Latitude: 16 29.523 S
Longitude: 167 25.887 E
On Saturday, July 30, after a great week visiting with friends Brian and Claudia on Skylight in Awei Bay in the Maskelyne Islands just south of Malakula Island, we headed north and Skylight headed south. Once we left the protection of the anchorage, we encountered a mild sea 1.5 meter swells, and no wind. We motored about 30 miles north to a Bay called Southwest Bay. The bay is about 5 miles across and there is a lot of room for boats to anchor both on the north and south sides. Directly in the middle of the bay close to shore there is a reef. Most boats from what we understand, drop anchor in about 30 feet of water. Boats are well protected from the south and north winds, moderately protected from south east winds, and slightly protected from westerlies. The bay is open to the west and there is some reef along the outside of the entrance points that modifies the ocean swell.
There are several villages around the arc of the bay with stretches of sand, cliffs and jungle that drop right to the water. We anchored off the island on the south side called Limpenwen. To the left of the village there is an estuary that leads in to a huge lagoon. Limpenwen claims ownership of the Tisri Lagoon and visitors must receive permission from the chief to enter the lagoon area.
We arrived in the Lagoon in the afternoon. There was only one other boat anchored in the entire bay. We decided to stay on board and relax. Sunday morning, the weather was a little rainy after thunder and lightening most of the night. Fortunately, the weather was around us and not on top of us. Nevertheless, the first two nights in the bay, our computers, sat phone, etc. lived in the microwave and oven. Sunday is church day in Vanuatu with family gatherings. Our boat neighbors had left early in the morning. We finally heard from our friends Ken and Lori on Trim. We knew they were leaving Fiji, but hadn't heard from them. Apparently, they had a horrific crossing with very unstable weather conditions, 30 foot seas, and 40 knots of wind. Now they are in Tanna, sitting out the rain. Glad to hear from them and that they arrived. Brian and Claudia on Skylight are in Havannah Bay just outside of Port Vila.
We didn't want to impose on the locals on a Sunday, and since the weather wasn't great, we stayed on the boat and reorganized all of our food supplies, in preparation of entrance to Australia in a couple of months. Since there are many foods that are confiscated in Oz (grains, flours, egg products...even egg noodles, freezed dried meats, frozen meats, etc.) we need to be efficient about what to use up and eat. By consolidating all of the food, we have a better idea of what to power eat before we lose it. We handed off some food to Brian and Claudia before we left Awei Bay and now for the first time our food lockers are beginning to look reasonable. For a while we had enough to supply a fleet of ships!
Monday, August 1, 2011 - Funeral today
We went ashore around 10:00 a.m. on Monday morning. The village was quiet, there were only a few families around. We met a man named Harry who was about of our age. When we asked him to show us the way to the Chief, he informed us that there was a funeral in a neighboring village and the chief and most of the villagers were attending. They would be back in the afternoon sometime. Harry gave us a tour of the village. He is one of the deacons of the Presbyterian church and was especially proud to show off the well kept and newly constructed church. We had an opportunity to meet his daughter Helen and her son Joey. Harry told us that if we wanted to see the lagoon, we would need to come back and meet the chief. We indicated that we would probably come back the following day.
The weather on Monday was lovely. Blue sky and hardly a ripple on the water. We took the opportunity to buzz around the shoreline. Just off the southern entrance point of the bay is a reef that we thought would be fun to snorkel, but we would need permission from the village on the southern tip. We thought this might be a good place to go at sunset and were planning on eating lunch, hanging out on the boat, and going out to the reef as the sun dropped lower into the sky.
About mid afternoon, Russ was reorganizing our backpack and realized that our hand held radio was without its antenna. To keep the antenna safe from being bent in the backpack, I had unscrewed the antenna and put it along with the radio and my camera in a waterproof ziplock bag. Apparently, when I had pulled the camera out of the bag, the antenna had been a hitch-hiker and jumped out. We remembered that I had pulled out the camera shortly after we had beached the boat at the village.
Without our backpack or any of our gear, we jumped in the dinghy and went ashore to look for the antenna. We just pulled the dinghy up a little ways onshore without an anchor line. Russ spotted the runaway antenna within 30 seconds and we were just getting back in the dinghy when two men with big smiles came out of the village and hailed us down. They introduced themselves as Collin and Chief Cedric. They heard from Harry that we had visited in the morning and wanted to know if we wanted to go for a ride into Tisri lagoon. The time was good right now as the tide was coming up and the river into the lagoon more passable. Sure, but first I wanted to get my camera which I left on the boat.
Both Collin from a neighboring village and the Chief, got in the dinghy and returned to Worrall Wind with us while I picked up the camera. In all the years that these men have been in the village, this was the first time they had ever boarded one of the yachts. They were thrilled we had invited them and were of course interested in our Honda generator, solar panels, flush toilet, etc. Russ showed them a few of the projects he was working on. One of the projects was repairing our converter. He explained that you had to be a good fix it person if you lived on a boat because anything that can break down usually does.
After a short tour and a camera grab, we were off to the lagoon. Collin and the Chief really knew their way through the lagoon and all of its coves and islands. The lagoon is all sea water, but does get some run off from the steep mountainsides. The water clarity because of the rain was not real good so we could not see the bottom. With both men frequently pointing this way and that for Russ to follow, we were able to navigate this extensive inland body of water without running aground or hitting any rocks. I think both Russ and I anticipated a 1/2 hour tour. We spent the better part of the afternoon in the lagoon.
We asked the chief if we could buy some pampelmoose (huge grapefruit, but sweeeter), limes, and island cabbage. The chief wouldn't hear of us buying anything. He wanted to give us the produce. He directed us to little cove dotted with palm trees on the south bank of the lagoon. We climbed into the jungle where he and Collin found the cabbage trees. They harvested a huge amount of leaves, wrapped them in a big banana leaf and tied them with some natural vine fibers.
By the time we left the lagoon the sun was just setting. We dropped of Chief Cedric and Collin (who is a nurse at one of the local clinics in a nearby village)on the shore. We think Collin has family in this village and was spending the night here. Collins wife whose name is Roselyne is a school teacher and lives across the bay where the school is. During our lagoon tour conversation, Russ had mentioned the fix it workshop Brian had conducted in the Maskelyne Islands. Collin lamented that his generator wasn't working well and was wondering if Russ might take a look at it. We told him that if he could take us over to meet his wife at the school in the village where she lived the following day Russ would take a look at it. Collin had the day off because of the funeral and had to return to work the following morning, but said one of the men from the village could take us to his wife's house the following morning. We said our goodbyes and promised to return the next day. Chief Cedric said they would have the limes and pamplemoose for us in the morning.
Tuesday, August 2 - Rainy and windy again!
We returned to the village in the morning, but it was too rainy and windy to find anyone who wanted to go with us (and we didn't want to go either!) over to Collins village on the far side of the bay. We had kind of figured that we wouldn't be making the trip, so Russ had left his tools on the boat. Not to disappoint us though, the chief had lined up a few other generators that needed fixing! Great!? But first he took us to the pre-school that his daughter had established for the children 3-5 years of age. Russ and I spent about half an hour singing songs with the children and teaching them a few new ones. We had peaked in the windows of the school the day before which had been closed due to the funeral. It is quite ramshackle and dilapidated. At one point I believe it had been a malaria control clinic funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but was no longer used as Malaria is pretty much under control here now. It's amazing how the happy little faces of children brightened up this dim, dilapidated building.
Russ spent the rest of the morning and the afternoon, looking at generators. Just before lunch, we returned to the boat laden with about 20 pampelmoose, ate lunch, Russ to collected his tools to return to shore. I stayed on the boat to do some baking (part of our power-eating strategy) and Russ went off to fix a large generator that was refusing to start. His plan was to guide one of the handiest men in the village to fix it and who would then have the knowledge to help get Collin's generator going, if it had the same problem. Just as I was pulling a papaya coconut cake out of the oven, Russ returned trimuphant. The generator's carburator was dirty, air filter oily, and spark plug needed some clean up. Tim, the village handyman, with Russ's guidance got it fixed and promised to look at Collin's generator when the weather got better. Russ suggested to the chief, that he might want to send one of the men to a technical school in Villa to learn how to fix all of the technology that villagers are acquiring. They use their generators to charge their cell phones and run their DVD players in these remote little villages that would otherwise be considered just a step above the stone age.
When Russ returned from the village, we loaded the dinghy and decided tomorrow would be a good day to leave. The winds are supposed to really pick up in two days from now, and we would like to be in a more protected bay when that wind event occurs. There is supposed to be a cultural festival here the end of next week, but Russ wants to move along and hopes to be in Luganville on the Island of Santos by then. This is where we will check out of Vanuatu before heading to New Caledonia. Our plan is to get to NC by early September, and we've learned that we need to start watching for good weather windows sooner than later. They seem to be few and far between. So when the going is good, we're leaving.
We'll see what the morning brings as it seems to me that the wind is blowing pretty good right now (wind generator is spinning), and this is a protected anchorage. The clouds are beginning to disappear behind us, and we might have a nice sunset.
All is well with the 2 Sail R's on SV Worrall Wind
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