Loltong Bay
17 September 2009 | Pentecost Island
Di & Bernie
We are now anchored in Loltong Bay, at the northern end of Pentecost Island. The southern part of this island is world famous for it's Land Diving (bungee jumping) performed by young, local men when the vines area at their most elastic, which apparently is early in the year and is a draw card for many tourists. Yesterday we enjoyed a short sail of 10nm from Asanvari on relatively flat water and arrived here to find most of the villagers celebrating a three day sports festival which included soccer, volleyball and basketball. We were intrigued to see all the basketballers and volleyballers competing on courts of dirt and small stones in barefeet. Ouch! There are a few villages around the wide bay and all seem well organised, with attractive gardens and hedges of shrubs that give the place some order. Pentecost is a steep island and beyond the bay is a backdrop of vegetable gardens, coconut plantations and lush tropical growth cascading down the slopes. The sports ground is low lying and flat with a reasonable manicured soccer field. Yesterday was the preliminary final between two local teams and the grand final was held today. We dropped in this afternoon to see some of the action and met up with Chief Richard and his wife Loloweia. We were amused to see that although the main game had started, instead of a soccer ball being kicked around there was a bright, red basketball! Loloweia explained that the soccer ball had been flattened during yesterdays game, and no other could be found for the start of play today. So the game began with a basketball! with a few villagers in the meantime, desperately searching for a replacement! The Chief's wife inquired if we had a ball on board...we offered her a pump but she wasn't sure where the old ball had gone! Eventually the right ball arrived and the game began in earnest. This morning we visited a school up on the hill towards the northern end of the Bay, where two Australian GAP students Tom & Joel are spending six months helping out. We had been invited to visit when we spoke to them yesterday. They have been here since June and have been given a grade 1 & 2 class of 15 students to teach. With no prior teaching experience having just finished their VCE last year, they are doing a mighty job and have a wonderful rapport with the kids. The students were excited about our visit and sang a couple of songs for us which was amazing. The harmony and volume for such young children was very impressive... goose flesh material! They realised Bern was filming them, so they sang even louder! We left a bag of childrens clothes with the Principal hoping she will know who to pass them onto.