June 30, 2008 - Darwin Dash, Day 3

This morning the swell was still knocking us around. We found a flying fish on the cabin top, and another big one stuck in the reefed down mainsail. It was too windy to shake out the reef, so he's still up there. Sun dried flying fish, anyone? This afternoon the swell started to moderate, but so did the wind. By nightfall we were back to averaging 6.5 knots, well off our mark of 8.5 the night before, but it was a much more comfortable ride. Sten made us some tasty chicken korma for dinner. Afterwards, we chatted with Khulula, Phoenix and Kika on the radio. Kika is only about 120 miles ahead of us. It will be fun to see if we can catch up to them before we reach the Great Barrier Reef. It was a quiet night, marked only by a ship passing within 6 miles of us on Sten's watch.

June 29, 2008 - Darwin Dash, Day 2

Last night, about 17 hours after departure from Port Orly, we finally found the wind and were able to shut down the engine. Shortly after we found the wind last night we found the swell. We've been sailing in a washing machine most of the day. We went into energy conservation mode. We both spent most of the day alternately napping and keeping watch. For dinner we had reheated mac n' cheese. At nightfall, just as we passed the 200 mile mark from shore, we started passing brightly lit fishing boats. Like floating cities, they were parked just beyond Vanuatu's 200 mile limit.

June 28, 2008 - Darwin Dash

Yesterday, while we waited for the wind, we took advantage of the sunny day. Before it got too hot we took a walk in the village. This is the first French village we've been anchored near in Vanuatu. It was depressing looking - concrete huts with tin roofs squatting in the mud. It was like nothing had been touched since the French pulled out 30 years ago. But the kids, playing volleyball and soccer in front of the church-run school, seemed as cheerful as in any other village. The steamy tropical heat got the best of us, so we cut our walk short and did a bit of snorkeling around the anchorage to cool off. During the afternoon Sten finally installed the dinghy wheels we've been carting around since the Caribbean. We'll need them to haul the dinghy up the beach in Darwin, where the tides rise and fall 8 meters twice a day.

This is the most fly-blown place we've been. The flies drive Sten crazy, but provide me with endless hours of amusement as I watch him wield his fly swatter like a kung fu fighter. The flies don't bother me, but the flying ants are another story. The last thing we need on board is an ant infestation.

We woke up this morning with still no wind in the anchorage. Looking at the latest Grib file, it showed the wind sitting about 100 miles to the west of us. That wind line wasn't going to get any closer over the next four days. So we decided to motor out to it. With Darwin 2200 miles away, which is at least a two week sail from here, and the start of the Sail Indonesia rally less than a month away, we just can't wait around Vanuatu for an ideal weather window.

It took about two hours to get the boat put away for passage. We had a pleasant day motoring in calm seas. We cleared the northern point of Santo and turned west towards the now falling sun. We were towing the big marlin lure just to see what might be out there. It was getting towards sunset and the reel gave a quick yelp. I was down below reading, and missed the beginning of the action, so here is what happened next, in Sten's own words:

"I turned just in time to see a huge marlin come clear out of the water in our wake. I stood and watched in awe as the fish spent the next 30 seconds tail walking and greyhounding in an unbelievable aerial display. By the time the fish stopped jumping, 3/4 of the line on the reel was gone and I was seriously concerned about getting spooled as the fish first appeared to me to be in the 400lb class and way, way too much fish for my equipment. I cranked the drag on the reel down all the way in an attempt to break the fish off before I lost the entire line. The fish just kept going and made a big circle off to the right. It is a strange feeling to see you line going into the water directly astern and then see the fish surface way off to the the side all the while with a deep bend in the rod. It goes against logic that the two can still be connected.

I recovered some line and for the first time thought we might have a chance of getting the fish to the boat. As soon as I started to feel a little better about the situation, the fish made a second long run against the max drag of the reel. 20 minutes later, after much grunting, sweating and swearing, we saw the fish below the boat. The problem became what to do with a big marlin at the transom of a high sided sailboat. This is the largest fish I had ever seen in my life and contemplating going down onto a narrow swim platform within a foot of a very upset animal with a very sharp bill and a long way from any medical help was not the most appealing of scenarios. In the end it went perfectly: I grabbed the sandpapery bill in my right hand and was astounded when the hook came right out. I lowered the fish's bill back into the water and after hovering at the transom for a moment, it turned and glided into the deep.

Having never actually seen a marlin before I'm not the best judge of its size and weight. However, we feel conservatively that the fish was close to seven feet long and at least 250 lbs. From the seven or eight vertical bars on the flank of the fish we are guessing the fish was a striped marlin rather than a pacific blue marlin. We'll post pics when we get to Darwin."

June 26, 2008 - Port Orly, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu

Actual coral colored coral - first place we've seen that

For those of you who have been reading the blog for a while, you know that one of my favorite drinks is a Dark and Stormy. The official drink of Bermuda is made with dark rum (Goslings if you can get it), ginger beer and a squeeze of lime. It was with a heavy heart that I pulled my last can of Barritt's ginger beer, which is made in Bermuda with some inscrutable thing called neutral cloud, out of the fridge. Knowing that my stock of Barritt's was running low, back in New Zealand I'd stocked up on ginger beer, but it was with the untested Bundaberg brand. In an effort to turn lemons into lemonade, or actually as this is the tropics, limes into limeade, I decided that it was time for a taste test - Barritt's vs. Bundaberg.

As I'm very partial to the Barritt's, I felt that we needed a wider panel of tasters in an effort to get an unbiased opinion. So, we enlisted Gavin and Catherine from Chaotic Harmony to represent the southern hemisphere palate. Bundaberg is made in Bundaberg, Australia. Catherine and Gavin hail from Cairns, Australia, just up the coast from Bundaberg, so perhaps they wouldn't be the most unbiased participants. But since there were only two boats in the anchorage, I didn't have a lot of options. Besides, Catherine and Gavin are just about the nicest people we've ever met and somehow I knew they would be happy to participate (let's just say that a little birdy named Captain Morgan told me so).

First we had a round of classic Dark and Stormy's, made with Barritt's. The grog was good. It tasted like a Dark and Stormy should taste. Then we tried the Bundaberg. Now I know that in some circles (primarily the group clustered around the bar at the NYYC) this will be considered blasphemy, but we all (not just the Aussies on the panel) preferred the Bundaberg. It was tangier. Zippier. Peppier. Frankly, it was a cheerleader in a glass.

June 25, 2008 - Port Orly, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu

We managed to get out of Peterson Bay at high tide Tuesday morning. But the weather wasn't cooperating. Just as we were approaching the reef, rain started to fall from the clouds gathered above us. This did not make for great light conditions for navigating the reef. We managed to get out without incident, but it was a very tense thing for us. Once we were anchored in the outer anchorage I told Sten that was about all the anxiety I could handle for one day. So rather than setting out for Australia, we day sailed up the coast to Champagne Beach, where we stopped for lunch, and then we continued on up to Port Orly. It is now Wednesday night, and the rain has been pretty much constantly coming down since yesterday morning.

Today's rain was of biblical proportions. Sten washed down the deck, cleaned the cockpit and the canvas, and filled the water tank. Meanwhile, (because it is always a good idea to heat up the stove when one can't open the hatches to ventilate their boat) I pickled the vegetables I picked up at the market on Monday so that we don't suffer from scurvy on the long passage in front of us. This second batch of pickling tops off a rash of pre-passage cooking that included macaroni and cheese casserole, waffles, and chocolate chip cookies. Tonight Catherine and Gavin from Chaotic Harmony joined us for waffle night. Last night we went over to their boat for cocktail hour and a bit of fur therapy with their kitties.

The rain seems to have eaten all the wind, so we are going to be here for a few days waiting for a bit of breeze to carry us west. I spent some time this afternoon plotting our route through the Great Barrier Reef and the Torres Strait. Rather than going all the way up north to Bramble Cay to pick up the Great North East Channel, which is the route commercial ships take, we're going to come in through the less travelled, southern, Raine Island Passage. Hopefully by taking the more direct southern route, we'll avoid most of the commercial shipping traffic and much of the adverse current that gives the Torres Strait its infamous reputation. We should also have a better wind angle and calmer seas for the 135 miles from Raine Island to Thursday Island, where we'll clear into Australia. While I had my nose buried in charts and cruising guides, Sten made us a delicious ginger beef, bok choy stir fry for lunch. After lunch, despite the rain, he went just outside the anchorage to do some fishing. He swears a shark took a swipe at his surface lure.

June 23, 2008 - Peterson Bay, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu

We've spent the last week anchored in Peterson Bay by the Oyster Island Resort. The resort really caters to yachties. From free (!!!!) high speed wireless to trash disposal and delicious dinners, we've really felt welcomed here. And soon they will be installing buoys to make the entrance to the bay safer.

Propeller from the downed fighter

Fighter One, a big US airforce base during WWII, is just across the bay. Last winter, the resort found the wreckage of a fighter that went down in the water here. It is a shallow wreck, so we could check it out by snorkeling on it. It was kind of haunting to think of the pilot, low on fuel, trying to get his damaged plane back to the base. He almost made it, but crashed at night on the final approach. For 60 years, nobody knew where he had crashed. Then the wreck was found and identified. An organization that keeps track of these things got in touch with the family to let them know where their loved one had died.
Fighter One got its fresh water from a deep spring at the source of the river that empties into the bay. We dinghied up the crystal clear river to check out the spring. Dissolved calcium carbonate in the water gives the whole river a blueish tinge. Even on an overcast day, the spring was a deep marine blue. Sten dove in to check it out.
On Monday, Grant from the resort drove us into town to pick up the package that we had been waiting for. The roads here we built by American troops during WWII. They haven't been touched for 60 years. Now they are just a long string of pot holes strung together by a few scraps of concrete. It was a rough ride into town, but the scenery was amazing. We saw a truck cobbled together from scraps of a wreck. Our ride back was even better. The resort was taking delivery of a bunch of lumber for new bungalows. We got to ride back in a big blue dump truck with a pile of lumber in the back, stopping every few miles to rearrange the load so it didn't fall out.

June 19, 2008 - Peterson Bay, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu

Perhaps we should have taken this as a sign . . .

While in Luganville on Monday morning, we checked the post office to see if our chart card had arrived from CMAP yet. There was no sign of it, so we decided to spend a few days exploring the east coast of Santo while we waited for it to arrive. We headed up to Peterson Bay that afternoon. The pass to get into the inner ancorage here is very shallow and strewn with coral heads. We figured that we needed as much water under the keel as possible to get in here. High tide wasn't until almost six pm, so we arrived here at 4:30 pm, hoping to have just enough light left to negotiate the coral heads on the reef.

I took my position on the bow. Sten was at the wheel. There was a bit of cloud cover, so I couldn't see much until it was right under us. We passed just to starboard of some brilliant green coral heads. Then I saw a brown blob of coral in front of us and began gesturing to Sten to turn to starboard. He looked up from the depth gauge to tell me that we only had 4 feet under the keel. As soon as the words were out of his mouth he saw me madly gesturing. It was too late. We hit the coral head with a tremendous jolt. The rig shuddered, the hull hesitated, but then we were moving again. We both started laughing, mostly from nervous relief. A few minutes later, we were both feeing the adrenaline dump in our legs. Our keel hasn't touched the bottom since the Caribbean, so we figure we were due.

We dove on the keel Tuesday morning to check out the damage. Except for two narrow strips where our bottom paint used to be, she looks fine. On Thursday morning, when the cloud cover finally cleared, we went to snorkel the pass to see if we could find "our" coral head. There it was, emblazoned with a stripe of our red bottom paint. But now that we've scouted out the pass in good light, we're even more confused about how we're going to get ourselves out of here. It looks like we'll be waiting a few more days until we can head out at high tide during the daylight.

As soon as we got in here, Nick on Kika began hauling his dinghy out of the water. Within 15 minutes he was underway. As he passed by us, I shouted out to him that I was trying not to take his sudden departure personally. But they had to go right there and then if they were going to go any time soon. The tide tables show that there won't be another high tide during daylight for several days. After Kika left, we were alone here until Thursday afternoon when a boat showed up, sniffed out the pass, and then promptly turned around and anchored outside of it. Good decision. A few minutes later they came over in their dinghy and asked us how much we drew. When we told them that we'd touched with our 6'4" draft, they decided that their 7' draft should stay anchored outside. If we'd arrived with enough light to see what we were attempting, we probably wouldn't have come in here either.

About two hours later, as the light was getting very low, two more boats arrived. One had been here before, and was leading the other in. We were very curious to see what path they took through the coral so we could scout it out for our departure. Then the boat behind them got stuck (full stop, spinning on the coral head under their keel) not once, but twice. We decided to stick with following our inbound track right back out again. Since we knocked the top off that coral head, there should be no obstructions. Right?

June 16, 2008 - Luganville, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu

On Saturday morning we woke up early in Asanvari to make our way over to Luganville on the island of Espiritu Santo. Just before we upped anchor, the village baker, Columbus, paddled over in his outrigger and passed up a fresh loaf of bread to us. As Sten cracked open its thick crust a curl of steam brought the smoky scent of the wood oven in which it had baked to our noses. With our tummies full of fresh bread and a farewell salute to Chaotic Harmony, we headed west.

There was not enough wind to keep our sails filled, so we had to run the engine for much of the day. Since we were making energy, we ran the watermaker to top up the tanks on the way. Late in the afternoon, we arrived in the Segond Channel, the Allies' base for their efforts against the Japanese during WWII. Along the way to Luganville, we passed Million Dollar Point, where the US dumped all of the equipment from its local military bases into the sea at the end of WWII when negotiations to sell the lot to the English and French Condominium government broke down. Above the surface it just looks like any other stretch of beach, but below, the sea bed is strewn with massive quantities of military support equipment, including bulldozers, trucks, jeeps, airplane engines and that most essential supply of all - crates of CocaCola.

The main anchorage in front of Luganville is exposed to the swell, so we picked up a mooring across the channel from Luganville, in front of the Aore Resort. Just as we were getting settled, Barbara and Cory from Increscent Moon (whom we'd met and had over for cocktails in Pentecost) and Giff and Patty from Phoenix stopped by on their way back from diving the Coolidge.

We've been catching too much fish, so we haven't made much progress on our freezer full of meat from New Zealand. I know, I know, there are worse problems to have. But I can't stand the idea of having to surrender it to Australian Customs in three weeks - such a waste of money. So, I've put Sten on a strict program of catch and release fishing only. And we've been asking everyone and anyone to come over to help us eat through our freezer. We immediately invited Increscent Moon and Phoenix over for pizza night - on the menu: sausage and onion pizza. Since the resort, which styles itself as being cruiser friendly, was charging an obscene amount of money for non-guests to take hot water showers, and since we had plenty of hot water from running our engine and watermaker all day, AND since we wouldn't have full water tanks at all if it weren't for Patty and Giff's donation of their spare watermaker pump head, we coerced them into accepting our offer of hot showers on board Mata'irea.

I thought I was a provisioning rock star, but Barbara on Increscent Moon showed me that I was strictly minor league. After weeks without seeing a market, we'd run completely out of eggs and fresh fruit and vegetables. The only thing we had left was a few onions, which would be going on the pizza. Barbara arrived for dinner bearing the most beautiful salad comprised of fresh lettuce, carrots, avocados, scallions, Japanese radishes, peppers and star fruit. Patty and I were both in awe. Within days of her arrival here, Barbara had sussed out where everything was to be found in this sleepy tropical town. I mentioned that I needed dijon and she pointed me towards one of the many small Chinese shops, and even where to find it in the store.

Sunday was a work day on Mata'irea. We spent much of the day doing almost a month's worth of laundry. I'd hoped to have it all done by the resort, but those hopes were dashed when we learned that they were charging $20 a load. That's pricier than Papette, which is just offensive, because nothing, anywhere, ever, should be more expensive than in French Polynesia. So I filled the tub a dozen times and stomped on, squeezed, wrung out, and finally passed through the window garment after garment to Sten, who hung them on the lifelines and monitored their progress, looking for dry ones to remove so he could hang some more of the neverending pile of wet ones. In between rounds of checking the progress on lifelines, Sten shortened our new main sail battens, which were just a little bit too long for the batten pockets. He also adjusted the preventer lines, which were the right length when we first spliced them, but have stretched out over the past year. After a day of boat work, we were very happy to head over to Increscent Moon for dinner and let Barbara mother us a bit.

On Monday morning we easily extended our expired visas at immigration (apparently, we're not quite happy these days unless we're illegal) and restocked our vegetable bins at the market in Luganville. We met up with Increscent Moon at the local cafe for a lunch of bacon cheeseburgers, milkshakes and fries (now this is living!). Whenever we get into a new port, Sten and I are always craving burgers. After satisfying that craving, we'll check out the other dining options. But if there is only time for one meal in town, it has to be a bacon cheeseburger.

Santo is covered with bits and pieces of rusting machinery,
such as this Caterpillar 5 3/4" bore genset

June 13, 2008 - Asanvari, Maewo Island, Vanuatu

After a rough night's sleep in Waterfall Bay, we made an early departure for our next anchorage on the next island to the north. We had a fast sail in the flat water behind Pentecost. The crossing between the islands of Pentecost and Maewo was rough and wet, but blessedly short. Coming around the rocks that protect the south west corner of Asanvari from the swell was like unwrapping a present. As the bay unfolded before us we saw the lush green hills surrounding it, then the waterfall emptying into it, and finally a neat little village hugging its southern shores. It looked like paradise.

Our first day and a half here we were surrounded by the boats from a rally out of Australia. We were most impressed by a couple in their mid-seventies who had sailed here on their 24 foot catamaran. It was the smallest boat in the bay. And they had just recently taken up sailing. We were amazed by their pluck and fitness. We hope to have half as much energy and to be half as fearless at their age.
Our first night in Asanvari, I put the C-MAP cartridge for the Australia/ PNG region in our chartplotter, to start to plot our route to Darwin. It didn't work at all. This passage will take us through the Torres Strait, which may be the trickiest bit of navigation we will face on our circumnavigation. The thought that we may not have use of our primary navigation tool was a bit daunting. The possibility that Chief Sham had worked some black magic on us came to mind. But rather than relying on the local witch doctor to lift the curse, we got in touch with Defender, from whom we purchased the card, right away. Defender worked some black magic of their own and arranged for C-MAP to ship us a free replacement at no cost to us. The service we've gotten from Defender and C-MAP have been terrific. Hopefully, the package won't take too long to get to us.

When Serannity had to cut their cruising season short back on Epi, they asked us to take a pair of windsurfers off their hands to give to a village along our way. When they first asked us, I shot Sten a look that said "No. No way. I don't want that shit cluttering up my foredeck." He shot me a look right back that said "I completely agree." But Lew is a silver-tongued devil, and we wound up agreeing to take them. As it turned out, we wound up having a ton a fun paddling around on them in Epi. Sten roasted his back one afternoon as he spent hours exploring the rock formations, coral and fish in the shallows on one of the boards. He even got some surfing in on it. He's might be the only guy to have ever had a session in Lamen Bay. That's my husband, king of the 4 inch tube. We probably wouldn't have ever bothered to rig up the mast and sail, but after the land diving last Saturday, Patty on Phoenix came over and asked to have a go. It took some scavenging, but between the two sets of equipment, Patty and Sten cobbled together a workable set up.

When we told Nixon, the chief of Asanvari's son, that we wanted to donate the windsurfers to the village, he was stoked. He told us that he'd been wanting to try windsurfing for a while. So he and Sten loaded the equipment onto the dinghy and took it to the beach. For the next hour, the whole village watched as Sten recreated the full set-up that he and Patty had achieved in Pentecost. When it was finally complete, he towed the board and Nixon out to the windline at the edge of the sheltered bay, so that Nixon could have a go. In the end, we enjoyed having the windsurfers on board Mata'irea for a few weeks and were glad to be able to pass them on for Serannity. But I'm really happy to have my uncluttered foredeck back.

The next morning, the fleet of rally boats left and we were alone in the anchorage with one other boat, a big Catana catamaran called Chaotic Harmony. Gavin and his youngest son, Fletcher, stopped by to say hello. We talked about the possibility of going to see some caves up the coast. Gavin offered to check with Nixon, and within a few minutes we were packing up our snorkeling gear and flip flops and clambering aboard Chaotic Harmony for a daytrip up the coast. It was such a nice change to spend a day hanging out on a boat that wasn't ours. We didn't have a thing to worry about. Even better, Catherine, Gavin's wife, served up a round of coffees and a lunch worthy of a chef on a Caribbean charter boat.

Once we were anchored, we visited the Hole of the Moon Cave via dinghy. Legend has it that the god Tagaro tore out a piece of rock from the roof of the cave and hurled it into the sky, creating the moon. The roof of the cave has a large circular indentation in the ceiling, roughly the shape of a full moon. There are two entrances to the cave, and we rode the dinghy right through it. We pulled the dinghy up on a stone beach and walked inland a few yards to an overhanging rock wall, covered in petroglyphs. We were fascinated by the drawings, particularly the depictions of early European ships. We could only imagine how significant an event the first sighting of white men and their ship was for the residents of these islands. It would be similar to us seeing a space ship land and meeting its occupants. Just down the way from the petroglyphs, Nixon pointed out the local birthing cave. Looking at the water dripping from the ceiling into the mud floor of the cave, I decided to stick with Brigham & Women's, if I ever need to avail myself of a birthing facility.

Back on Pentecost, we ran out of fresh eggs. It was just the motivation I needed to try my hand at making yogurt. The first round I made with a packet of dried yogurt mix and box of UHT milk. I heated the milk to 115F, poured it into a thermos, stirred in the dried yogurt powder, and left it on the counter for 12 hours to cure. For the next few batches I used the last few spoonfuls of the prior batch of yogurt as the starter. The first two times this worked a treat, but the last one resulted in a grainy mix that tasted fine, but I couldn't choke it down. The texture was all wrong. We've long been out of fresh vegetables and fruit, other than the bananas and papayas we've traded for with locals. It is an awfully sad thing to have loads of fresh bananas for banana bread and banana walnut pancakes, but no eggs to make them with. Catherine on Chaotic Harmony graciously donated a few eggs to our cause.

The other night, as I was pouring the dregs of a week old bottle of non-vintage Hardy's Riesling into a glass, Sten looked up from his book and commented, "I used to know a girl who would have poured that down the sink. She looked a lot like you - only really stressed out." I sniffed the wine, took a sip to confirm that it wasn't corked (a neat trick for a screw cap) and responded, "That girl wouldn't have touched this stuff with a ten foot pole. But luckily for you, I'd rather drink plonk in paradise than Bordeaux in Boston."

June 9, 2008 - Waterfall Bay, Pentecost Island, Vanuatu

A quick 10 mile run north along the west coast of Pentecost brought us into Waterfall Bay. As we anchored, porpoises played in front of our bow. A few minutes later Phoenix arrived. While they were anchoring, a dugong and her calf swam by. Sten dove in to follow them. He watched them forage along the bottom, vacuuming up their lunch. Then he checked both boat's anchors. Phoenix's Delta was nicely dug in, while our CQR was laying on its side, which is par for the course. Phoenix joined us for lunch, and we finished the last of the wahoo in a mild green curry sauce, washed down with glasses of sweet tea. Delicious.

And because I just can't help myself, one more dugong picture:
That's it. Promise.

After lunch, Sten, Patty and Giff went ashore to check out the waterfall that we could see from the anchorage. On Saturday, while sliding around in the mud and rain on the way to the land diving, I cut my foot. So I stayed aboard to give the wound a chance to heal.

When the others went ashore, the first guy they met said that they had to pay 500 vatu per person to see the waterfall. Looking for a second opinion, they made their way to the chief's compound where they met the chief's auntie. Phoenix gave her some gifts for the chief, and she directed another woman to lead them up to the waterfall. The path to the waterfall wound through a coconut plantation and past the local nakamal (men's clubhouse) where the prices for copra and kava (this village's main exports) were posted on the door. One of the men sliced up a pineapple and everyone enjoyed a slice of the sweet fruit. At the falls, everyone took a swim while their guide stood by and watched. When they were done swimming, she led them back to the village.

On Ambrym last Friday, Barry gave us some papayas and bananas. Since we don't really like papaya, which has a musky flavor, they've just been sitting on the back deck getting riper. Patty offered to take one and make a stuffed papaya dish for dinner. I figured I should do something with the other. I didn't want to waste the rum by making a daiquiri with it, so I mixed up a tropical fruit and black bean salad. Both papaya dishes turned out to be tasty, but we're still not fans of this funky fruit.

June 8, 2008 - Homo Bay, Pentecost Island, Vanuatu

Pentecost is the home of a tradition that has become one of Vanuatu's biggest spectacles. Every Saturday, for three months, the men of Homo Bay jump off of a hundred foot tall tower constructed out of branches and vines. These days, land diving is a commercial endeavor and the jumpers are paid to participate. But even so, it is still an act of faith to dive off of a tower with nothing to break your fall but the vines tied to your ankles and a loosened pile of dirt at the base of the tower. Before a man jumps, he raises his arms over his head and prays, then launches himself forward into nothing, vines trailing behind him. With a loud crack, the saplings supporting the platform he had been standing on snap, an a split second later, he hits the dirt. We all watch with baited breath to see if he will be okay. With the help of some elders, the jumper stands up, has the dirt scraped off of him with the back side of a machete, and turns to receive the audience's applause.

Cruise ship passengers gathered for the spectacleVines securing the tower to nearby trees
Chief Luke and his relatives preparing the ground for a soft impact -
note that they typically wear t-shirts, board shorts and Crocs

On Saturday, we saw nine people jump, each from a progressively higher platform on the tower. The first diver was a five year old boy who was thrown from the lowest platform by his father. He had a look of sheer terror on his face before being tossed from a height of 20 feet. When he was plucked out of the mud by his uncle, he looked shocked. The next jumper was the chief's six year old son, William. Earlier that morning, I'd listened to him beg his father to be allowed to jump this weekend. As the audience of a dozen yachties and 1500 cruise ship passengers was assembling below, he had climbed the tower, dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, to look down from the platform he would be jumping off of. He stayed up there for 20 minutes. Then he climbed back down to don his land diving costume, which consisted of a banana leaf wrapped around his willie and a string tied around his waist to hold it in place, his testicles swinging free in the breeze. This is the traditional custom costume of the men of the Small Namba tribes. Namba means number. It also means penis. It takes a self confident group of men to put up with being known as the small dicks. But in this application, namba refers to the covering of the penis. The Small Nambas have very little covering their members. The Big Nambas wear larger sheaths comprised of woven purple pandanus fibers. Several of the jumpers were dressed as Big Nambas. All the men working and dancing around the tower were also either dressed as Small Nambas or Big Nambas. We saw a lot of nambas on Saturday.

Chief Luke and his family, looking much more National Geographic
than normal, though the discarded pair of Crocs somewhat destroys the effect.

Namba by Versace

Just before William jumped, I called out his name. When he landed, he looked dazed. His father, Chief Luke, sent him over to see me. I shook his mud covered hand and told him how brave he was. Then the cruise ship passengers around me all shook his hand. He looked stunned. Gone was the bravado of the little boy who had assured his dad that he was ready to jump. Over the next few hours, as the older boys and the men jumped, I watched William become the little boy again as he danced with his cousins in the mud. Some day William may be the chief of this village. It is important for him to demonstrate his bravery. That's what land diving was once all about. In a land without predators, the Small Nambas and Big Nambas of Pentecost demonstrated their virility by throwing themselves off of a tower of twigs and vines.

These days, land diving is big business. The cruise ship pays Chief Luke's brother 1,000,000 vatu (about 11,000 USD) each time it brings passengers to see the land diving. Each person off of the yachts in the harbor paid 8,500 vatu (roughly 90 USD) to Chief Luke to see the jumps. In a community where there are very few opportunities to make money (harvesting and selling copra and kava are the only two other commercial activities), it is no wonder that there is some resentment brewing against the family that has the land diving market cornered.

While the boys and men were diving, Chief Luke and his family danced . . .

and danced . . .

and danced some more, churning the dirt beneath their feet into mud.

We found ourselves caught in the middle of the local political strife within moments of dropping our anchor in Homo Bay. As we were setting the anchor, two men and two boys ran across the beach to launch their outriggers and paddle out to us. The oldest man climbed onto our swim platform and invited himself and his family aboard. He introduced himself as "Chief." "Chief, what?" we asked. "Chief shm," he mumbled. "Chief Shane?" I asked. "No, Chief Sham." We were pretty sure that he wasn't the chief (we'd heard that Chief Willy had died and his successor was named Chief Luke) and a sham chief he turned out to be. After ensconcing himself in our cockpit, he took a good look around before introducing his entourage. When Sten introduced me as his wife, Chief Sham asked if we were married in the church. Leaving out the details that our wedding took place in an Episcopal chapel and that we'd written the non-denominational ceremony ourselves, I said "Yes, we were married by a Catholic monk." "But you have very good English!" Chief Sham exclaimed. In his experience Catholics are Spanish or French.

He asked us if we wanted him to catch some prawns for us (this is not very chiefly behavior). We explained that we still had a bit of fish left from a big fish we had given to the last village, so no thank you. We are very short on local currency, so mostly we trade with villagers. Sten brought our some D batteries to ask Chief Sham how much they were worth in local trading. Chief Sham grabbed the batteries and tried to keep them as a gift. It took some explaining before Sten managed to get them back. Then Chief Sham asked us if we were planning to go to the land diving. We couldn't tell if he was angling to be our guide to the land diving, but we didn't want to commit to anything. Phoenix had arrived the night before and we knew they had been in to make arrangements with the chief, so we hedged.

As we talked, Chief Sham kept offering to get us prawns for 1,500 vatu. We kept declining. Then he told us that it was custom for us to give him a present for anchoring in his harbor. "Landowner's rights," he said. We knew this was a crock, but we wanted to get Chief Sham and his relatives off of our boat, Sten went below to fetch a hat for him. Chief Sham got up to follow Sten down the companionway. I gestured for him to sit back down with a "he'll be right back." Sten returned with a navy blue CAT VIP hat with gold braid all over the brim. Chief Sham looked disappointed. "What else?" he asked. Sten started to balk, but I sent him down to get another hat. A hat is nothing to us, and if it makes Chief Sham happy, it is no skin off our noses. While Sten was below, Chief Sham asked for our leftover fish. This was getting a bit ridiculous.

As we were sitting in the cockpit, Phoenix stopped by in their dinghy. They had three local men with them. They introduced Kurt, Chief Luke's right hand man, and explained that Kurt was taking care of our arrangements. When they were heading off to the next boat, which had just arrived, Chief Sham and Kurt started yelling at each other. At this point, we really wanted Chief Sham and his relatives to leave, but it started raining, and they didn't want to head off in the rain. Sten started putting the sailcover back on while I stayed in the cockpit to make sure that our binoculars, dive light, headlamps or any of the other stuff sitting out in plain sight didn't walk away. Finally, the rain let up, and our guests left.

It was an unpleasant encounter, but all in all, we can't blame Chief Sham for trying to make a buck. Why should Chief Luke's family get all the wealth (land diving fees, t-shirts, hats, batteries, cigarettes, etc.) that yachties bring to the island? Chief Sham is just trying to get a bit of the action for himself and his family.

The pictures below are a series of shots of the highest and last jump of the day. The side view shots are ours. The fantastic front view shots were taken by Jim on Ruby Slippers.

(I have serious camera envy)

On a technical note - Our last night on Epi, our Spectra watermaker started making a terrible noise. We shut it down immediately. While Sten tore apart the settee to look at the pump, I dove overboard to make sure nothing was blocking the intake port. Over the past few days, while the level of water in our tank has slowly dropped, Sten has been trouble shooting the system. This morning, he and Giff spent a while brainstorming about both of our watermakers. Lucky for us, Phoenix has the exact same watermaker that we do. Even luckier, they happened to have a spare pump head, which they very generously offered to give to us. Best of all, that's what failed on our system (on an even more technical note, the pump failed after 507 hrs and it appears, after disassembling the pump, that the pump head drive magnet was no longer fixed to the pump shaft; basically, the motor was running but the drive magnet was just rotating on the shaft, without the pump actually turning). Sten swapped out our old pump head for Phoenix's and we're making water again. It is such a relief to have an unlimited supply of water again.

June 5, 2008 - Ranon, Ambrym Island, Vanuatu

Wahoo!

With a scream, the reel on the rod trolling the giant marlin lure paid out miles of monofilament. Both of our heads swung around in time to see the silver glint of a monster fish thrashing below the surface. Then it was gone, diving to the deep as the reel screamed again. Sten rushed to the back deck to grab the rod, shouting out orders to slow down the boat. I eased off the throttle and joined him on the back deck to reel in the other two lines, so we didn't catch anything else while he worked on landing the big fish. As Sten fought to land him, the fish kept diving under the boat. "Get the gaff," he grunted. I went to untie the gaff. "Take us out of gear. He's going for the prop. The prop is more important than the gaff right now." He didn't have to explain that if the line crossed the prop, the best case scenario would be losing the fish and the pricey pastel lure that had hooked him. A worse result would be getting the fishing line wrapped in the prop. I scrambled back into the cockpit and took the boat out of gear. Then I rushed back to the stern to untie the gaff.

While the rod dug into Sten's gut (he'd had no time to put on the fighting belt) and he struggled to keep the fish at the transom, I flailed around with the gaff, trying to jab it into the fish's jaw. First I hooked him in his flank. But it wasn't a deep enough wound to hold him. I twisted out the gaff and I tried again. This time I got his jaw, but this fish was way too big for me to get up on deck. I traded Sten the gaff for the rod and opened the transom gate. Sten hauled the still very much alive fish on deck warning me to stay away from the fish's mouth, "wahoo are known for their razor sharp teeth." Finally, a wahoo. We've never caught one before. This pompom of a lure has now brought us two nice big eating fish - maybe the Cubs do have a chance at winning the series.

While we made our last few miles towards Ranon, our anchorage for the night, Sten cleaned the fish, gutting it and trimming off its head, tail and fins. Once we were anchored, it was only a matter of minutes before an outrigger pulled alongside. A local man introduced himself as Barry. We offered the fish, as a gift to the village, explaining that it was way more than we could eat. Even after we cut a few steaks off the tail end for ourselves, there was still at least thirty pounds of slippery fish to maneuver into the outrigger. "Where is the head?" Barry asked. "I threw it overboard," Sten explained. "That is too bad. Head very good for island people," Barry responded. "Next time, keep the head."

The next morning, we took a walk around the village. These are a few of the things we saw.

Rom mask, sand drawing patterns and stone sculptures

Tree fern sculptures
Tamtams, also known as slit gongs or slit drums -
go to the Field Museum in Chicago to try one out

Waiting for the copra to dry