A NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC special experience.

While in Port Villa Carol and I got dive certified in in anticipation of the Great Barrier Reef .

Leaving Port Villa we worked our way north sailing past another volcano (Ambryn island) and had a nice light show reflected off the steam cloud as we passed by at night on our way to Pentecost island.  Sharon on SHALEN had arranged for a group of us to get a tour and see the Land Divers.  Awesome!

Sulphur clouds made the sunset look petty wild. 

A bamboo straw for my coconut water. This would solve that plastic straw problem. 

The land diving tower. It only looks rickety.

The Chief of the village.

Uh, NO!

Pretty sad looking windsock

Out in the middle of Nowhere on Pentecost Island Vanuatu 

This plane landed, disembarked, loaded up and took off, all in about 15 min.

We spent a night in the most idyllic cove with a waterfall and great snorkeling and the headed for Luganville in preparation for the passage to Australia.   On the way e caught and landed a 27+kg (60lb) 5ft yellowfin tuna! That put 15 bags of tuna steak in the freezer, about 35 lbs worth!

Waterfall on Maewo island . 

5+feet, 60+lbs!

ONE of several buckets of tuna steak Carol packaged.

Blue starfish. 

Mon 5/28  We left Vanuatu last Saturday the 19th, Carol’s birthday. This is at least the 4th time in the past 7 years she has spent her birthday at sea moving a boat.  The night before we had surf and turf (tuna and steak) plus a lopsided birthday cake.  We motored out for an hour and then popped the symmetrical spin which stayed up for over 45 hours.  Took it down Monday morning as the wind had gone forward and increased.  Carol and I both were still suffering our colds and even today haven't completely shaken them. We had a great, fast, passage and came through the Great Barrier reef at night and arrived at 0230 local time. 139:25 passage, avg 8 knots!

So we tie up at the Q dock and the next morning clear in.  First the sniffer dog goes on looking for drugs and cash, even finding Don’s bankroll.  Cash is okay but you have to declare any over  $10,000. Then Customs and Immigration come on board for paperwork and to poke around the  boat.  They could not believe how little liquor we carried, nor that we didn't have any heavy duty drugs in the med kit.  So then the Biosecurity guy comes and does his paperwork and looks around for bugs and takes our fresh vegetables, garlic and a few other things.  Fortunately we had eaten all the chicken!

Carol had run into Sharon from SHALEN, another Oyster yacht, while in the gallery and we were invited to go see the wallabys and kangaroos on the beach the next morning.

Carol photobombs the 'roos.

See the Joey peeking out?

So now we're getting ready to head out to the Whitsunday islands for some cruising, snorkeling and relaxing.  We'll be in Oz til the last week in July and hope to do a short land tour.  In the meantime,   G'day mate!
 

First passage and more

This will be short as internet here is pricey and slow.  April 23 we departed Opua for the island of Tanna, Vanuatu. We had a nice sail for a few days, a rough uncomfortable 24-30 hours and then sailed for a day, finished by motoring the last 30. We caught a couple of mahi, one about 4'!

 From 20 miles out we could see the glow of the volcano reflected in the clouds.  Tanna was amazing; very primitive, nice people. The first day we had lunch at Chez Leah; Chicken, veggies, fruit.  The bananas here are delicious; bigger and tastier than in the States.

Typical dugout canie for fishing.

Chez Leah. 

Don at our lunch.

Carol by a large banyan tree.

BANANAS!

Steam vent near our anchorage; the water was noticeably warmer.

The second day we took a very bumpy truck ride on the washed out road to the volcano and went to the rim. Impressive beyond belief!

The Chief came and gave permission to visit the volcano. 

Traditional dance

Your intrepid reporters at the rim!

One decent sized blast.

Looking into the fiery pit.

The locals threw us a party/dinner at the "yacht club" and we left the next day.

The Tanna yacht club.

Went to Aniwa island, did some snorkeling , then sailed overnight to Erramango island.  Don, a local man spent 3 hours showing us around the village and explaining their culture and how they function.  Took us to a Nakamal, which was their version of a guest house. Anyone could go there to rest and be fed.

Resting on a woven grass cot.

They gave us some just caught mackerel that Carol filleted and served as one of the hors d'ouevers that night as we had folks from other boats over for drinks.

Fileting the mackerel.

We also found out that in the late 1800's they had killed and eaten several missionaries in a row, but have since stopped and apologized to the first missionary's descendants! They even renamed Dillon's bay, William's bay after that first missionary.

We left Erramango at 330am so we could sail to Port Villa and arrive before dark. At dawn we put up the big symmetrical spinnaker we bought from Ian and Cindy and put the boat into overdrive!  Sailed the rest of the way making 9 knots or more! Woo-hoo!

10 knots!

Carol and I just completed our SCUBA class so now we can dive the Great Barrier reef in Australia and also Indonesia!

The open air market here every day has fruit and veggies you have to see to believe.

So now we are leaving Port Villa tomorrow and visiting some of the islands to the north and then it's on to Australia; about a 1200 mile passage.

Hopefully the next post will be a bit more in-depth.