Yearly Archives: 2007

Welcome to Port Vila, Efate, Vanuatu

Posted on by
1

Lat 17.44S, Long 168.18E. Vanuatu is made up of 83 islands over an area of 450,000 square kilometers. Like Fiji, some of the islands are volcanic and some are raised coral islands. Like Tonga, Vanuatu lies on the squarely on the Pacific Ring of Fire. There are nine active volcanoes and earthquakes are commonplace.

The vast majority of the population are native Vanuatu (called ni-vans), and most live in traditional rural villages that are much the same as they were before the arrival of Europeans. Both culture and language vary greatly from village to village. Vanuatu has the highest concentration in the world of Continue reading →

Some Comments on the Fijian Political Situation

Posted on by
Reply

Day two at sea is exactly the same as day one, which is slow, rocky and not fun. We have accepted that it is impossible to make it to Vila before sunset and have slowed the RPM’s down to 1700, which is closer to what we ideally like to cruise at. The moon is rising around 2300 (11:00 pm) right now, so we need to slow down so we have moonlight to see by as we approach the pass. If we come in too early in the evening, it will be pitch black.

We wanted to take a moment to comment on the “political turmoil” in Fiji. We were surprised to find  Continue reading →

Passage from Lautoka to Port Vila, Vanuatu

Posted on by
1

Much to our dismay, the customs guy contacted us yesterday afternoon to let us know he would be out of the office until 10:00. We needed to check out right at 08:00 if we were going to make it to Port Vila before dark on Monday. This really messed up our plans. Should we leave late in the afternoon and come in on Tuesday morning instead? We have a friend who was already in Port Vila waiting on us, and we hated to make him wait yet another day.

On the dock in Denaru we met another cruiser who was also going to go to Lautoka to check out at the same time we were. He said he would give us a dinghy ride in and out of customs. Without having to deal with the dinghy, we could well be on our way by 10:30. We decided  Continue reading →

From Waya Back to Denaru

Posted on by
4

Our walk with Tooey was on Tuesday. On Tuesday night, heavy rain began that continued through the next day. Local custom requires that you tell the chief in person when you are leaving the anchorage. It was raining really hard and we figured the chief would understand if we didn’t trek out in the rain to say goodbye.

We wanted to check out on Thursday morning, so the plan was Continue reading →

Hiking Waya Island with Tooey

Posted on by
2

We had a hard time sleeping last night. It was windy, rolly and uncomfortable. We were pleasantly surprised when we awoke to clear skies and bright sunshine. We couldn’t have ordered up a better day for a hike.

We met Tooey on the shore in front of the school at 10:00. We brought two of the crew from Flashgirl with us. We hadn’t explored the school yesterday, afraid to trespass. There is a large field in the center, lined with buildings on all sides. Some of the buildings are classrooms, some housing for the teachers, and some dorms for the kids.

dsc00600-large.JPG

According to Tooey,  Continue reading →