CRUISING - Harry & Mary's Year 2001 Adventure

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Voyages of Sugar Blues

H&M's 2001 Adventure Index

  We're Off!

  Jan. 21 - Letter from Oz

  Australia to New Zealand 
  on Pat's Cat

  Pat's Cat in Fiji

  Fiji to Vanuatu

  Port Vila to Oz

  Snapshots

FIJI TO VANUATU

From Harry and Mary Abbott in Fiji - received via email Sept 9, 2001...

We woke to a brisk Southerly, the day gray and overcast. Five hundred vacant miles to the west lay Port Vila, our next stop. Weatherpersons predicted an Easterly shift in the 25 knot trade winds tomorrow so we whimped out for the twenty mile run over to Malolo LaiLai. We rocketed along at 11 knots hard on the wind and at periscope depth before pulling into Musket Cove. By now we realized that our current strategy would have us arriving in Port Vila just as a three day holiday began. July 30th would mark Vanuatus 21st anniversary of independence. We stayed overnight, plenty long enough for two boatloads of yachties to board us and help lighten our ships supply of duty free. 

Before we hit the pass we knew day one would be "x-rated", not suitable for children. Big leftover southerly swells were combining with the southeast ones to make occasional rogues of over four meters. It was a "very" uncomfortable day and night. The second day was "parental guidance" although it came along slowly enough. Winds were down from 35 knots to 25 but we were still getting slammed. The jib was rolled in and out trying to maintain a balance where speed was kept slow enough that the auto pilot could handle it (and the two old guys on board could rest) but fast enough to keep ahead of the breaking following seas. Not until the third "general public" day did we cautiously put up a bit of main for good. Three reefs the sunset before had us doing a steady 18. Four reefs was still 15 knots so it was back to the jib. By the last night seas were regular and sail area was increased accordingly so that we had a nice double digit ride into Vila. 

The anchor rumbled down in the quarantine area. As I studied the shoreline I could see that a lot of modernization and construction was going on, none of which would help get a customs or immigration man out on a Sunday. That's ok. It's all island time here. Due to tomorrow's celebration a real live genuine revival was going on directly upwind of us, the loud, frequent halleluiahs drifting down on us until late at night but disappearing as soon as my head hit the pillow. 

On my first visit in '78, the country was still the New Hebrides, run under a joint French-British condominium usually referred to as the pandemonium. There were two complete governments. What a mess. This is why today as you cruise up the chain one village will speak French and the next one, only a mile away, speaks English. All of them have their own dialect but since the Ni-Vanuatu have more dialects per capita than any other Pacific island group they also needed a third language to communicate. 

This is Bislama, a pidgin introduced by plantation owners as a means of communicating with the workers. In the dark days of blackbirding where islanders who were literally kidnapped from many different locations were thrown together, the need for a common language was even greater. Today Bislama is a legitimate tool even used in parliament and definitely not barbaric as that ignoramus Mitchner claimed in "Tales of the South Pacific". For the outsider it's also a language which will entertain you by occasionally boarding on the ridiculous. 

Examples: yu + you, mi + me, yumi + us. Easy so far? Yes? Yumi go long Vila-We go to Port Vila. Not bad. Tankyu tumas long help -Thank you too much for your help. Yu save wan cow fis i stap ia? Did I lose you? Do you know (sa-vay-understand) if the dugong is here? A couple of favorites are: Wan tingting i gat tith, i go, i kam, i go, i kam, taim i go kam bak i kakai wud. So we have: One thing that comes and goes and comes and goes. Every time he comes and goes he eats wood: a saw. Samting blong waetman wetem blak mo waet tut, sipos yu kilim, him i save krae aot. Something that belongs to a whiteman with black and white teeth. Suppose you strike it, it cries out: a piano. Lots of blong words- missus blong yu + your wife; basket blong titty: a bra. The best we saw was Bambae pis i stap long wol. Does it mea No parking along the wall? No, it means May Peace Prevail on Earth. !! 

A week in Vila was plenty. We sailed around the normally turbulent Devils Point on a downhill sled ride. Mary pulled the main down into a third reef for the beat up into Havana Harbor. This is a very peaceful and quiet anchorage except for the 9am and 4pm traffic rush. That's when dozens of outriggers come and go from Moso Island to their gardens on the mainland. This year, being a bit slack as yachts go, they all stop and talk and maybe trade for some veggies. Just before dusk a third boat came in. The noise of his anchor chain paying out temporarily disturbed the otherwise total quiet of the bay. I got up, put on a Paul Horn CD, poured my nightly ration of grog and went outside to sit and watch the sun set behind some low dark horizon clouds. A light breeze caused the occasional burst of sunlight to shimmy across the water. When "Earth Song" came on, the choir seemed to merge the wind, sea and sun into a musical tranquilizer............then Mary put on some Yugoslavian boogaloo and everything went to hell in a hand basket. 

We sailed for Utanlang, 20 miles and one island away for what would turn out to be a magical impromptu night. Shem, the chief's son, met us on the beach and quickly remembered us from past visits. We had spent an entire wedding here which included three days of gift giving, mat-counting, luau, distribution of gifts, redistribution of gifts (which we never quite figured out), wedding (finally) and another luau with the string band. We went bush looking for Shem's wife who was out in her garden, about 15 minutes away. Almost there, he motioned for us to be quiet. We thought he meant to surprise his wife but instead raced forward to dispatch a flying fox who had by bad choice gone to sleep in a banana tree right next to the trail. He had to fight the dogs for it. You might wonder why bother for a two foot wing span flying rodent but as we were to find out later, it tasted much like chicken, well... maybe a twenty year old rooster. Luckily the main meat course that night was the mahi-mahi we had given him when we got there. An old habit, always fish on the way to a village. Who knows, you might catch a fish and make a hit with the chief. We were told to come back at dusk. We arrived to find dinner being prepared over an open fire. Coming back from the garden, his wife had cooked up pumpkin, taro, the fish, rice and even had the flying fox stewing in the pot. The table was adorned with flowers, the guest mats were down on the coral floor and all nine members of the string band showed up to sing and play. While we ate the young children danced away, shyly at first but becoming more animated as the night went on. I had brought a dozen t-shirts from my truck club for them plus sets of guitar strings. In return, at the end of the feast, the band played for me the haunting Fijian classic, Isa Lea. Albeit, it was done in typical string band style and had Port Vila substituted for Suva Bay. Tired but fulap kakai, we putted home to our mast head beacon in the dark.

Why is poor Pat never here for passages like this, fifteen knots of Easterly and ten knots on the knot meter for the entire 55 miles north to Epi. We tacked into Lamen Bay, dropping the hook by two p.m. Most unimarans sail over-night to do the Efate to Epi passage. Lamen Bay is wonderful, hard sand in fifteen feet of clear water. The village is fairly large with a secondary school comprised of students from every island. This is where Bislama is really necessary. Speaking of which, do you remember, "Yu save wan kow fis i stap ia?" The answer is yes. Laman is known for its friendly dugong, Bondas. We were soon swimming with him/her watching him/her chow down on his/her favorite sea grass. There are also many large sea turtles who are, if not friendly, at least indifferent to your annoying them. 

Upward to sixteen yachts have been here at one time although "yacht" may not always be the correct term. Once, at least seven of them were bigger than the inter-coastal freighters. This is an indicator to me that a major shift has occurred in the type of people out here. I think I'm outta here. 

Actually, we are outta here. After ten days we sailed back to Vila 'cuz Capt Lolo Brain forgot to get Australian visas. Even with being hard on the wind, we averaged a bouncy nine knots for the sixty plus mile trip. Within a half mile of the entrance, someone pulled the plug on the wind. Kilum ded. We motored the last three miles and put down the hook in a quiet cove with three other boats. A local guy dropped by and he and I sat in the cockpit, feet up, watching the coming dusk, listening to slack key guitar and talking about Vanuatu Kings, strings and sealing wax. After he left a quiet settled over the harbor. I kept Mary away from the CD collection. Intending to sail twenty miles to Vila we instead went four miles in the opposite direction. Such is the way of cruisers. Via the HF radio we heard of a new Chris White Atlantic 42 just around the corner. It was built in the same Oz yard as Pat's Cat so we wanted to compare notes. Tom and Mary Ann on "Linda" were justifiably proud of their new boat. They were also lucky as theirs was the last out of the shed before the yard folded. At 42', six feet shorter than us, they had about three times the room. "Linda" was a good example of a cruising cat with good lines and a fair under wing clearance. I don't care for the front opening cabin or the open cockpit but that is what attracted Tom to the design. 

That night both "Linda" and "Finesse of Tasman", an Aussie boat, had a run at our duty free in an attempt to help us lighten ship. I would mention that these overindulgences only occur when we are arriving or departing, but a cynic might point out that we come and go too much. 

In light winds we motor sailed back to Port Vila to apply for our Aussie visa. Oz is the only South Pacific country to require a US citizen to have a visa before entering. You can get a 30 day electronic visa but that's not much use to a yachtie. We struggle through the application: Job: None, Phone: None, Money: Very little, Health: possible cirrhosis of the liver. After five days they decide to let us in anyway, more than can be said for their attitude towards a Chinese family who are attempting to be to first of their countrymen to sail around the world. The embassy is trying to make them disappear under a bureaucratic nightmare of paperwork. A few good Samaritan yachties are helping them with the language barrier. 

Pat finally arrives back, has another two days of Vanuatu, and we cast off at 23:45, 15 minutes before midnight on a Thursday. This is to avoid the sailors' bad luck that comes from leaving on a Friday. Light Easterlies sweep us out of the bay. We're headed dead downwind on the way back home.

Harry and Mary

For replies, Mary and Harry's address is:
telapa@whidbey.net