Chief Roi Mata and Part 2 of 2 of Liz's Letter Home.

 [Here is part 2 of 2 of Liz's letter home on our time in the Maskelynes and Havannah Bay]

Heading to "Hat Island"

By Sunday, it was time to head for Efate to pre-position ourselves for our flights in early July.  We opted for an afternoon departure, and a likely period of loitering in the wee hours of the morning, before entering Havannah Bay at first light, for a final few days of relaxing in solitude before the joining the hubbub of big-city life in Port Vila.  With the winds initially light, and the seas flat because we were in the lee of Epi, we had a beautiful afternoon and early evening with our full main and genoa; however, by the time it was dark and we were standing 1-in-2 watches, we were wishing for our staysail.  We can handle the discomfort of a heeled boat under a furled genoa if it means the off-watch can keep sleeping, but it sure made me appreciate that we have begun to use our hank-on staysail (which keeps the boat steadier and the center of effort lower) consistently! These are the lessons we learn as we go.  The entire narrow bay was still and calm in the gentle light of early morning when we ghosted in, with the houses along the shore reflecting perfectly in the water.  The Bay had a bit of an odd character to it after our time in the remote islands, as we were anchored off the major ring road around the island, beside a series of exclusive resorts, private homes, and restaurants; however, out on the water, we still felt a sense of being in our usual separate world.

The restaurant was overpriced and under quality but the tree house was good.

Our guide-book described 'the best hamburgers in Havannah Bay' at a nearby restaurant, so this was our obvious pick for dinner, but we were distinctly underwhelmed by our experience.  The famous hamburgers were not on offer, as all the bread had been fed to the fish by the day-trippers from Port Vila, and when we chose a steak/fries combo instead, we ended up with a steak with pepper cream sauce at more than double what we had expected to pay; this place advertised 'cafe food' but they charged 'restaurant prices'.  When I resisted, the owner was kind enough to make an adjustment for us, but although the food was tasty, we felt that the ambiance did not warrant the prices being charged.  We learned later that most of their business is in the form of bus-loads of people who stop as part of their tour of Efate.  There is a difference between tourist pricing and cruiser pricing!

We spent our first calm day at anchor doing boat jobs, including finally fixing the wiring for our anchor/tri-light, which had worked itself loose since it was installed in the Marshalls; it was fun for me to work on this job together, and even to do the splicing, while Max did another job in the saloon.  It turned out that the grounding wire was connecting intermittently, which explained why both the anchor and tri-lights were acting up; I was able to re-splice the grounding wire without having to cut the others as well.

In contrast to our experience of eating in Havannah Bay, our guided tour was very memorable, and well worth the fee.  This area of Vanuatu became the first UNESCO World Heritage site in the country about ten years ago, when three sites around the Bay were so designated in honour of 17th century Chief Roi-Mata, who brought peace to the area after a long period of warfare and in-fighting.  Again, the majority of visitors come by the bus-load from Port Vila, and are taken to the three sites in a local fiberglass boat, but the Trust also makes arrangements with yachties to go with a guide in their own boat.  When we went ashore to meet our guide, we were pleasantly surprised to find Richard, the Chairman of the Roi-Mata Trust, waiting to take us around, rather than one of his staff: we always love hearing stories directly from the most knowledgeable sources :)

Richard and the "Tam Tam" he made.

Roi-Mata became the most powerful chief in the region after bringing together all the warring tribes for a peace ceremony: each group brought something from home to represent themselves (eg octopus, yam, rock, coconut, taro, banana, etc).  Roi-Mata named each tribe according to its offering, and invited each group who had brought the same thing to gather and get to know each other as family.  He also decreed that from that time onwards, people could only marry outside their named tribe: even to this day, Richard was able to tell us his Kustom name and the names of his father's and mother's tribes. By requiring marriages to occur across village and tribal lines, and by enforcing strict gift-giving protocols, Roi-Mata was able to institute a lasting peace amongst all the tribes and villages in the area.  When he died as an old man (after a solo visit to a neighbouring village - I didn't understand from Richard whether suspicion was cast on that village or not, but elsewhere I read that he was assassinated) he went to Lelepa Island to 'pray his last prays' at Fels Cave and then to another hat-shaped island for burial.  Apparently, the people didn't know how they would get his body from the village to the eventual burial site, but then the waters parted, and they were all able to process across the Bay.  This struck us as a bit farfetched until we thought of our own Sunday-morning heritage, and realized that there may well have been a funny conversation when the first missionaries came and told the local people the story of Moses and the escape from Egypt: they would have exclaimed, "That sounds just like what happened to Roi-Mata!!"

Richard took us first to the site of Magaasi Village, on the mainland side of the Bay, where Roi-Mata had reigned as Chief.  We were led up the paths through the woods from the beach to the entrance to the village, and shown the stones and shells along the way that would have originally formed the borders of the paths and a sturdy wall where Roi-Mata's bodyguards would have stood.  Along the path, Richard showed us certain large stones, which even now children are not allowed to touch, that were believed to contain powerful magic to settle grievances, change the weather, cause harm to enemies, etc.  The stones were set apart in clearings off the path, and were not to be approached or touched by the uninitiated.  The village is no longer inhabited, but we had a sense of the importance of Roi-Mata from the way his living area was set apart due to the change in elevation and the walls.  Richard also showed us a traditional tam tam, which is a vertical drum carved from a hollow log: it stands in the form of a person covered with intricate patterns, and is beaten with one or two heavy sticks.  Tam tams were used to enable communications amongst the far-flung communities, with different rhythms having different meanings ("someone has died", "come to a meeting", etc).  When the message was heard at a distance, it would be repeated on each village's tam tam until those at the furthest reaches of the region had received the news (the method reminded me of the 2nd story of the 101 Dalmations!).  Although it looked very old, Richard had carved this particular tam tam himself in support of the development of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, basing his work on traditional designs.

Benjamin teaching Richard how to do Minecraft

Upon our return to our dinghy, we motored the short distance across to Lelepa Island on the other side of the bay, and walked up a steep path to Fels Cave.  After Roi-Mata's ill-fated participation in the feast with the other village (to which he did not bring his bodyguards) Roi-Mata went to Fels Cave to pray.  We had the sense that the drawings on the walls dated not only from the present and from Roi-Mata's time (400 years ago) but from hundreds of years previously as well.  The cave was a high-ceilinged sacred space, and recorded some of the history of the people and their chiefs, with marks on the walls to indicate peace ceremonies, pigs exchanged, babies born, etc.  Richard pointed out to us that if we looked closely at the rock formations themselves, we could see the image of a baby pig in the ceiling.  Roi-Mata's body had briefly laid in the cave, but there was a concern that his energy would taint the cave after his death (and that his body would be stolen), so it was important to his followers to move him to another location.  They weren't sure how they would do this, and this is where the parting of the sea became important: they were able to move with their whole contingent to Eretoka (Hat) Island, so-named because its topography is so clearly reminiscent of a wide-brimmed hat, and all thanks to the work of the Spirits who hover close-by.  Even during our tour, Richard credited the gap in the waves as we approached the beach in our dinghy to the Spirits of his ancestors who were watching over us.

The third site was an optional part of the tour, but we were glad to go there: we took Fluenta to Hat Island, sharing a lunch of fish, rice, and pamplemousse, followed by Tanna coffee, while we were underway, and anchoring off the north west corner of the island.  Richard seemed quite pleased to have gotten out of his office and aboard a yacht, and excitedly used his smart phone to record a video of our transit to send to a UNESCO colleague in Australia :)  He hadn't been back to Hat Island since he had done a post-Cyclone Pam survey in 2015, so it seemed meaningful to him that he had the opportunity to visit as well.

Moon cycle

Recording graffiti for later removal

Graffiti from a missionary

The burial mound was probably the most unusual site of the whole tour.  It was located in a clearing  up a hill after a walk along the beach.  Not only was Roi-Mata buried here, but many of his followers and bodyguards were as well.  At a certain number of days after his death, they held a ceremonial feast to mark his passing and then upwards of 50 of the followers were laid down on a second layer of the grave, including one of Roi-Mata's wives who was laid beside him, and one of his small children who was buried at his feet.  My understanding is that this feast took place 100 days after his death, as part of the traditional/ceremonial grieving process, and part of the ceremony involved dancing on the grave site to tamp down the dirt before the followers and bodyguards were placed on top to literally follow Roi-Mata into the afterlife.  It seems that a significant amount of kava might have been part of their feast (and their willingness to sacrifice themselves).  Richard told us that for hundreds of years, the site of the burial, which was taboo to visit, was kept clear of stray grass and leaves by the winds and the Spirits, but that after the ground was disturbed by an archeologist in the 1960's things weren't the same, with the grass and leaves having to be kept from the site manually, although now that the site is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and it is maintained with respect, the power of the Spirits is beginning to return.  Regardless of the presence of magic at the site, or not, it was sobering to see the two grave markers for Roi-Mata and his wife, surrounded by shells and decorations, including his huge conch shell, and to see the ring of stone markers for each of the followers and body guards that formed a kind of fence around the area.  Richard spoke sacred words in his traditional language to let the Spirits know that we had come from Canada to visit, and he thanked them for our visit when we left.

The Roi Mata burial site

The Roi Mata burial site

A photo we took at the National Museum showing the Roi Mata skeleton following the excavation

We spent most of our time in Vanuatu as the only boat in the anchorage, with a few stretches were we were with one or two other vessels.  We were thrilled the following morning to look out from Fluenta and to see that the catamaran which had arrived during our Roi-Mata tour had two boys onboard!  I sent the three kids over in the dinghy to say hello, and we didn't see them for the rest of the morning, as they were quickly welcomed aboard to play and visit.  Two dads had come away on a one-month holiday with their boys, after one of the dads had bought the boat as a charter vessel; they were enjoying their last few days in Vanuatu before flying home to California.  In the instant-friendship style of cruisers, we spent the afternoon snorkelling together and the evening on the catamaran watching a movie, before travelling together across the bay to what became one of our favourite anchorages in Vanuatu, tucked into a little nook at the north-west corner of Lelepa Island.  Even with satellite imagery and GPS waypoints, it was a tricky (humbling) bay to enter and depart, and there wasn't much room for anyone more than the three boats who ended up sharing the space (our friend Phillipe on Blue-Bie was there too), but it had a lovely beach, trails to hike, and a little low-key resort ashore that welcomed daily banana-boat loads of tourists during the week for day-trips out of Port Vila; we weren't much bothered by them at anchor, and it was all-quiet from mid-afternoon after they left, clearing the beach for yoga and sundowners.  The caretakers even helped the boys to light a fire to burn some coconut husks (which was old-hat for Johnathan but seemed to be a 'first' for the visiting boys).  As for us, we felt like we were 'back in Vanuatu' when two ladies came by our boat in a sit-on-top kayak to see if we needed anything; the next morning (Saturday) the one Presbyterian lady came back with her husband to trade sugar and coffee for fruits and vegetables while her Seventh Day Adventist friend was at church.  As with Richard, they seemed thrilled to be welcomed aboard and offered a cup brewed Tanna coffee, which seemed a big change from their usual instant fare, and there were big grins all around when we sent them off with one of our very-tired folding cockpit chairs :)



All too soon, it was time to weigh our anchor in paradise to head for Port Vila, and the maintenance and travel arrangements that awaited us there.  The kids and I spent a month in Canada, while Max had a month in his own company, doing innumerable boat jobs, and even having some afternoons to go kiting.

Whew!  This seems long-winded and overdue, but I have finally caught you up on our pre-Canada movements, now that we have returned to the boat and arrived in New Caledonia.  You have likely already seen photos of our extraordinary visit to the volcano on Tanna Island (think orange lava and rumbles that shook the earth), and stay tuned for news of our reunion with Honey (joyous) and our adventures in New Cal (think cold and windy - it is winter here, after all!)

Much love from Fluenta,

Elizabeth
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At 2017-09-03 10:39 PM (utc) SV Fluenta's position was 22°16.69'S 166°25.76'E

Maskelyne Islands in words

[Here is part 1 of 2 of Liz's letter on our visit to the Maskelyne Islands]

Hello!

The kids and I flew home to Canada for a month in early July, so this email is a bit of a trip back in time; I drafted most of it before I left, but oddly enough, with family commitments around the clock for the last couple of months, it didn't edit and send itself!!

Here we go ... (in Bislama "Yumi go!!")

One of the nice things about cruising is connecting with people at different times and places.  After Honey left our anchorage at Ambrym to carry on towards Port Vila and New Caledonia, we headed for Malekula Island and the Maskelynes.  In Honey/Fluenta style, we spent only one night at Gaspard Bay, where we were fortunate enough to see the elusive dugong (sea cow/manatee) swimming near the boat, then we went on to Uliveo Island and Lutes village.  At the village, we were given the visitor book to take back to Fluenta to add our own message.  It was a delight to read back through previous entries, and see notes from Honey, whom we had just left, as well as Field Trip and Nirvana who had passed through in previous seasons.  It really is a small cruising world :)

The pass into Lutes Village is both shallow and narrow, so we actually anchored for the night outside the village and behind the barrier reef.  This turned out to be behind a new island which was just identified last year, an on which our friends from Field Trip were amongst the first foreigners to set foot.  It felt a bit like anchoring at Minerva Reef, but with poor holding! After several tries, and an extra 50 feet of anchor chain, we finally got the anchor to set.  At one point, we gave up on this position and tried to anchor nearer to the village at another spot listed in the guide (in a lee-shore position, which we generally avoid), but we found one of the only pinnacle bombies in the area: when we saw one foot of depth under the keel, we turned around and headed back behind the reef!  Max went back a few days later with the hand held depth sounder, and the rest of the track was fine.  We had wondered if the seismic activity to create the island had changed the depths in that area as it had (by up to 3m) in others.  

In preparation to enter the Lutes anchorage, Max and I went in just after first light in the dinghy to check out the waypoints and the depths.  Finding everything as per the chart, we braved the pass in Fluenta just before high water at around 9am.  At one point, we had 6 feet under the keel, and reefs on either side only a few feet away.  Thank goodness for satellite imagery and GPS [and taking the time recce the route ahead of time]!

Our host in Lutes was Stuart, who called us on his VHF even as we were anchoring, and proceeded to help us feel welcome throughout our stay.  Having done a three-month sailing course, as well as a radio course, he clearly takes his role of assisting yachties very seriously.  The community has created a small flyer with various activities, so he left it to us to determine what we wanted to do.  Lutes is well known for its traditional (Kustom) dancing; however, with only ourselves as potential audience members, the dancing proved a non-starter during the week we were there, as we would have had to foot the bill for the entire troop of dancers on our own.  

On Sunday, we were honoured to attend the 'comfort service' in the nearby village of Pellonk for one of Stuart's cousins who had died earlier in the week.  Whenever a villager passes away, all three Presbyterian congregations worship together on wooden benches and woven mats near the family's home to offer solidarity and comfort.  Before the service started, Stuart pointed out a mat that had been laid out especially for me on a porch, in case I wanted to sit there with Benjamin; I especially enjoyed my sheltered seat when it rained briefly during the service :)  Beside me was a man who shared his English copy of the "Good News Bible" with me and offered his Bislama hymnbook so I could join in the singing; I felt like I was at home in Canada, especially when we sang the familiar tune of "God be with you til we meet again" in Bislama and I was able to get the gist of the words!

Our days in Lutes were a lovely quiet combination of boat jobs (for the first time in ages we were in a calm and flat anchorage), trading with the men and teenagers who came by in their dugouts, and expeditions ashore.  Everything was very low key, and everyone was very friendly.  

When Max and I went ashore on Saturday afternoon to ask about church on Sunday (after being invited by two different people) Stuart's wife and daughters were weaving mats at their home.  Curious about the bright pink and purple contrast colours being woven into the otherwise neutral designs, I asked how they created them, expecting to hear about some rare village flower.  Instead I learned that they buy powdered dye and mix it with boiling water as we might do in Canada!  This was a good lesson in setting my assumptions aside :)  After watching for a few minutes, Stuart indicated that his daughter was finishing a section and that she would show me how to weave as she started the next area.  The girl's fingers were much faster than mine as she laid down each strip of mat, and then expertly folded alternating pieces to the side to do the weaving.  The mat was formed from the corners outwards, so each row became both longer and wider.  As I did my best to mimic her movements, under the watchful eyes of the entire group, from little girls on up, all I could think was how much Victoria would have enjoyed being there with us!  

Monday saw us meeting Stuart first thing in the morning to walk back to Pellonk village to visit a Giant Clam Sanctuary.  For us, the visit was especially enjoyable because we had met the owner and his younger brother shortly after we anchored in Gaspard Bay and had traded gasoline for some Island Cabbage - they were in a new boat, and had somehow ended up out on the water without enough gas (a situation which baffled us, as these are knowledgeable island people, but we traded with them at their request, nonetheless).  The Sanctuary had been created in 1991 by our host's grandfather; he had wanted to create a place where the Giant Clams would be safe to generate their eggs to keep the local reefs healthy with Giant Clams.  Many clams were destroyed during Cyclone Pam; however, we were still able to see some very old, large, and colourful specimens, despite the extremely murky water.  Some Giant Clams live to be upwards of 200 years old, and it was gratifying to see a local effort to maintain the health of their natural population.  Going well above and beyond the requirements of our admission fee, the Sanctuary host also sent us home with a big bag of pamplemousse.  I think he was still grateful for the gasoline in Gaspard Bay!

Over the weekend, we had traded with two canoes of boys for some coconuts.  They were not interested in T-shirts or sugar or coffee as the adults were: they wanted soccer balls.  I happened to have two aboard, so both groups were in luck.  I told them that they would have to share with the other kids because I had no more, but the message they took back to the village was that I had plenty of soccer balls!  The next day a couple of girls came by, and they were quite disappointed to hear that I was out, but they were happy to hear that I might have a volleyball to trade: they had won the Independence Day tournament the previous year, but were currently practicing with a home-made ball.  Two of the girls on the team were Stuart's daughters, so he and I had a chance to whisper together about the girls' wish for  new volleyball.  On Monday evening, the girls came back with some drinking coconuts and we happily traded a colourful volleyball from a shop in Majuro as well as some clothing.

When we are in small villages, we are often asked to give clothing to our hosts.  I have always scrounged for clothing in our own cupboards, bashfully offering garments that are stained and torn and very near to their end of life.  While we were still in Luganville, I had gotten an idea from another cruising couple that it would be smart to buy a 'case-lot' of second-hand clothing.  Being in a hurry, I didn't select the items myself, but gave instructions to the girl that I wanted clothing suitable to trade in the Islands (ie t-shirts, skirts, and shorts for men and women, boys and girls, and babies).  Somehow, she took this to mean that I wanted a bag of skimpy tops, short shorts, lingerie, and business attire for women and girls!  Victoria and Ella (HONEY) had fun creating outfits by picking random items from the bag, but I wasn't sure how I was going to pass the items along in the remote villages.  I decided that I would off-load them all at once in Lutes by making it known that I was coming in the following morning with a gift for the ladies of the village to share around, and that I would trust the villagers take it from there.  On Tuesday morning, I brought my big bag ashore, and was met by one of the (4) Chiefs' wives, a woman who seemed to be the spokeswoman, and a good-sized group of ladies, all sitting around in a shelter where previously we had seen only men.  I explained that I had a bag of clothing from Luganville, and that I didn't know if any of it would be what they would want to wear, but perhaps they could at least use the fabric.  One by one, I dumped my bags on the woven mat, and each time, as soon as I did, a swarm of hands descended onto the goods.  Children's clothes - gone.  Ladies' clothes - gone.  Shorts - gone.  Lingerie - gone. Within minutes, all the clothing had been shared, and the spokeswoman explained that these ladies would take the items and share them further as there were needs.  I have no idea how the distribution eventually panned out, but everyone seemed to have some fun with the unusual selection.  I even saw one of the men modelling a sheer black blouse - I guess I was wrong that the whole bag was for women!  


Tuesday was our last day in the village, as we had a light-wind weather window for Wednesday to sail against the trade winds to the island of Epi.  In addition to the Clam Sanctuary, the other stops that I wanted to make at Uliveo were to the Women's Resource Center and to the Coconut Oil Soap Factory.  

When we got to the Resource Center, I had expected to find a bustling hive of activity, but I quickly realized that most women were carrying out that 'women's activities' at their own homes, and that the Resource Center was aimed more at helping some women with disabilities to learn traditional skills.  The Center also offers some courses and workshops.  Once Victoria and I had completed the arduous task of choosing our woven souvenirs (a big purse, a small purse, and a colourful fan, taking a pass on bulkier items like floor mats), I went off in search of Stuart to take us to the Soap Factory, while Victoria and Benjamin stayed with the ladies.  When I came back with Stuart's stand-in (his 14-year-old daughter on her first guiding assignment) I found Victoria in the final stages of weaving her own fan :)  At first I wanted to "get going" but I soon realized that the project was nearly finished, and that we could make up time later (I was 'on the clock' to get back to Fluenta so we could leave the anchorage before the high tide in the early afternoon which is a rather stressful counterpart to being on 'Island time').  Between Victoria and the two ladies, a fan very quickly took shape on the table in front of us, and Victoria was thrilled with her tangible memory of her visit.

In fact, we made up the time right away: I had been told that the soap factory was about half an hour away, but we arrived in about ten minutes.  Stuart's daughter walked us along the well-marked two-wheeled dirt road between the villages, and then through the maze of narrow footpaths within the village until we arrived at the home of the factory overseer.  She took the key to the facility and walked us further through the village until we arrived at the site, which she opened especially for us.  My understanding is that the Coconut Oil Soap Factory was begun a few years ago by an ex-cruiser from NZ who realized that all the raw materials for soap were growing naturally on the island.  She opened her factory, trained some ladies, and now they export from Uliveo Island to NZ and beyond (palmproject.org).  Several villagers work in the factory, and others sell them raw materials (coconut oil, cocoa beans, etc) from their crops.  The Factory was a simple facility with a kitchenette to boil the soap, a long wooden table for preparing it, and shelves on the end-wall for storage.  Numerous kinds of soap were described in posters on the walls but only Coconut Oil Soap and Exfoliating Soap were available, so we bought some of each.  Apparently, both lather well in Salt- as well as Fresh-water.  Plain bars of soap were 100 vatu, while the same soap in a cardboard package was 250 vatu :)  Needless to say, we took the plain soap, since we had no need for additional cardboard boxes onboard.

For once, Island Time and Fluenta Time corresponded, and Victoria, Benjamin and I arrived back onboard before the search party was deployed for us, in order that we could leave through the pass while the tide and the light were both high.  We returned to our position behind the reef to anchor overnight, before an early morning start for Epi. 

We had chosen our Wednesday departure to correspond with a period of light winds that the GRIB files (weather models) had predicted; what the GRIBs didn't predict was that the rain and still air of Tuesday evening would result in an 'inundation' of bugs of various kinds by Wednesday morning: we woke to flying ants, overgrown mosquitoes, and some kind of beetle all vying for space on the upper decks.  We hoped that they would blow away on our passage, but they took days to leave, eventually departing without fanfare as suddenly as they had come.  The overgrown mosquitoes were especially bothersome: they didn't bite, but they liked to land on every flat surface (in the same manner as the bees that had swarmed our solar panels after our New Year's rain in Mexico).  The evenings were the worst, as they were attracted to the lights, so we ended up with a self-imposed after-dinner curfew until they left.  Even computer work (eg emails or blog posts ... thus the delay in correspondence) was impossible because of the bugs walking all over the white screen.  On the bright side, we had a taste of 'early to bed, early to rise' and everyone felt unusually well rested :)

Our visit to Epi was a bit odd: we set out to go ashore on our first evening in Lamen Bay, only to stop at another boat which said that there was nothing to see, so we came aboard for drinks with them instead.  The following morning, an unusual swell had built from the West, and our normally sheltered and flat anchorage was extremely uncomfortable; we eventually drove a few miles around the headland to the north where it was somewhat better protected.  This turned out to the beginning of a multi-day chase between ourselves and the swell: we kept moving to reach a more comfortable anchorage, without spending any time ashore once we got there!  In this manner, we saw several bays, as well as Pa'ama Island, which was the rolliest of all.  At one point during the transit, the boat rolled so far that our dinghy (hoisted on its halyard because it was so short and calm) sat right into the water before popping up again.  The only good points of our aborted trip there (where the sand drawing is supposed to be especially good, but few yachties end up going as it is off the beaten track - our kind of place) was that we caught our only two fish of our entire season in Vanuatu within 10 minutes of each other.  In short order, we had two wahoo resting in our bucket, which provided fish for 6-8 dinners each.  

The main focus of our 'visit' to Epi was to continue to trouble-shoot our Honda generator.  All the testing pointed to a problem with the stator/rotor mechanism, which meant taking it almost completely apart, right back to the shiny copper coils of the rotor and stator (one rotates, one is stationary, and the result is supposed to be electricity). At one point, I channeled my inner 'Wendall' (Dad) and had to re-jig our puller with Amsteel to get the rotor to come off the axle.  Unfortunately all of this was to no avail, as we eventually determined that the Ignition Control Module was burnt out, and Max ordered a replacement part from the US once we got to Port Vila.  It was a tough season for power generation with our rapidly dying five-year-old batteries needing at least one daily boost, and our generator being out of service!  Neither engine nor our engine mechanic (Max) appreciated the extra engine hours this necessitated, although we enjoyed the resulting hot water, for dishes and showers

Maskelyne Islands in words

[Here is part 1 of 2 of Liz's letter on our visit to the Maskelyne Islands]

Hello!

The kids and I flew home to Canada for a month in early July, so this email is a bit of a trip back in time; I drafted most of it before I left, but oddly enough, with family commitments around the clock for the last couple of months, it didn't edit and send itself!!

Here we go ... (in Bislama "Yumi go!!")

One of the nice things about cruising is connecting with people at different times and places.  After Honey left our anchorage at Ambrym to carry on towards Port Vila and New Caledonia, we headed for Malekula Island and the Maskelynes.  In Honey/Fluenta style, we spent only one night at Gaspard Bay, where we were fortunate enough to see the elusive dugong (sea cow/manatee) swimming near the boat, then we went on to Uliveo Island and Lutes village.  At the village, we were given the visitor book to take back to Fluenta to add our own message.  It was a delight to read back through previous entries, and see notes from Honey, whom we had just left, as well as Field Trip and Nirvana who had passed through in previous seasons.  It really is a small cruising world :)

The pass into Lutes Village is both shallow and narrow, so we actually anchored for the night outside the village and behind the barrier reef.  This turned out to be behind a new island which was just identified last year, an on which our friends from Field Trip were amongst the first foreigners to set foot.  It felt a bit like anchoring at Minerva Reef, but with poor holding! After several tries, and an extra 50 feet of anchor chain, we finally got the anchor to set.  At one point, we gave up on this position and tried to anchor nearer to the village at another spot listed in the guide (in a lee-shore position, which we generally avoid), but we found one of the only pinnacle bombies in the area: when we saw one foot of depth under the keel, we turned around and headed back behind the reef!  Max went back a few days later with the hand held depth sounder, and the rest of the track was fine.  We had wondered if the seismic activity to create the island had changed the depths in that area as it had (by up to 3m) in others.  

In preparation to enter the Lutes anchorage, Max and I went in just after first light in the dinghy to check out the waypoints and the depths.  Finding everything as per the chart, we braved the pass in Fluenta just before high water at around 9am.  At one point, we had 6 feet under the keel, and reefs on either side only a few feet away.  Thank goodness for satellite imagery and GPS [and taking the time recce the route ahead of time]!

Our host in Lutes was Stuart, who called us on his VHF even as we were anchoring, and proceeded to help us feel welcome throughout our stay.  Having done a three-month sailing course, as well as a radio course, he clearly takes his role of assisting yachties very seriously.  The community has created a small flyer with various activities, so he left it to us to determine what we wanted to do.  Lutes is well known for its traditional (Kustom) dancing; however, with only ourselves as potential audience members, the dancing proved a non-starter during the week we were there, as we would have had to foot the bill for the entire troop of dancers on our own.  

On Sunday, we were honoured to attend the 'comfort service' in the nearby village of Pellonk for one of Stuart's cousins who had died earlier in the week.  Whenever a villager passes away, all three Presbyterian congregations worship together on wooden benches and woven mats near the family's home to offer solidarity and comfort.  Before the service started, Stuart pointed out a mat that had been laid out especially for me on a porch, in case I wanted to sit there with Benjamin; I especially enjoyed my sheltered seat when it rained briefly during the service :)  Beside me was a man who shared his English copy of the "Good News Bible" with me and offered his Bislama hymnbook so I could join in the singing; I felt like I was at home in Canada, especially when we sang the familiar tune of "God be with you til we meet again" in Bislama and I was able to get the gist of the words!

Our days in Lutes were a lovely quiet combination of boat jobs (for the first time in ages we were in a calm and flat anchorage), trading with the men and teenagers who came by in their dugouts, and expeditions ashore.  Everything was very low key, and everyone was very friendly.  

When Max and I went ashore on Saturday afternoon to ask about church on Sunday (after being invited by two different people) Stuart's wife and daughters were weaving mats at their home.  Curious about the bright pink and purple contrast colours being woven into the otherwise neutral designs, I asked how they created them, expecting to hear about some rare village flower.  Instead I learned that they buy powdered dye and mix it with boiling water as we might do in Canada!  This was a good lesson in setting my assumptions aside :)  After watching for a few minutes, Stuart indicated that his daughter was finishing a section and that she would show me how to weave as she started the next area.  The girl's fingers were much faster than mine as she laid down each strip of mat, and then expertly folded alternating pieces to the side to do the weaving.  The mat was formed from the corners outwards, so each row became both longer and wider.  As I did my best to mimic her movements, under the watchful eyes of the entire group, from little girls on up, all I could think was how much Victoria would have enjoyed being there with us!  

Monday saw us meeting Stuart first thing in the morning to walk back to Pellonk village to visit a Giant Clam Sanctuary.  For us, the visit was especially enjoyable because we had met the owner and his younger brother shortly after we anchored in Gaspard Bay and had traded gasoline for some Island Cabbage - they were in a new boat, and had somehow ended up out on the water without enough gas (a situation which baffled us, as these are knowledgeable island people, but we traded with them at their request, nonetheless).  The Sanctuary had been created in 1991 by our host's grandfather; he had wanted to create a place where the Giant Clams would be safe to generate their eggs to keep the local reefs healthy with Giant Clams.  Many clams were destroyed during Cyclone Pam; however, we were still able to see some very old, large, and colourful specimens, despite the extremely murky water.  Some Giant Clams live to be upwards of 200 years old, and it was gratifying to see a local effort to maintain the health of their natural population.  Going well above and beyond the requirements of our admission fee, the Sanctuary host also sent us home with a big bag of pamplemousse.  I think he was still grateful for the gasoline in Gaspard Bay!

Over the weekend, we had traded with two canoes of boys for some coconuts.  They were not interested in T-shirts or sugar or coffee as the adults were: they wanted soccer balls.  I happened to have two aboard, so both groups were in luck.  I told them that they would have to share with the other kids because I had no more, but the message they took back to the village was that I had plenty of soccer balls!  The next day a couple of girls came by, and they were quite disappointed to hear that I was out, but they were happy to hear that I might have a volleyball to trade: they had won the Independence Day tournament the previous year, but were currently practicing with a home-made ball.  Two of the girls on the team were Stuart's daughters, so he and I had a chance to whisper together about the girls' wish for  new volleyball.  On Monday evening, the girls came back with some drinking coconuts and we happily traded a colourful volleyball from a shop in Majuro as well as some clothing.

When we are in small villages, we are often asked to give clothing to our hosts.  I have always scrounged for clothing in our own cupboards, bashfully offering garments that are stained and torn and very near to their end of life.  While we were still in Luganville, I had gotten an idea from another cruising couple that it would be smart to buy a 'case-lot' of second-hand clothing.  Being in a hurry, I didn't select the items myself, but gave instructions to the girl that I wanted clothing suitable to trade in the Islands (ie t-shirts, skirts, and shorts for men and women, boys and girls, and babies).  Somehow, she took this to mean that I wanted a bag of skimpy tops, short shorts, lingerie, and business attire for women and girls!  Victoria and Ella (HONEY) had fun creating outfits by picking random items from the bag, but I wasn't sure how I was going to pass the items along in the remote villages.  I decided that I would off-load them all at once in Lutes by making it known that I was coming in the following morning with a gift for the ladies of the village to share around, and that I would trust the villagers take it from there.  On Tuesday morning, I brought my big bag ashore, and was met by one of the (4) Chiefs' wives, a woman who seemed to be the spokeswoman, and a good-sized group of ladies, all sitting around in a shelter where previously we had seen only men.  I explained that I had a bag of clothing from Luganville, and that I didn't know if any of it would be what they would want to wear, but perhaps they could at least use the fabric.  One by one, I dumped my bags on the woven mat, and each time, as soon as I did, a swarm of hands descended onto the goods.  Children's clothes - gone.  Ladies' clothes - gone.  Shorts - gone.  Lingerie - gone. Within minutes, all the clothing had been shared, and the spokeswoman explained that these ladies would take the items and share them further as there were needs.  I have no idea how the distribution eventually panned out, but everyone seemed to have some fun with the unusual selection.  I even saw one of the men modelling a sheer black blouse - I guess I was wrong that the whole bag was for women!  


Tuesday was our last day in the village, as we had a light-wind weather window for Wednesday to sail against the trade winds to the island of Epi.  In addition to the Clam Sanctuary, the other stops that I wanted to make at Uliveo were to the Women's Resource Center and to the Coconut Oil Soap Factory.  

When we got to the Resource Center, I had expected to find a bustling hive of activity, but I quickly realized that most women were carrying out that 'women's activities' at their own homes, and that the Resource Center was aimed more at helping some women with disabilities to learn traditional skills.  The Center also offers some courses and workshops.  Once Victoria and I had completed the arduous task of choosing our woven souvenirs (a big purse, a small purse, and a colourful fan, taking a pass on bulkier items like floor mats), I went off in search of Stuart to take us to the Soap Factory, while Victoria and Benjamin stayed with the ladies.  When I came back with Stuart's stand-in (his 14-year-old daughter on her first guiding assignment) I found Victoria in the final stages of weaving her own fan :)  At first I wanted to "get going" but I soon realized that the project was nearly finished, and that we could make up time later (I was 'on the clock' to get back to Fluenta so we could leave the anchorage before the high tide in the early afternoon which is a rather stressful counterpart to being on 'Island time').  Between Victoria and the two ladies, a fan very quickly took shape on the table in front of us, and Victoria was thrilled with her tangible memory of her visit.

In fact, we made up the time right away: I had been told that the soap factory was about half an hour away, but we arrived in about ten minutes.  Stuart's daughter walked us along the well-marked two-wheeled dirt road between the villages, and then through the maze of narrow footpaths within the village until we arrived at the home of the factory overseer.  She took the key to the facility and walked us further through the village until we arrived at the site, which she opened especially for us.  My understanding is that the Coconut Oil Soap Factory was begun a few years ago by an ex-cruiser from NZ who realized that all the raw materials for soap were growing naturally on the island.  She opened her factory, trained some ladies, and now they export from Uliveo Island to NZ and beyond (palmproject.org).  Several villagers work in the factory, and others sell them raw materials (coconut oil, cocoa beans, etc) from their crops.  The Factory was a simple facility with a kitchenette to boil the soap, a long wooden table for preparing it, and shelves on the end-wall for storage.  Numerous kinds of soap were described in posters on the walls but only Coconut Oil Soap and Exfoliating Soap were available, so we bought some of each.  Apparently, both lather well in Salt- as well as Fresh-water.  Plain bars of soap were 100 vatu, while the same soap in a cardboard package was 250 vatu :)  Needless to say, we took the plain soap, since we had no need for additional cardboard boxes onboard.

For once, Island Time and Fluenta Time corresponded, and Victoria, Benjamin and I arrived back onboard before the search party was deployed for us, in order that we could leave through the pass while the tide and the light were both high.  We returned to our position behind the reef to anchor overnight, before an early morning start for Epi. 

We had chosen our Wednesday departure to correspond with a period of light winds that the GRIB files (weather models) had predicted; what the GRIBs didn't predict was that the rain and still air of Tuesday evening would result in an 'inundation' of bugs of various kinds by Wednesday morning: we woke to flying ants, overgrown mosquitoes, and some kind of beetle all vying for space on the upper decks.  We hoped that they would blow away on our passage, but they took days to leave, eventually departing without fanfare as suddenly as they had come.  The overgrown mosquitoes were especially bothersome: they didn't bite, but they liked to land on every flat surface (in the same manner as the bees that had swarmed our solar panels after our New Year's rain in Mexico).  The evenings were the worst, as they were attracted to the lights, so we ended up with a self-imposed after-dinner curfew until they left.  Even computer work (eg emails or blog posts ... thus the delay in correspondence) was impossible because of the bugs walking all over the white screen.  On the bright side, we had a taste of 'early to bed, early to rise' and everyone felt unusually well rested :)

Our visit to Epi was a bit odd: we set out to go ashore on our first evening in Lamen Bay, only to stop at another boat which said that there was nothing to see, so we came aboard for drinks with them instead.  The following morning, an unusual swell had built from the West, and our normally sheltered and flat anchorage was extremely uncomfortable; we eventually drove a few miles around the headland to the north where it was somewhat better protected.  This turned out to the beginning of a multi-day chase between ourselves and the swell: we kept moving to reach a more comfortable anchorage, without spending any time ashore once we got there!  In this manner, we saw several bays, as well as Pa'ama Island, which was the rolliest of all.  At one point during the transit, the boat rolled so far that our dinghy (hoisted on its halyard because it was so short and calm) sat right into the water before popping up again.  The only good points of our aborted trip there (where the sand drawing is supposed to be especially good, but few yachties end up going as it is off the beaten track - our kind of place) was that we caught our only two fish of our entire season in Vanuatu within 10 minutes of each other.  In short order, we had two wahoo resting in our bucket, which provided fish for 6-8 dinners each.  

The main focus of our 'visit' to Epi was to continue to trouble-shoot our Honda generator.  All the testing pointed to a problem with the stator/rotor mechanism, which meant taking it almost completely apart, right back to the shiny copper coils of the rotor and stator (one rotates, one is stationary, and the result is supposed to be electricity). At one point, I channeled my inner 'Wendall' (Dad) and had to re-jig our puller with Amsteel to get the rotor to come off the axle.  Unfortunately all of this was to no avail, as we eventually determined that the Ignition Control Module was burnt out, and Max ordered a replacement part from the US once we got to Port Vila.  It was a tough season for power generation with our rapidly dying five-year-old batteries needing at least one daily boost, and our generator being out of service!  Neither engine nor our engine mechanic (Max) appreciated the extra engine hours this necessitated, although we enjoyed the resulting hot water, for dishes and showers

Fluenta in September Latitude 38

Richard, the publisher, of Latitude 38 asked for comments on a recent loss of a sailboat on a reef in French Polynesia. My generic comments on navigation in the reefs of the South Pacific was published in the recent Latitude 38.

I have copied the article below: