Lenakel
Early Friday we set sail to Tanna, this time heading to Lenakel, a new anchorage for us. The trip takes about 9 hours and as we near Lenakel two very speedy dolphins join us under the nets. The water here is so clear, probably the clearest we have seen in Vanuatu, which is quite exciting as we want to go wreck hunting while we are here. 4pm sees us meeting Daniel from the Tourism Office on shore to plan our agenda for the next few days. As it is the weekend we will do our diving and maybe the Blue Cave further north and on Monday Daniel will take us touring. A quick text to Elizabeth & Peter, fellow VSA volunteers here, sets up lunch for tomorrow, in between dives of course. Early Saturday we are out in the tender trying to locate the wreck we spied on the sonar as we entered the harbour, one looked like a huge square something while the other had a series of ribs and looked more like a ship - 9am sees us successfully plotting both of them. On the other side of the harbour lies an old island trader that sunk 3 years ago and when we stop to talk to some locals they show us the wreckage of yet another ship, the Fijian that sunk here in 1841, which is the one we wanted to locate. Yeehah! Shooting back to Reflection we grab our dive gear and head back to the island trader for a reccy dive. Its fantastic, almost completely intact, lots of invertebrate life and beautiful clear water - and only in 12 metres of water. Surfacing after nearly an hour we realise we have 15 mins to shower and meet Peter on the beach so its panic stations, but we get there only a few minutes late. Peter & Elizabeth have been here since October last year, he is working with World Vision on a water and sanitation project, while she is just starting a waste management and environment landscaping project. They live in a cute wee bungalow and have settled in well to life on Tanna, which can be quite remote. It doesn't take much talking to convince us to join them for dinner at one of the nearby resorts and we end up going to White Sands where Eric and I stayed many years ago - it hasn't changed much. Managed by New Zealanders now its still a good place for a meal and a tusker beer, we end up being the last in the restaurant and as I gaze up at the rafters I am amused to see one of the cutest rats running along and peering down at us, he sort of wiggles his nose and his whiskers twitch - believe it or not he is kinda cute - and keeps running back and forth. I was reluctant to mention him to the others but finally the laughter got too much for me and they looked up to watch his antics too. I think Elizabeth was going to quietly mention it to the manager. Island rats are much nicer than our NZ ones!
Sunday is diving with a vengeance day, first out on the wreckage we found - this thing is huge and turns out to an old pontoon from New Caledonian that was brought in to build the new wharf at Lenakel and then sunk during a storm. The water is blue, lots of life on all the various bits scattered across the bottom, lionfish, fuselairs, shrimps of all descriptions - just so many photo opportunities. But sadly it is also covered with loads of Crown of Thorn Starfish - so we will definitely be back with bags and hooks. Then its back for an early lunch and we head over to the island trader, me with my new camera for the first time ever - talk about nervous! I head down first to tie off the tender line and what do I find in front of me? A lovely red lionfish that just hangs above the wreck against the blue background and keeps looking toward me - twould have made a spectacular photo! But Eric is bringing down both the cameras as I had the line to tie, so all I can do is watch and wait. He gets here eventually but by the time I have worked out how to use my camera properly ( well, sort of...) the moment has passed. So I concentrate on learning how to use the camera and take shots of things that don't move much so I can practise with the settings and strobes, I find one of the coolest nudibranchs I have seen, he moves in such a strange fashion - more like a fish, even Eric chuckles underwater when I show him. There are lots of Chinese Dragons and tiny white nudibranchs, but I feel like I am being watched. I haven't moved more than a few feet and back and forth, looking carefully around I see an eye watching me over the side of the ship, but it quickly disappears as I move. Looking closer I can see a tiny octopus under the gunnel but he is making out he isn't there until I turn my back. Trying unsuccessfully to point him out to Eric, who swims away totally frustrated with my gesturing, I too move off to find more co operative subjects. My cool wee nudibranch has vanished but now I see another one, totally camouflaged like the growth of the wreck, it isn't until I look at my photos later that I realise just how detailed he is, with blue patches and fluffy brown bits - hes hard to explain.... Eric comes back and helps me experiment more with my camera and getting the strobes both working then I am off on my own again basically taking photos of nothing in particular but learning heaps - and no flooding Over an hour later I surface to find him patiently waiting then its back to top up the tanks before we head back to the pontoon to "catchem starfis". Of course the locals are now getting curious about what we are doing and its not too long before we are visited by Chief Peter who is very keen on learning more about the COTs and promises to get some of the boys out there catching them. He invites us into his beach tomorrow night to discuss some ideas he has on tourism - so Monday is going to be a long day! With full tanks we head back out with a Tux dog biscuit bag and a catchbag to do combat, 30 minutes later and 70 COTs from just around the pontoon we resurface - just in time to get showered and cook dinner for Peter & Elizabeth who are joining us on board Reflection. It was amazing how fast these starfish move across the sand, sometimes I nearly had to chase them. We only touched the edges of the reef where they were heading to at the end of the day, and there were still plenty there... strange coz there isn't a lot of coral for them to eat here.
Monday is a fullup day with Daniel taking us to four tour activities, mainly kustom villages where people still live in the old kustom manner. The first one is an eye opener as the visit is split into learning what the women do, gardening, preparing food, weaving etc then we are shown what the men do smoke tobacco, drink kava and hold meetings, plus make the occasional fire. Needless to say this gave cause for several sarcastic comments from me to the woman showing us around who totally agreed. The saddest part of the tour was when she showed us how the medicine man resolves many of the medical issues, including broken bones that have definitely not healed properly - quite sad really as they are only 14km away from the hospital where the young girl with the broken arm could have had her arm set properly. The next highlight of the day was visiting the Yakel village a totally true kustom village. Here we met JJ who was the translator from the TV program "Meet The Natives" an amazingly astute man with excellent English and a great sense of humour - Eric has a blast talking with him so much so that not many photos were taken. Afterwards we head to a site where a group of young men from the island of Futuna have created an amazing site showcasing the kustom ways of Futuna, local houses, food preparation, weaving etc and their kustom dances. A fantastic show with such much effort from these young people who have done this all themselves and now created an income option for themselves.
Over the next few days we slowly head northwards towards Port Vila, taking the time to stop at Erromango which we haven't had the opportunity to visit before on our travels. Dillons Bay was a delight, full of history from both pre whiteman days and the missionary invasion - which tended to end rather brutally. A very laid back village with plenty of interesting stuff and yet seldom visited by anyone. Our guide David showed us the Cave of Skulls which just blew me away, climbing up the rocks to entrance of the cave I was gobsmacked to come face to face with a mound of human bones and skulls, and the Bunmavin Cave was huge, full of limestone formations and loads of tiny bats.