Portia in front of the War Horse Saloon Bar & Restaurant outside Port Vila, Vanuatu.

September 24-25, 2011

On Friday, we awoke to bright blue skies. At 10:00 am, we went to the Anchor Inn Restaurant to officially check out of Vanuatu. One of the advantages of being part of an organized rally is the immigration and port officials will come to one place where we can all check out at once rather than making individual trips to their offices. The rally has arranged for the officials in New Caledonia to meet us on Ouvea Island so that we can each check in to their country there rather than having to go to Noumea first. We spent the rest of the day buying a few “tam tams” which are hardwood statues, playing tennis and buying a few provisions for the crossing. Since the crossing will only be 35 hours and we are not allowed to bring any fresh produce into Caledonia, we only bought what we can consume during the next few days. At 4:00 pm, we met again at the Anchor Inn for a free kegger and wine get together with the rally boats. From there we along with the folks on SV Wetnose took a taxi to the War Horse Saloon Bar and Grill and enjoyed an excellent dinner of beef and pork barbecued ribs in this very interesting brewery/restaurant owned by American cruisers who settled here 14 years ago.

On Saturday, we chatted with Gerald, who is cruising with his wife Anse on SV Spirit. They are from the Netherlands. We had briefly met them in Ecuador and later in the Marquesas. Their engine caught on fire 10 miles out of Tonga and they had to be towed in to port. Luckily, he was able to repair the engine in Tonga and they will be continuing on to Australia. We withdrew cash from the ATM to pay our final bill at the marina and filled our gas jerry jug at the service station. When we checked out of the country, we received a duty free certificate for diesel. Since we needed about 52 gallons, that saved us about $70 USD. Lemara who works at the marina and who had purchased our bicycles, bought our sewing machine today. We were very happy to get this heavy weight item off the boat. In the afternoon, Christine, the French woman who bought our kayak and scuba gear met us at the marina dinghy dock. Portia peddled the kayak there. We have enjoyed this kayak immensely and it was sad giving her up. We had a drink with Christine and her husband Paul after which she jumped into the kayak and happily peddled her way to their home around the point. We went out to dinner and watched another beautiful sunset looking out at Port Vila Bay while the mostly New Zealander clientele watched a World Cup Rugby match on TV. In this part of the world, everyone is crazy about rugby. During the US Open Tennis tournament, we were lucky that the bar owner put tennis on one of their 6 TV screens. The other 5 were rugby. We have enjoyed the town of Port Vila. It is surprisingly modern, well kept and full of friendly people. Back at the boat, we took the motor off of the dinghy and stored it in the lazarrette in front of the mast for the crossing to New Caledonia. Over half of the rally boats left today, those who wanted to take advantage of the stronger winds forecasted for today. We leave at 6:00 am tomorrow.

We have posted a few photos taken while in Vanuatu. Click on Photo Gallery.