and I. His enthusiasm was
certainly infectious and we were happy to be under way again; in fact this was
really the first leg of our 20,000+ mile voyage home. We would be taking
the first hour off our time-pieces on reaching Vanuatu.
On the second night out, with no wind, we were motoring in an oily swell. Dick was on watch. Suddenly the peace of the night (if you can call it that with the engine running!) was broken by the piercing whistle of the battery alarm. We turned off the engine and made a cursory inspection but strongly suspected we had lost yet another alternator. So there was nothing for it but to raise sail and drift through the night until daylight when we could tell better what had gone wrong. Dick confirmed that it was indeed the alternator. We carried a spare but the fitting of a replacement is so difficult we decided to wait until we arrived at Port Vila.
The wind was so light that the main and genoa were struggling to move Aliesha through the water. Out came the spinnaker and by mid-morning we were doing a very respectable 6kts. Power had become the other scarce commodity so we had decided to each take an hour at the helm to avoid using the power-hungry autopilot. This was quite a challenge for James who had had little experience in helming. Even Dick and I were finding it difficult as we so rarely steer these days; that's boring stuff normally but with a spinnaker in 12-15kts of wind it gets a little more exciting.
We had deployed the towed water generator and also re-sited one of the solar panels on top of the bimini to give us maximum power input. The former attracted a certain amount of passing interest from a small group of pilot whales but thankfully they left it alone. By the evening we had built up a sufficient store of amps that we could use the navigation lights and the autopilot.
On the fourth day the spinnaker was up and running before I could serve breakfast. James's experience as a foredeck hand on a racing boat in Hong Kong proved invaluable and we were soon flying along in 15+ kts of wind in a building sea. We'd made enough power during the night to run the water-maker and for the skipper to have a much-needed shower. Dick and James had been amusing themselves with daily sunsights. We were even able to give James his own sextant! The competition to see who could get the nearest to our GPS position was fierce and proved to be more stimulating than Su-doku which had consumed the crew for many weeks!
Exciting news came through during the night via Sailmail: James's sister had had a baby boy in Seattle where she lives with her husband. We celebrated with a champagne breakfast minus the champagne, and bacon instead of smoked salmon but it still tasted good! Land came into view mid-morning as we spotted the island of Efate, the main island of the Vanuatu archipelago.
Port Vila, Efate
Without an engine we were concerned about our arrival. Fortunately the
bay is well-buoyed and the designated quarantine area is on the approach
to the anchorage. We were able to sail right into the anchorage despite
gusty winds
and drop our anchor under sail with a bit of nifty work from the
crew. The lady quarantine officer was standing by in a dinghy (we had
radioed ahead for directions and explained our situation) and she seemed quite
impressed with our ship-handling. With the formalities over and the loss
of all our fruit (anti-fruit fly precautions) we settled down to a stiff G &
T (minus the lemon!) happy to be safely in port.
And now a little information on Vanuatu. If you're like us, we'd never heard of it until we started to plan our Pacific crossing. It consists of a chain of some 83 islands, most of them being only small, and lies some 500 miles to the west of Fiji. Originally called "New Hebrides", it was jointly run by the British and the French from 1914 until it became an independent republic in 1980 The locals were cannibals and the last missionary was eaten in 1967 on the island of Tanna. You could spend a whole season cruising these lush islands but sadly the cyclone season is drawing near and we would only have time for one island - Tanna, thankfully now cannibal-free!
It was time for James to leave us and make his own way through some of the islands. He arranged a splendid evening for us including sundowners at a very up-market beach resort out of town and dinner at the Tropikal Bistrot with a small earthquake thrown in for good measure!
It seemed strange being a deux again. We attended to laundry,
cleaning and
provisioning. We also set about applying for our Australian
visas. A visit to the Australian commission in Vila left us confused and
somewhat appalled at the thought of having to have a chest x-ray and full
medical examination. "Surely not, we're British" we cried!
On our way back to the boat we met Nikky, an English lady off the yacht
INTREPID. "Oh no" she said, "you don't need to bother with
all that stuff. You just apply through the Internet and should get your
visa within 2 weeks". She was right! We now have a 12-month
multiple-entry visa which is just perfect for our requirements.
Being bored with Vila which, we felt, had rather sold its soul to the cruise ships from Australia, (the tourist shops are full of luxury goods which seemed totally incongruous as most Vanuatuans are subsistence farmers), we left to explore some other anchorages on Efate. (See chart) Nothing much to detain us here either, so we set off for the island of Tanna.
Tanna, home of the volcano
A short over-night passage brought us down to the east side of Tanna. It wasn't long before we could make out the pall of ash hanging over the volcano. As we drew nearer we could see the ash cone that forms the volcanic crater and regular clouds of smoke and ash belching out to be swallowed up by the clouds.
Our anchorage for the next 6 days was in Port Resolution, a beautiful bay
fringed by black and white sand beaches and coconut palms. It seemed
to be almost 
under the volcano. Certainly we could hear Yasur rumbling
quite clearly. Still, Captain Cook had anchored here so if it was safe enough
for him it was safe enough for us. In any case, there were some 8 yachts
in the anchorage already. Before we had even
dropped the anchor, Peter, a
local in his outrigger canoe was patiently waiting to offer us a trip up to
Yasur and a genuine Vanuatan feast the next day to which we readily agreed.
The following morning we threw back the hatch full of excitement for the
coming day to discover that Aliesha was covered in volcanic ash and grit from
stem to stern. It took us most of the morning to clean up and launch the
dinghy which mercifully had been upsidedown on the foredeck. The 'feast
'was rather disappointing, at least as far as the food was concerned. On
the plus side, the locals can sing and play guitars beautifully, and kept us
entertained through the 
long
afternoon. As for the trip to the volcano, our truck never
did turn up and we had been waiting some 4 hours since our meal. We later
learnt we had fallen prey to local politics; it seems one or two of the villages
are trying to poach customers from the 'official' guides and not entering into
the spirit of the local community.
Over the ensuing days we got to meet the people who really run this place. The Yacht Club, quite a substantial wooden structure at the top of a short sharp climb up through the trees from the beach, seemed to be the focal centre for activities. It was a bit of a lottery whether you would find it manned and you certainly couldn't always buy a beer but sooner or later one of the locals would turn up. Without exception they were friendly, interested in us and where we had come from and keen for us to visit their villages of which they were very proud.
Nelson, a charming 30-year old, was trying to get a restaurant business
going and was looking for help to promote it. Imagine a palm frond hut on
the beach
overlooking the surf, no tables or chairs save one trestle table laden
with food and rough wooden benches along the walls. At one end is the
kitchen where Lea and her two helpers prepare the food. They have just
made enough money to buy a proper stove instead of cooking over an open
fire. Plates are made from palm fronds and decorated with flowers.
Unlike our first feast, this one was beautifully prepared and presented and all
from locally grown or caught produce. The lobster was superb and at the
equivalent of £3.50 per head the whole meal was a real bargain. Hopefully we have
been able to put Nelson in touch with somebody in New Zealand who might be able
to help with a grant for more facilities, like a generator to run a freezer.
And we did get to see Yasur. This time we made arrangements with the official truck driver, Ernest, who took a party of us up to the volcano including Nikky and Andy off INTREPID. We arrived at the entrance about 4.45 pm and paid our entry fees. We then continued up a steep rough track surrounded by rich vegetation. Suddenly we were plunged into a lunar landscape as all the vegetation disappeared and we were looking at the base of the volcanic peak. The last part we had to do on foot climbing up the cone and picking our way through the ash and boulders, relics of previous eruptions. About half way up Yasur gave out a warning rumble which stopped us dead in our tracks, wondering if we were going to be hit by flying debris. But its bark is worse than its bite and we continued up to the edge of the crater quite safely.
It's quite a moment when you look down into your first real live volcano. What do you expect to see? A cauldron of boiling lava with constant eruptions? Well no, it wasn't quite like that.
For
one
thing we were standing on the outer rim so we couldn't see down to the crater
floor. What we could see was an evil looking landscape constantly belching
out huge plumes of ash, lava and rocks. There are three vents. The most
active of them was directly in front of us. As the sun set behind us and
dusk crept over the mound 
we began to see glowing specks amid the clouds. These were lava
bombs being hurled maybe 200 metres into the sky. Happily they mostly fell
back inside the crater, although some made it to the outer rim, maybe 50 metres
from where we stood.
And then finally darkness came. The sight was incredible, like watching a giant roman candle with sound effects! We felt very privileged to be here and without a hard hat between us!
There is so much more we could write about Tanna. Looking back, the highlight of our visit was not so much the volcano but the contacts we had with the delightful people, living as they have done for centuries and hardly touched by modern man. A trip across the island to check out with Customs and Immigration in Lenakel showed us a people who still live in thatched huts and grow their own food. The children receive schooling until the age of 9 and after that it's mainly a case of whether the parents can afford secondary education. Lenakel hardly passes for a town and reminded us very much of African scenes with its small stores selling limited goods and a market under the trees.
We came away with many splendid memories and not a little volcanic ash, just to remind us of our big adventure!
