Photo: Port Vila, Vanuatu: Cultural Center on hill at left and resort on Iririki Island to right
As they would stay in the USA, looking at the end of the last blog post “I called that one”. We have arrived safely in Vanuatu after a very pleasant downwind passage from Suva, Fiji, but we did not arrive in Luganville on Espiritu Santo Island as we had originally intended. Two days into our passage, on Friday morning (August 17th), both the GRIB weather files and David and Patricia on Gulf Harbour Radio were predicting that the small trough that we were expecting to meet on Monday as we approached Espiritu Santo had grown. It was now forecast to be a long front reaching from New Zealand, across Vanuatu, to the Solomon Islands. Plenty of rain was expected in possible thunderstorms, and almost certainly there could be squalls and locally unpredictable winds. The prudent mariner would prefer to be anchored somewhere with shelter rather than in the open ocean or, perhaps worse, trying to weave their way between reef-fringed islands with spewing volcanoes. So by changing our target from Luganville to Port Vila on the island of Efaté, we shortened our trip by at least 80 nm, ensuring that we could be in port by Monday morning...provided that we kept our speed up to 5 knots.
I must confess to a certain frustration when we had to decide on this new plan. Not only had I liked the idea of arriving in Luganville and, after a week, island-hopping our way south but I had really looked forward to a downwind passage to Vanuatu during which we would not be rushed. We might have been able to use the asymmetrical spinnaker and sail slowly when the winds dropped. Instead, as on almost all of our passages this year, we has to fire-up the engine when the winds diminished and our speed dropped much below 5 knots. Oh, well, it was still a pretty pleasant passage and we were dropping the anchor in Port Vila by 1 am on Monday. We are not great fans of arriving in unknown anchorages in the dark but this one was fairly straightforward and we quite easily found a suitable space in the quarantine anchorage, near three other sailboats, with the aid of the last beams of the setting moon and the many lights from shore.
After several hours of calm and much-appreciated sleep, we set-up the dinghy, installed the sail-cover, and other post-passage tidying. The cheerful Customs Officer, Simon, came aboard around 9 am and very quickly processed our Customs arrival papers. He then agreed that we could go to shore to visit the Immigration Office, and then later we would be visited by the Quarantine/Biosecurity Officer. (This seemed a slightly odd order to me but we took his advice.) As I write, we are all checked-in with Immigration (including four-month extensions to our 30-day visas so we do not have to revisit Port Vila, costing in total 16,800 Ni-Vanuatu Vatu or VT about US$168 which, of course, necessitated a visit to a nearby bank) but we are still awaiting the Quarantine Officers. I hope we did not miss them when ashore but we will call and ask soon...
Farewell dinner at the Royal Suva Yacht Club: L to R Vandy, Judy, Steve, Eric, and Randall
As expected, it was sad to say farewell to our cruising friends in Suva but Vandy and Eric got up to wave good-bye and fanfare us with Eric’s conch shell as we slipped out of the anchorage just after 6 am on Wednesday. It was very thoughtful of them and made an encouraging start to our five-day passage. We briefly saw a couple of humpback whales as we passed north of Beqa Island and noticed many small fires burning along the south coast of Viti Levu. The latter were probably mostly related to sugarcane production because, as we moved westward, the landscape of the island changed from the jagged, forest-clad mountains to lower, rolling hills that have been, or are being, deforested. In the evening we passed the large sand dunes at Sigatoka which in 1989 were protected as Fiji’s first national park. Archeological remains that have been uncovered by the shifting sands suggest that the area has been occupied for thousands of years and the dunes may cover one of the largest burial sites in the Pacific.
Part of the Sigatoka Sand Dunes National Park on the south coast of Viti Levu
The days before our departure from Suva were not only full of the usual provisioning, laundry, checking-out procedures (a single but rather prolonged visit to the Customs and Immigration Office at the commercial King’s Wharf), and socializing with our friends. Those days were also dominated by the anticipated arrival of the bitumen ship.
Given the constant comings and goings of many ferries, cargo, naval, and fishing ships in Suva Harbour, it may sound rather strange that the cruisers should be preoccupied with a ship delivering bitumen (a.k.a. asphalt). This ship arrives annually (from China judging by its name) and delivers all of the bitumen to be used on Fiji’s roads for the year. The bitumen is hot as it piped off the ship and this is accomplished via a long, floating pipeline that had appeared at the north side of the anchorage since our last visit. In the days preceding the ship’s arrival on Tuesday, divers and other workers set-out perpendicular support lines for the pipeline (including one apparently anchored quite close to Tregoning) and moved rather derelict-looking ships off the adjacent moorings and away from the end of the pipeline. Scoots had been given several days’ notice to move from where they had originally been anchored as this would be in the ship’s turning zone but other boats that has subsequently anchored in the area had not been so warned. We were on notice that we might be OK or we might have to move if one of the mooring lines came too close. We were tempted to relocate anyway but could not tell where to move to that would be certain to be out of the way.
Sunset over Viti Levu with part of the floating bitumen pipeline in the foreground
Our friends John and Lynette on White Hawk were anchored not far from the end of the pipeline but they were not concerned as they planning to leave for Beqa on Tuesday morning. This would have been fine, as the bitumen ship did not arrive until mid-afternoon but, unfortunately, instead of leaving the anchorage, John and Lynette spent much of the day in a medical clinic. Poor Lynette was trying to get treatment for a badly injured shoulder (possibly a fractured collarbone but the doctors were rather ambiguous in their interpretation of the x-rays and MRI scan). Sadly, the injury had occurred on returning to their dinghy in choppy conditions, at the end of an enjoyable evening spent with them and with Vandy and Eric aboard Tregoning, where we had been playing music, singing, and having dinner.
To add insult to this unpleasant injury, while they were in the clinic, the Pilot boat was trying to contact White Hawk to request that they re-anchor further away from the pipeline. Unfortunately, none of the rest of us cruisers knew where John and Lynette were nor did we have a phone number for them, although we did try to contact them by sending an email. Randall and I had already packed our outboard and dinghy away in preparation for our passage to Vanuatu so we could not go over to White Hawk to see if we could offer any assistance.
After many visits to the empty vessel, the crew of the Pilot boat attached a line to White Hawks’ bow and started to drag her (with her anchor down) out of the way. Obviously, they could not proceed very fast for who knew what debris the dragged anchor was accumulating. Eventually, both of the Pilot boat crew got onto White Hawk’s bow and pulled the anchor up by hand. The anchor did not appear out of the water but it must have been lifted off the bottom because they were soon able to tow White Hawk quite efficiently between the other cruising boats and away from the pipeline. Once the anchor was lowered and White Hawk was left in her new position, the Pilot boat departed to meet the massive bitumen ship as it slowly entered Suva Harbour.
Pilot boat crew trying to tow White Hawk while her anchor was still down
In anchoring and then maneuvering the ship at the end of the pipeline, a process that took well over an hour, it did cross exactly where White Hawk had been sitting. Luckily for us, the mooring line that was eventually strung from the ship’s bow to the mooring behind Tregoning was nowhere close to us so we did not have to move. When we came to leave the anchorage, we were also very relieved that our anchor lifted without catching on any of the lateral lines supporting the floating pipeline. Otherwise we would have had to call in divers or wait for two days until the bitumen ship left.
As soon as the bitumen ship was in place, a large, private motor-vessel arrived and dropped its anchor almost exactly where White Hawk had been. When John and the sling-wearing Lynette returned in their dinghy, we wondered how they would react to finding that their sailboat had apparently morphed into a rather expensive-looking motor-vessel. Luckily, Vandy was on the deck of Scoots when John and Lynette arrived and she was able to redirect them to White Hawk’s new position. Understandably, they were a bit concerned about what had happened in their absence especially as the toe-rail was significantly scratched where the anchor-chain had been dragged up and down. I was not sure how much it would help but, at John’s request, I sent them some of the photographs that I had taken during the process of moving White Hawk and we were able to reassure them that the Pilot Boat crew had appeared to be most professional.
Seen from Tregoning the bitumen tanker, Zhuang Yuan Ao, about to drop its anchor before backing towards the pipeline
A few days later, we heard from Vandy the good news that Lynette’s shoulder was feeling a bit better. However, when White Hawk’s anchor was lifted to leave Suva they found that a nasty assortment of fishing-lines, cables, and other debris were entangled. Some of the fishing-line that was pulled-up then caught in the propeller and stopped the engine (not a good sign), leaving the boat adrift in a crowded anchorage...a sailor’s nightmare. Luckily, Vandy and Eric saw the predicament and in their dinghy were able to help move White Hawk to a wide-open space and cut the mess off the anchor so that it could be dropped again. John had to dive down to cut the line off the propeller. It appears that the propeller was not damaged because they eventually did go south to the island of Beqa. We can only imagine that they must have been exceedingly happy to get away from Suva.
Since, I started writing this post, we have been visited by the Quarantine and Biosecurity Officers. It took several calls on the VHF radio to establish that they were going to come today but the two officers were very friendly and their inspection did not take long. Tomorrow (assuming that rainy frontal weather does not keep us onboard) we will visit the Quarantine office to pay VT5500 (about US$55) and the Customs Office to get our inter-island clearance document. Then we can start the fun part of exploring Port Vila and Vanuatu...