Vanuatu 2023

We arrived at 9h30 and went to customs, immigration and bio-security. After we had been cleared for roaming around on the island, we went for a tour around the area on our dinghy. We visited the waterfront café where we left our dinghy and took a short walk down the street. We wanted to compare prices at the cafe, so decided to use beer. We found a shop selling beer that costs 240vt for a dumpy, compared to 600 vt at the café. My head does not want to make these calculations to hundreds and thousands for shopping. I use the calculator in the shop to work out what is affordable and what is expensive compared to what we paid for food in Fiji. The phone data is very expensive and the maximum per month is 8 gig. We were used to 75 gig at FJ$15 per month. Although NZ was just as expensive with phone data. We stowed away most of the sailing gear before retiring to bed, even before sailors' midnight.

We are at anchor very close to town. Shore is about a kilo away. We are also close to the fresh produce market and small supermarket. Unfortunately, the closest building to us is the hotel. The music was extremely loud last night and people were loud a swell. Luckily our main cabin is insulated with the stuff they use in New Zealand to insulate and sound proof the classrooms at school. It really helps because we were able to crawl into bed and enjoy a good night's rest. Not sure how our friend on Intruder managed the noise. It was very interesting to sail with someone else. We were within 10 miles of each other all the time. We also arrived within minutes apart.

We explored the town of Port Vila. We found a few supermarkets and butchery inside
Captain bought meat and he is satisfied with the quality. It is tender with fat and juicy. The one supermarket is very big like a Pick 'n Pay Hypermarket in SA that stocks everything. They even have tofu and other vegan food. The buses in Vanuatu is minbus taxi. We used one to take us to the French butcher. The money is very funny because you pay with hundreds or thousands and it is called Vatu. 71 Vatu is equal to 1 New Zealand dollar, which is about 10 South African Rand. I saw a museum and will most probably visit it next week. I found a church close by that I will attend on Sabbath. We will explore a bit more every day.
13/5
We end up only walking up the hill to the big supermarket to buy a few things. We ate at a small takeaway at the waterfront. Captain enjoyed chicken and chips but the chicken was still a bit raw. Crew enjoyed a garden salad with chips. The salad was delicious with cherry tomatoes, red peppers, etc. All very expensive ingredients in the shops. At the boat, we corrected one of the ropes that pull in and release the headsail. Crew also measured the one reefing line because it chafed and needs replacing. It is 18 meters long and be costly to replace. The reefing lines are important lines that you use to make the sail smaller. We make the sails smaller when the wind is strong. Our mainsail therefore have 4 sizes. The full sail, and then 3 different smaller sizzed (reefs) that we managed through lowering the sail and tie it down with the reefing lines.
Crew went to Church on Sabbath. They have two services, The first service is in English and the second service is in Pigeon English (Bislama). The Sabbath School Bible study took place after the church service and we enjoyed potluck afterwards. There was also a lady from South Africa. Her Father came to work on the island when she was only 2 years old. The family went back to South Africa when she was 18, but she decided to return to the island. Her son and his wife brought me back to town. On Sunday, we searched through our rope locker for something suitable as reefing line. We found one that was the perfect length and started the job of stringing it through. We fixed some of the ropes that were twisted over each other out at the same time. When crew tried to zip the sailpack close, the hinge of the zip handle broke off. Captain is a real MacGuivar, drillin a millimeter hole in the zip casing, put a small hook from the fishing tackle box through the hole and tied the thin rope to it. Crew used the thin rope as usual to close the stackpack. That protects the sail against the rain and uv from the sun.
We went for our daily exercise walking up the hill to the supermarket. We also found a hardware shop and a laundromat. Will visit them again when they are open tomorrow. Most shops were closed because of Sunday. Hopefully the laundromat is not too expensive so that we can use their services instead of making water for our twin tub washing machine. It uses quite a lot of water, especially rinsing Our friend came over to end the day with a bbq. Captain enjoyed his rump steak, says it is even better than New Zealand meat. We bought airtime for the phone, but the package was more expensive, so we need to get another voucher before it is activated. Hope all the mothers were spoilt on this Mothersday.
15/5
It has been overcast with frequent rain showers the last couple of days. We do not have electricity on the boat, but use batteries. The batteries are charged by solar panels and a small wind charger. The power in our house batteries were a bit low this morning. Captain ran the boat engine for two hours because he used the engine to put power into the batteries. Afterwards we went to town, walkng up the hill for some exercise. We also visited interesting the Hardware shop. They have a huge variety o different things, from paint to fishing stuff. It was to look through the different things and to compare prices to what we were used to in New Zealand. Must admit, they are quite expensive so we did not buy anything. On our way back to the dinghy, we stopped at the market and I bought a big, fat cucumber for 300 vatu. We also bought a jam which looks like a very big root of a plant and it tastes like potato. Captain ate it the first time in Nigeria and crew tasted it at Church on Sabbath. Will try it tomorrow night and let you know how it tastes and maybe a picture or two.
16/5
I forgot to mention the duty free shop we visited yesterday. They have small toy sets with eg. A train or a carthat is driving in a small circle. They have lots of different themes. I will send videos of it once I go to the café in town. Today was raining off and on, and the wind gusted to 35 knots. We decided to stay on the boat to continue with maintenance word. I was dong some sewing, but by hand. I am unable to use the sewing machine when the batteries are not sufficiently charged due to the lack of sunshine. I was able to mend a ew seams of my pats, as well as one of my dress type tops. I am still busy with my blue top. Captain ran the water maker for half an hour to make some water. He replaced the electrical cord on the watermaker motor with something that can withstand more power. We saw a magnificent rainbow that started and ended not to far from our yacht. I will wnd a phot too. It reminded me of Noah in the Bible. God gave us the rainbow to remind us that He will never destroy the earth again with a flood.
17/5
We have not done much for the day apart from going ashore to explore a bit of the island. Captain was MacGuivar once again. He used some parts of a GoPro bracket to modified it and fitted it onto the broken tablet bracket. It will now work to use it at the steering wheel when we enter harbours. Our chart plotter is a bit far from the steering wheel.
18/5
Today was a different day with different chores. We loaded 2 empty 20 liter jerry cans onto the dinghy and motored to the wharf. We walked to the petrol station, filled the jerry cans with diesel and took it back to the dinghy. We motored back to Ntombi and stowed the jerry cans away. We took again 2 empty cans and repeated the process twice more. So in total 6 jerry cans of diesel. We also went to the laundromat and washed all the clothes, sheets, towels and even the boat curtains. We got our daily exercise by walking up the hill to the supermarket too.
19/5
On Friday we walked a different direction from town to find 'Computer World'. I went there to buy a micro sd card. It was cheaper than what I paid in New Zealand. The rest of the day was spent cleaning and cooking and downloading charts onto the sd card for use on the tablet.
20/5
The South African lady brought me a big jam as a present because I liked the jam they served so much the previous Sabbath. She and the two grandsons brought me back to the market place, seeing me off at the dinghy.
21/5
Today crew made a bright band to cover our Danbuoy where the yellow stipe disintegrated from uv. The danbuoy are thrown into the water when somebody fall into the water (man overboard) to help identify the position. There is a red flag at the top as well. The best is however to clip your harness onto the jack lines to ensure you stay onboard the ship. We also went for the usual exercise walk up the hill to the supermarket. Most other shops were closed because it is Sunday. Even the public toilets were locked. It rained most of the day, so could not do much outside on the boat. Thought of leaving on Wednesday but the weather does not look that great anymore.
22/5
Today we went to Vila Marine and we are pleasantly surprised by the amount of items in stocj. We suspect there were a bigger variety than een the big marine shops like Burnsco in New Zealand. It was raining the whole day, so we were walking in the rain. We decided to visit the Vanuatu museum. It was an interesting experience. The tour guide, Edgar, told us stories about Vanuatu whilst drawing in sand, sign the picture and the destroy it to start the next. He also demonstrated their version of the flute as well as their version of a 'piano'. We watched a documentary on Vanuatu and their independence when they started ruling themselves. Afterwards we walked past the convention centre on our way back to the wharf and our dinghy. We use the dinghy - small inflatable boat - to go to land from our yacht.
23/5
Big excitement in Vanuatu today, because a big cruise ship visited Port Vila. There were many stalls where people were selling art and handcraft. It was raining the whole day, so we only went ashore for a very quick stroll through the stalls. More out of interest to see what they are selling to the tourists. I managed to finish mending my blue top and then went on to put string around the round steps of our swimming ladder at the back of Ntombi. Captain is concerned that I might slip and injure myself on the slippery steps. He coated the string with epoxy to protect it from uv and the elements.