Posted by Tess & Jeno

We don’t have any accessible internet so communication on OOROO is still by Satellite at this point.
We arrived into Port Resolution at 15.45 on Thursday afternoon, 75 hours after leaving Fiji. We anchored in 4 metres of water and raised the quarantine flag ready for Customs to come and clear us in on Friday. Before leaving Fiji we decided to use Vanuatu Yacht Services as our agent to organise all our paperwork and Customs check in. On Friday we received an email from Vanuatu Yacht Services advising us that the Customs officer had left the island and wouldn’t be returning until Tuesday so take your Q flag down and go and enjoy the island of Tanna. When we are ready to check out and leave for New Caledonia we just have to go around to the other side of the island to Lenakel and Customs will then check us in and out of Vanuatu at the same time. All very relaxed here on Tanna.
Port Resolution was first put on the map by Captain Cook. It is a very picturesque enclosed harbour with an active volcano nearby. As I am writing this there is steam coming out in certain spots of the volcanic rock edge around the harbour. On the hill top there is the Vanuatu Yacht Club, not exactly like the Yacht Clubs you are probably envisaging but a very plain building, nice gardens and some grass huts. At present there are some Volcano scientists from all over the world staying in the huts.
When we arrived on Thursday there were six yachts here, now there are only three of us. Yesterday along with a French family and a Bulgarian family we were invited to go to the other side of the island to a circumcision ceremony. Stanley and Werry who run the Yacht Club drove us in their Hilux ute, a total of 13 of us, yes Safety First! The trip took nearly two hours to get to the village driving along the scenic goat tracks, through the volcanic sands and dust, stopping to have a chat to people along the way who had been walking for hours in the direction of the ceremony.
Along with the customary Karva which Mike had already purchased from the markets for the village, we asked Stanley what we could take to the ceremony and his reply was 4 litres of petrol for the generator so we stopped to buy 4 litres of petrol.
We got to the ceremony early and they were still setting up, lots of traditional food, live pigs (well initially), lots of face painting, happy people and bright dancing clobber.
There were seven boys who had been circumcised a couple of weeks before, cause for a huge customary celebration where all the villages come together and celebrate their custom by means of swapping raw food, cooked food, vegetables, animals, woven bags, woven mats and bright materials. After a long out of the ordinary great day we left at 4pm for our journey home but the celebrations were set to carry on all through the night with more food, dancing and the drinking of Kava.