Travels in central Vanuatu
25 July 2014 | Aore Island, Espirito Santo, Vanuatu
Barbara/ Blustery and showery
Can’t believe how time is flying by and this blog is very overdue! We are really enjoying your comments and nice to know we are not alone!
We had a great couple of days in Lamen Bay and a nice evening, with a yummy dinner on board ‘Rotor’. The glow of the two volcanoes lit up the skyline above and then a beautiful moonrise. Magical indeed.
From there, we had a cracking sail across to the Maskelyne Islands, a group of islands to the south of Malekula. The tides are hard to fathom here as they start to flow 2 hours after high and low water and can add (or take) a good few knots to your speed. We shot into Gaspard Bay at around 8 knots! Gaspard Bay is a quiet bay that you wind your way into through shallows and coral reefs. I was standing in the rigging as lookout, when a Dugong surfaced right next to the boat, facing the other way. He didn’t see us at first, but jumped a mile when he did, creating a huge splash! We had a very quiet night, watching Dugongs surface and duck under. The following morning we sailed round to Port Sandwich on Malekula. Brief history lesson here. Vanuatu used to be governed jointly by the British and the French, a period called the Condominium (or Pandemonium, if you think about this carefully). There were two legal systems, two police forces, two education systems etc. It must have been chaos, for example with one system supporting driving on the right and the other, the left! Malekula apparently takes its name from the French, ‘mal a cul’ or pain in the bottom! It’s notoriety includes the last place in Vanuatu where humans were eaten – scarily in 1969!!!- and also for it’s shark infested waters. Port Sandwich had been the French centre for Malekula during the Condominium, and has a mainly French speaking population. Time to try our best French, which got us the same response as when in France…no matter what we say, we get the response ‘Pardon?’ We discovered another new hazard while walking across to the village of Lamap. Much of the area is coconut plantations and the thump of coconuts dropping 25 metres to the ground all around us was quite alarming. However, again we met some great people, were gifted more pamplemousse and pawpaw than we could carry and bought some still warm baguettes, half of which were eaten before we got back to the boat!
We sailed back across to Ambrym the next day, to attend a well-advertised festival and to catch up with the crew of Rotor again. The black volcanic sand beaches are stunning. We weren’t sure about the shark status, so I had the quickest dip in the sea ever, soaping up on deck and in and out of the sea like a cork!
In the morning, we joined Eva and Geza for the 45-minute walk up through the jungle to Fanla village, where the festival was to be held. We had been asked to bring rope to trade for woodcarvings. We arrived, rather hot and sweaty after a steep climb, only to be told that the 2-day festival would now only be one day (the next day) due to a local wedding and the chief’s ill-health. We exchanged rope for two bamboo flutes (which we are now practicing) and a large head carving called a Lengnagulong, We were told that if you ask the Lengnagulong to send his spirit to talk to someone you want to give you a pig, then he will give you a good pig. Haven’t tried it yet. although some bacon would be nice!
Day 2 saw us again scramble up to Fanla where we parted with our vatu in advance of the full day festival, only to discover that the day had been shortened due to another wedding. However, we saw the wonderful traditional Rom Dance, from the local smol nambas tribe (smol nabas refers to the penis sheaths worn by the men. Other tribes have big nambas!). The chief also played his flute for us and we realized that we have to do a lot more practice and then we saw traditional sand drawing and a bit of magic. By 10.30am our ‘day’ was over, but we left laden with vegetables and more fruit. We had a fun Mexican evening with the crew of Rotor, eating chilli and playing Mexican liar dice, which they quickly picked up, working out great strategies, reflecting their accountancy and engineering backgrounds!
Saturday saw us varnishing and cleaning before heading to Bowama, further down the coast. This bay has hot pools and as we landed the dinghy on the shore, I nearly had to hop back in as the sand and sea was so hot! It was great fun, swimming in hot and cooler spots and sitting in the hot sand. We also took our laundry and Simon filled buckets from the hot freshwater lagoon and we washed our clothes and hung them on trees to dry as we had a final swim, followed by a blissful rinse in a whole bucket of hot water, washed our towels and togs and took them back to the boat to dry off. There were also birds nesting there called megapodes and locals were collecting the eggs, which are about 4 times the size of a hens egg. The mothers leave the eggs to hatch and the chicks arrive fully feathered and can fly within 24 hrs.
We island hopped up the East coast of Malekula to the major island of Espirito Santo and picked up a mooring at the Aore Resort. We have been across to Luganville a couple of times, which is a bit like a country town…no big supermarkets, but a good market and variety of shops. We spent an amazing day doing the Millenium Cave trip. A 45 min bus drive up a very bumpy road to a small village, took us to the start. We met our guides, Serge and Daniel and walked about 20 mins to another village where we were fitted for life jackets. We left dry clothes there and took our lunch with us as we walked through the forest for about an hour to the cave entrance. Here we had our faces painted with red clay, acknowledging the environment. Descending steeply into the cave our packs were taken by 2 other guides, we were given headtorches and scrambled down ladders and ropes into the cave. We spent 30 minutes going through the cave, looking at hundreds of bats snoozing above us (and poo-ing on all the obvious hand holds) and equal numbers of swallow nests, again with deposits below. The cave is very impressive, with curtains of stalactites and a huge cavernous ceiling, some 40 metres above. We splashed, scrambled and boulder climbed through. The acoustics were amazing and I wish I could have transported Te Manawa there, but made do with a wee solo of Te Aroha! Out of the cave and our packs had been carried round, so we enjoyed lunch., before 45 minutes of canyoning…not for the unfit or faint hearted, with large boulders, deep pools and the thunder of the river through the gorge. It was excellent fun and the guides were very attentive. Not sure what OSH would make of it! The last section was river swimming, drifting down stream in large pools, swimming through waterfalls and enjoying the fantastic scenery. It was amazingly cold and Simon was almost hypothermic by the end. We had a group of young Ozzies on our tour and during the river swim, the guide got out onto a high ledge, which people could jump from. Not really a high level jumper, I probably wouldn’t have done it, but he tried to wave Simon and I past, with the inference we were too old to do it. Well, red rags and bulls. I was out of the water, life jacket off and up to the guide in a flash, only to realize that the jump was from an even higher ledge. No going back now, so first out of the whole group, I launched myself off the cliff and into the pool below. Too old? I don’t think so! A final scramble back up ladders and ropes took us back the village and dry clothes, refreshments and hot sunshine to warm up in. All in all, a great day. Since then we have caught up on chores as the weather is not conducive to sailing. We have also caught up with Anne and Eric on Reflection, sharing a pot luck dinner of spag bol and veg curry, which worked incredibly well. With ‘Bloomers’ arriving yesterday, there are now 3 Nelson boats here! Loads of washing done and drying, sail covers mended (a stitch not in time leads to an hour with the sewing machine) and finally the blog updated! Will try and update the album too!
Hoping to head round the corner tomorrow if the wind abates a bit as forecast. Keep the comments coming; we love to hear from you!