Earthquakes, Tsunami, Diving, Caving, and Canyonning - Another week in Vanuatu.

River of Prehistoric Time

Latitude:      S   15 32.231

Longitude:  E  167 10.830

Sunday,  August 21, 2011

We have been in Luganville environs for the last week.  It is Sunday afternoon as we lounge around resting our tired bodies after an extraordinary adventure yesterday.  I have a pumpkin cake in the oven, and I think a tsunami may have just passed under us.

Earthquake and Tsunami

On the net this morning we heard that there were two earthquakes in the islands near Tanna.  No one knew much about them.  We had felt an earthquake five nights ago while we were on our boat.  A loud rumble came up the mooring chain and vibrated the boat for several seconds.  We thought at first it was a nearby boat motor.  When we went outside, we saw nothing and all was quiet.  The following morning, some of our shore companions asked if we had felt the earthquake?  At any rate earthquakes are quite common here in the Pacific Rim of Fire.

No one gave much thought to the earthquake report this morning.  I was sitting on the back deck with some iced tea at 2:30 this afternoon, and I heard a breaking wave noise coming from behind Worrall Wind.  We are moored in 98 feet of water along a coast line of Aore Island and tucked behind a point that protects us from the prevailing southeast waves and winds.  There is a deep water channel that runs from east to west between us and the main island of Espiritu Santo a couple of kilometers away.  For the most part other than some tidal currents, Worrall Wind is resting in calm waters, so this noise was unfamiliar.  The boat was facing the Aore shore with her stern to the channel.

I turned around and saw what appeared to be two very long waves, no more than a few feet high, resembling the wake from a large tanker (but there was no large tanker).  It looked like the waves were rolling down the channel and had curved around the protected point.  It was curious, but not scary as the waves were not very big, but they were rolling and breaking in different parts as it came in our direction.  Both rolled right under us in quick succession lifting the boat gently and continuing on to shore.  When the waves shallowed out, we could see them splashing up on shore…then all was quiet.  Gloria on Pincoya yelled in our direction…..I think that was a tsunami!  Sure glad it wasn’t a big one. (postscript:  the Aore Resort confirmed our observation - they just opened their email with a tsunami alert, a day after the fact!  Yipes)

THIS WEEK has been busy.  Luganville was the primary staging ground for Pacific Troops during World War II.  Over 100,000 GI’s were here.  Now a sleepy worn out third world little town, Luganville was once a thriving Quonset hut metropolis with over 50 cinemas to entertain the troops.  In 1942, the SS President Coolidge, came from San Francisco with 5,000 troop reinforcements and medical supplies for Guadacanal, hit some mines in the Luganville harbor entrance, blowing holes in the bottom and sinking the ship within two hours.  During that time, the captain ran the ship with the equipment and the men into shallow water on a reef so that the men could be evacuated and as many medical supplies as possible saved.  There were only 2 casualties and the rest of the men were safely evacuated.  The ship rolled off the reef and sank.  It is now considered the premier wreck dive in the world. 

Wreck Diving

We have taken two dives on the Coolidge, seeing only a fraction of the massive ship.  It is quite interesting and eerie.  Our friends Claudia and Brian dove upward of 30 times while they were here.  They are both dive masters and wreck divers used to going down quite deep.  We explored what we could without descending below 100 feet.  Even that was deeper than our open water certification, but we went with experienced dive masters and extra air tanks.  Our friends Gene and Gloria on PIncoya that did the Puddle Jump with us joined us on the second dive.  

Our first dive was on the outside of the wreck, where we examined the coral encrusted bow, equipment on the decks, barrels with gas masks, shoes, rifles, helmets, artillery canons and ammunition.   Our second dive was deeper and in cargo holds and latrines.  It was weird to see rows of toilets side by side.  The Coolidge was a first class passenger ship designed for 900 luxury passengers in suites.  After being requisitioned by the government, during the war, modifications to the interior had to be made to accommodate 5,000 men.  The rows of toilets in the cargo holds were one of the modifications.

To reach the dive, we had to walk in from the beach then descend.  It was pretty windy and rough on the surface the second day we went out with Gene and Gloria.  With breaking waves, it was pretty challenging and exhausting just getting our gear on.  Gloria had some tank issues and ran out of air.  Fortunately, the dive master had extra so she trailed behind him tethered to his air tank.  We had an interesting time dropping into the holds which were fairly wide open, but somewhat dark and claustrophobic.  We decided that wreck diving is not really our favorite activity.

Between our first Coolidge dive and our second with Gene and Gloria, Russ and I dove in an area called Million Dollar Point.  At the end of World War II, the Americans offered all of their heavy equipment, jeeps, front loaders, trucks, tractors, to the Brits and the French for a price.  The Brits and French decided not to buy the equipment, believing that the Americans would just leave it anyway and they would get it for nothing.  The Americans recognized their strategy and decided to be peevish about it by dumping millions of dollars worth of equipment off the point into the sea so that no one would get free stuff! 

Apparently, some enterprising Aussies were able to salvage some of the big front loaders (how we aren’t sure!) from the sea, and these became the key pieces of equipment that started one of the largest earth construction companies in Australia.  The remaining equipment is a huge surrealistic junk pile with 60 plus years of sea growth.  Corals and sponges have molded themselves around tires, truck chassis and warrior rubble.  It’s quite surrealistic to be 100 feet down looking up at the surface of the water and seeing mauve and blue coral encrusted truck chassis with wheels suspended vertically toward the surface.  Small and large schools of fish call this home, darting in and through the wreckage.  We all enjoyed this dive so much more than the Coolidge.  It was in the open so no one suffered from claustrophobia and the lighting was better.

Caving, Canyonning, and Swimming the River

Our friends, Brian and Claudia, on Skylight told us that one of the best things they did was go on the Millennium Cave Trip while they were on Santo.  While this is an ancient cave, it has only been open to tourists since 2000, hence the name Millennium.   They said the scenery was fabulous. 

Without hesitation or investigation we signed up to go on this “awesome” trek and trudge.  Gene and Gloria came too.  We knew we would be hiking and trekking through a cave with running water and would be swimming at some point.  I wore my hiking sandals as did Russ with swim suits under our shorts.  Russ wore his pith helmet and looked quite jaunty.   I took two trekking poles with pointed tips,  as I suspected it would be muddy, steep, and slippery.  It felt like we were off to find Dr. Livingston.

We expected a certain degree of rigor, but were really not prepared for how rigorous a trip this would be. It took nearly an hour by 4 wheel drive up to a high plateau to the interior of the island before we could actually get started.  From there we were met by our Ni-Vanuatu guide, Christian, whose communal village owns the river and the caves.  We hiked from the lower village to a higher village crossing some bamboo bridges over deep gullies.

Bamboo Bridge

The entrance fee was 2000 vatu per person $24.00, most of which goes towards school fees for village students.

Map of our Adventure

Once we arrived at the higher village, we were met by the chief who assigned to us some additional guides and dry land transporters.  The chief took a look at my two hiking poles (bi-polar, ha ha) or the wrinkles on my face and determined I was “handicapped” and would need some assistance.  At first I was a bit taken back and offended that he wanted to assign me with my own guide.  Little did I know how strenuous a trip this would be and was extremely grateful that I had a strong helping hand along the way.  With two guides, two gear transporters, and six hikers in our party, Russ and I, Gene and Gloria, and another young couple, Laurel and James, we set out on our adventure.

Intrepid Explorers - Russ, Gene, and Gloria

First off, my guide took my backpack so I didn’t have to carry it.  Okay,  so maybe a few wrinkles and hiking sticks have their advantage!  We walked a couple of kilometers through the jungle until we reached a steep drop off.  Before we descended down to the cave, our guides painted our faces with mud as traditional respect for the cave spirits.  We were told to leave our backpacks and anything we didn’t want to get wet (like my camera) with some village guardians who would dry transport our gear to the cave exit.  Again, I was without a waterproof camera.  Drat!

The Descent

After we were properly painted and shed of our gear, we started descending down a series of hand hewn branch ladders with the rungs at least two feet apart, so each step was a massive stretch with one leg and a deep knee bend with the other.  We went down, down, down, down into a canyon, sometimes hanging on ropes down rocky steeply inclined walls.  My guide Sala preceded me down the ladders and the rocky, muddy path.

Guide, Laurel and James descend down, down, down

Where the ladder rungs were broken, Sala would find an alternative footfall for me.  When the track was steep and slippery, he would prop one of his feet next to mine so I wouldn’t slip. When there was a rope hanging down a cliff, he would go down first, stretch out the rope and give me a taut handhold with him as an anchor at the bottom.  Had it been just Russ and me together in terrain like this, I would have been hanging on to Russ and we both would have had difficulty.  Russ was fending for himself and was grateful not to have to worry about me.  

The Cave

Finally we reached the bottom of the cliff where there was a rocky crevice that we squeezed into, and we were inside a mammoth cave, 20 meters wide and 50 meters high with a river running through the center.

 We waded in knee to hip deep water with a mild to moderate current.  Once we turned the bend from the entrance crevice, it was pitch black.  Everyone had torches.  My guide had a big torch big enough for the both of us so that I could use my trekking poles.  He shined the torch upward so that we could see the beautiful water carved limestone walls and hanging bats.  Sala walks this cave everyday barefoot and knows every crevice and footfall.  We were at the end of the pack.  Russ was just in front of us, then Sala, and me.

For quite a while we were altogether, but eventually the front group disappeared into the dark.  Our torches only illuminated the immediate area in front  of us.   Russ had no one to follow, so Sala asked him to drop back behind me which helped Russ better navigate the dark river bed.  Sala by this time had taken one of my trekking poles so that he could grab my hand and better assist me.  He preceded me and then would shine the torch in the inky water where I was to place my foot or my fanny and slide down a boulder into a pool.    One step would be ankle high, the next might be up to my thighs.  Russ was able to watch our path and the depth of the water so he too had a better perspective of where to place his feet and his fanny.

We proceeded this way for about half a kilometer, wading, boulder hopping, and enjoying interior waterfalls that showered down upon us.  The water was probably about 65-70 degrees F, pretty chilly.  Eventually we could see some natural light in the distance through a 50 meter crevice.  The slit of light reflected down the length of the river illuminating the rest of our group who were just ahead of us.  We all exited the cave pretty grimey and wet.

The cave waters joined another small river perpendicular to the cave, but it was spread over a shallow rocky base, so the last wade was only up to our shins, but moving fairly swiftly.  The village chief spotted me coming out of the cave and guided me across the last stretch of the river.  I think he was relieved to see me come out.

Lunch and Bail Out?

Once we were out of the cave, we spotted our gear on the bank of the river.  Another huge group must have exited the cave only a few moments before as they too were picking out their gear and looking for their lunches.  We rested on the grassy slope across from the cave and I was able to retrieve my camera for a few pictures.  Fortunately, Gloria had taken her waterproof camera, so we do have some additional photos of the trek to share.

One of the village elders came and sat down beside me to assess my stamina and willingness to continue.  There was a dry escape route alternative if I wanted to opt out.  No, I told him.  I was doing fine and yes I could swim which was the next part of this iron man adventure.  There was one lady who was celebrating her 45^th birthday.  She was pretty hefty.  I think they advised her not to continue as we never saw her or her group again.  Given some of the very tight boulder bridges we had to squish down, through, and under on the next part of the trail, I think she simply would not have fit.  Once again, I had to abandon my camera and our gear would be transported back to the base where it would stay dry.

Canyonning - I thought it said canoeing trip!

After our lunch, I was looking around for the canoes! Ha!  We were each given these little kiddy pink, orange, and yellow blow up rings that we were to wear around our necks while canyonning and then as an aide while swimming down great lengths of river. They were definitely not US Coast Guard approved personal floatation devices, but they did relieve a little anxiety in that we would have something to hang on to as we died of hypothermia.   For the next 30 minutes, where we walk in the water when we could, but more likely than not we couldn’t as the drops through the canyon were big and the water would disappear into big holes, pools, and over cascading waterfalls.

We canyonned (climbing up, down, over, around and through) huge one and two story high, slippery moss covered boulders and deep crevices.  The village tribe had carved out footholds and installed chains and knotted ropes from which to hang and belay backwards.  Again Sala was indispensable as he lead the way, showing me the notched handholds, footholds, and carrying my little floaty for me.  There was one part of the trek where we dropped down into a boxed crevice.  It looked like there was no way out until you were at the bottom and discovered a rock you had to slither under in a doubled over position so that you could get your legs in front of you to stretch over a bottomless hole that you could hear the river rushing under.  We referred to this tight bend afterward as the pretzel.  I jokingly asked my guide if we had completed the “easy” part of the trek.  I couldn’t imagine it getting any rougher.  He smiled and said, “yeah, yeah.”  Oh great!  I could only hope that his “yeah, yeah” was the typical response of islanders who always wanted to agree with their guests and not really mean that there was harder stuff to come.

The Big Swim

After 30 minutes of dropping down the river canyon, we reached a more level part of the river. Finally, we would get to float.  My legs have not ever had a work out like the one we had just gone through.  The air temperature was pleasant and we had worked up a sweat canyonning to the river basin.

The walls of the canyon were vertical and now hundreds of meters high, and overgrown with moss and jungle foliage creating the atmosphere of a soaring arched cathedral with stained glass windows of green and blue filtering the sunlight to the canyon floor.   Still pools of deep green flowed quietly through this prehistoric cathedral.  The only sounds were the occasional birdcalls resonating against the canyon walls. 

Float through Time Forgotten

The limestone carved by millions of years of water flow and dusted with a fine moss was an amazingly beautiful sight.  Waterfalls trickled and cascaded down the sides and free fell from the overhangs showering us with crystal cold water.  This is a place where time stands still, and we wouldn’t have been surprised to see a dinosaur drinking where the river widened out over shallow rocks.   This is truly one of the most inspirational and beautiful places on the planet.

Our float experience was 45 minutes long of float, swim, get out and trek a few hundred feet, then float some more.  By the last float, our teeth were beginning to chatter.  Getting out of the water felt good, but now our muscles were cooled down and our legs felt tired and heavy.  The hardest part was yet to come. 

The Ascent

It was now time to deflate our floaties and ascend out of this canyon.  Those 100 meter walls aren’t so beautiful when you are going straight up them.  The tribe had picked an ascent route up through a waterfall where they were able to notch out handholds, footholds, ropes, chains, and bamboo ladders in some solid bedrock.  Trying to hang on to these holds with cascading water numbing our hands and feet added to the challenge.  By now, my legs were really, really tired as were my arms.  When going up these inclines either by notch or ladder the steps are deep.  When your quads start giving out, you have to pull with your arms.  When your arms start to give out, your stuck.  I had visions of dying on these ladders withering like a hanging vine.

The Last Ladder!

Fortunately, Sala was like a monkey.  He would scamper up a few steps through the bed rock barefoot, grab my hand and give me an assist up some of the steepest parts when I simply thought I couldn’t go any further.  I could hear everyone ahead of me groaning and grunting as they pulled their way up the cliff…. only a couple more ladders. … only one more ladder.  Huff, puff, pull, push, groan, moan,  and we had made it!  If only we had the strength to do a happy dance.

There were successive victorious but feeble whoops when each person reached the top.  We trudged another kilometer or two back to the village along the high plateau through the jungle.  Villagers who saw us coming nodded and smiled at us acknowledging our accomplishment.  If there had been a tattoo artist at the top, I would have gotten another right of passage tattoo on the spot.  Fortunately, Mom, there wasn’t a tattoo artist there.  I think I would have liked a volcano and a waterfall on the back of my right shoulder or a big heart that said “I love Sala!”

When we reached the base camp at the top village, there were jugs of hot coffee, tea, and sweet and juicy pumpelmus waiting for us.  We changed into dry clothes had some refreshments and still had a 30 minute hike to the bottom village where our driver picked us up and took us back down to Luganville. 

This was an extraordinary adventure.  Had we known the difficulty beforehand, we may have opted out.  Not knowing however, we went with it, and don’t have a single regret.  It may be a couple of days before we can walk, sit, or go up stairs again without our muscles and joints screaming out in agony, but the incredible beauty, viewed only by a handful of people on the planet was well worth the effort. 

Monday, August 22, 2011 – Waiting for a Weather Window

We are now recuperating and sitting out some stormy weather.  Last night a rainstorm filled our water tanks while we played cards with 2 G’s on Worrall Wind.  We taught them how to play Fiji Rummy.  Gloria is quite the card shark and blitzed us. 

We had hoped to leave for New Caledonia sometime this week, but it’s looking doubtful wave wise, so we may be here another week even though the skies are lighting up.  Last night we had gusts of 40 knots through the channel and the boat rocked more than normal.

We have learned that whatever our weather forecast predicts, we add 40% more to the average.  Right now the average is for two to three meter seas in terms of wave height and 25 knots of wind speed with a trough (unsettled weather) running right through the middle of the Coral Sea between Vanuatu and New Caledonia.  We interpret this as three to five meter seas with 35 knots of wind…pretty ugly and possibly chaotic.   The wind direction looks good, but that’s the only positive attribute.  So for now, we are being patient and waiting.  We may go on a few more dives and land expeditions while we wait for a tolerable passage window.

We will be parting company with Gene and Gloria today as they rejoin their rally group.  The rest of their group tried to leave this morning for one of the eastern islands with 35 knots of winds on the nose and big seas.  They all turned around because of the conditions.  That’s one of the problems with being on a rally.  The leader has generally made arrangements for the group at one place or another and is often driven more by schedule than weather conditions. 

This will most likely be the last time we see Gene and Gloria for a while, unless we are still in New Caledonia when they arrive around September 24.  Slowly but surely our Puddle Jump 2010 group is dissolving.  We’ll have to schedule a reunion in 2020 for all of us in Puerto Vallarta Mexico, when we all have RV’s, live aboard sailboats, or condos, and the biggest adventure of the day is opening and closing the little umbrellas that come in our drinks.

All is Well with the 2 Sail R’s on Worrall Wind