Vanuatu S

This is Port Resolution, named by Capt Cook for his ship when he visited in 1774. The name is a bit ambitious, given that it remains a just an open bay with barely a beach to land upon. Ye Olde Tubbe is the one on the far left.

Cook was attracted by the glow of the mighty Yasur volcano. He wanted to climb it and look closer, but the natives refused, since they believed it to be the home of their ancestor's spirits and was therefore taboo. We got to see it, because unlike Cook, we carried a talisman known as cash.

This is the Port Resolution Yacht Club. There's not much to it, but the lady there, Esther, is your gateway to your future in the former New Hebrides.

Here's one of their cabins. The only running water comes through the thatch roof. Basic stuff, but the staff is very nice.

Hidden amidst the trees is the Yacht Club Powder Room.

This is the local store; the sign says "Welcome to Our Market House". Note the padlock on the door.

We would call this a very "quiet neighborhood" without street problems.

Very communal living where everyone looks after each other's children. There are no snakes living on Tanna and moms can easily tell the youngsters to go play in the jungle and not worry. In this lush atmosphere I found the cactus an interesting feature of this beautiful village graced with a multitude of flowering plants.

Dialogue in the jungle. Note the ash that covers the ground.

When I first spotted these two kids walking down the "long and winding road" my memory harked back to days that I had spent in East African villages photographing children. There is nothing like the charm and innocence of two playmates having a long and serious talk. Note the kava hut in the background. In the evenings the men take part in ceremonial kava drinking using coconut shells that line on the walls of the hut.

These incredibly constructed thatched roofs are actually almost monsoon proof. Very little rain seeps through! We were taken with the neat appearance of this domestic laundry scene.

In order to check into Customs, we had to find a way over to the other side of the island and the administrative capital of Lenakel. This involves trying to find a truck going there, and as it happened, we found a truck going that way the morning of our arrival.

The trip takes 2-3 hours on a rutted 4wd track, depending upon whether it's rained and how many natives need a lift.

Everywhere we went we'd see throngs of happy children, who'd often cry out "It's a white man!" upon our approach. As always, they love to have their picture taken.

Once we arrived at Lenakel, we were informed that the Immigration Officer was unavailable and would we please return the next day. After spending 3 hours having our kidneys rattled in a truck we were unenthused. So, we went off in search of officialdom.

Can you spot the Customs Officer in this picture? The Ni-Vanuatu people take their soccer seriously, although the guy we needed was actually playing basketball nearby.

Formalities were very informal, mostly requiring lots of newly acquired cash. Once cleared, we were ready to return to Port Resolution.

Here's the admiral in the produce section of the market. Quality was great and fresh lettuce was $0.20 per head.

This stuff is just out of the dirt. The tubers standing on the ground are taro root, a staple starch served much like sliced bread. It has all the flavor of styrofoam, only a little blander.

OK, why do people visit Tanna? For cheap lettuce? No, it's for Yasur, the mighty volcano. It's surrounded by an ash field so loose that people like to snowboard down the slopes. It's also a cash cow for the tribe that owns this attraction, who charge $25 to check it out.

Here's our favorite fashion statement, Capt Hub, standing astride the edge of Yasur. He looks pregnant owing to wearing 2 jackets to ward off the cold winds at the summit. The shot is artistically fuzzy due to the gathering gloom and omnipresent ash clouds.

The missionaries may have explained to the natives that this was not the best place to imagine their ancestors. The noise put forth is deafening and the ground literally shakes. The red blobs you see are at least basketball-sized globs of molten rock. This is not Disney, it's real. A Japanese tourist was recently killed when she was hit by one of these falling "bombs". Some French tourists died when they climbed down the crater wall and found hell wasn't so far away. This is raw nature without any namby-pamby Park Service guard rails or training wheels.

After it seemed the volcano had decided to rest for the night, we had to trudge back in the dark. As it was late, we didn't try to return to the boat but stayed at an eco-resort near the base of the volcano.

This was our "room", a tree house built into a giant banyan tree. Note the curved stair rails below the blue tarp which covers some leaks in the thatch. We were supposed to be able to watch the volcanic fireworks from our arboreal porch but this spectacle was called off on account of rain- a tropical deluge, really. The admiral couldn't sleep on account of the constant thunder from the volcano, but Capt Hub was too tired to notice.

Part of our adventure here involved dinner. Seems the native hosts hadn't given it much thought, so we had spaghetti topped with a fried egg. We had to supply our own bread - they forgot to buy any. The real irony was breakfast. Tanna is known for its incredible coffee, like Kona only smoother and richer. So, what did our hosts serve? Nestcafe Instant! We did have toast, though.

We got tired of the Port Resolution anchorage - it's shallow, only 4-5m (15') and the swell makes it rather rough. We set a stern anchor which helped greatly, but almost defeated the Capt's attempts to pull it out of the fine volcanic sand it was embedded in.

We tried to capture the volcano from the sea as we sailed north to Efate. Here you can see a dark cloud of ash blowing into the cloudy trade winds.

We decided to skip the nearby island of Erromango, which is mostly famous for its sandlewood and kauri trees, not to mention it's where the great missionary John Williams met his end in a cooking pot. Be that as it may, we had to give it a miss - it's the end of September and we don't want to discover cyclone season in the South Pacific.

So we did an overnight passage to Efate, where the capital of Port Vila is located. The former New Hebrides islands were struggled over by both British and French settlers, resulting in one of the most absurd governments in history, the "Condominium", where every day both the Union Jack and Tricolor where hoisted on poles and officials checked to ensure that neither flag flew higher than the other.

The voyage to Efate was much more pleasant than to Tanna. The winds were 25-30 kts but it was dead downwind and the seas were non-threatening. Above we see Port Vila on a stormy morning. It's much like Neiafu in Tonga , very sheltered and a relief to a tired sailor.

This is the dinghy dock at the Waterfront Bar & Grill in Port Vila. It's a yachtie nest like Neiafu, Savusavu or Musket Cove.

So far, our impression is that it shows its French heritage in that the bread's much better but the prices are astounding, especially compared with Fiji. For example, a Fiji Internet cafe charges $US 50cents/hr, here it's over $15. A visit to the "Drug Store" revealed that a small bottle of rubbing alcohol, which in the US would be maybe 50 cents, was priced at over $40!! We decided to buy some 100 proof vodka duty-free as "medicinal alcohol" - it was much cheaper at $16/litre. Beer is 5 times as expensive as NZ. Fortunately, unlike French Polynesia basic foodstuffs are not too outrageous, but our expectation that Port Vila as a cheap, duty-free shopping haven was dashed - the duty-free stores mostly expect to fleece cruise-ship passengers.

This is a view looking north from the middle of harbor. The entrance is N of the island with the resort sticking over the water.

We had to stay here almost 2 weeks waiting on parts, as usual. The weather was lousy, but that's been true all year.

Speaking of lousy weather, we departed Port Vila for Havannah Harbor on the NW coast of Efate, , seen above, with the intention of leaving the following morning to sail to Lamen Bay on the island of Epi. Wrong! We had winds of over 30 knots for about a week, which kept us trapped in a bay surrounded by mangrove swamps. We could see why the Navy used this place during WWII as assembly point for convoys, but we were simply trapped on the boat for a week. We didn't even go outside as it was too windy and noisy.

After this period of enforced boredom, the winds finally died down to 25 knots, so we departed for Epi and Vanuatu North.

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