Hi all, So we got up this am to the sound of thunder in the background, only it wasn't thunder it was mt. Yasur going off. I thought i would wash the deck off of ash so I could exercise, but the Rose said she couldn't bare to be so dirty so I ended up washing the entire boat despite the fact it was still raining ash. This huge boat Infinity then comes in and anchors too close to us. Now I have a stern anchor at the bow with the prime anchor all tangled up as we have been going around in circles for 2 days now. We decided to forget the anchors and went to this slick little "bungalo" called rocky Island. No one was there but it looked like a nice place ( not luxurious but very local. i.e. small little rooms with thatched roofs) .There is a beautiful beach there where we talked to some surfers from New Caledonia. The walk down to the beach is very picturesque. We met Stan ( The Man ) on the way back to confirm our trip plans to Mt Yasur. The normal driver is 7th day adventist and won't drive on Fri. or Sat. So we got this colorful fellow named Fred who drove us along with 10 other people in the truck bed to The Jungle Bungalo where they were staying. We then headed up to the mtn. The roads are so bad it is unbelievable. Somehow we made it to the entrance where you pay 2,500 Vatu about $30. US each to see the volcano. I thought alas, at least we will have a nice road now. Wrong, the gov't takes 1/2 the profit but they do nothing in the way of infra structure maintenance. Even the steps up to the volcano's edge were in a terrible state of neglect. You would think there would be some rangers or guard rails or at least warning signs to stay away from the edge of the Caldera, but, no, there was only a small post office box offering to send your letters to wherever. We walked around the craters edge to get upwind from all the ash that was falling all around. It was @ 5 pm when we arrived. The volcano was going crazy! It sounded like they were bombing London or Berlin, etc. The sound was deafening! It was so different from the big Island where the lava flows slowly down to the ocean creating lots of steam. Every few seconds there would be an explosion and a huge plume of smoke and ash would ascend from the caldera. As it got dark, it was like a spectacular fireworks display, only it was pieces of molten lava shooting up into the air 100m from where we were standing on the rim. My thought was only I hope we don't have an earthquake because he whole side of the volcano could easily cave in where we were. Guy took lots of pictures, the battery died on my old camera. We got back to the "yacht club" where the dinghy was only to realize that we had forgotten a flash light and it was pitch black and we needed to get down the cliff to th dinghy. We stumbled about a bit until luckily some girls from the new boat ,infinity, appeared magically with a torch and saved the day for us. Tomorrow we hope to get to the sulfur springs and perhaps see the " John Froom" village. Great Day! Love Rob. Guy and the Rose