Purity prepares meals as part of their Vatthe Conservation enterprise. You order the meal the day before. Purity apologized that there might not be meat with the meal; it depended upon whether she could catch a chicken or not. Maybe there would be an egg if she couldn't catch the chicken. Dinner did come with chicken and Barry said it was obviously a free range chicken with good strong muscles. We had soup made with green papaya and coconut milk, kumala (sweet potato like the Maori kumara), rice, island cabbage and for dessert bananas and pamplemousse (think giant grapefruit) with coconut cream. All local and all good. Purity told us she ran for public office but didn't make it. She said 17 women in Vanuatu ran for office last year and they all lost. Chief Solomon said that being chief is a family thing you are born into so his son will be chief. He is the kastom (custom) chief. Then there are two other chiefs under him who are elected by families/villages. The chief's job is to solve problems and disputes.
Next day we left for my favorite spot in Vanuatu so far - ABY anchorage in Big Bay. ABY stands for All By Yourself. There are no people there and, therefore, no hunting or fishing which meant the jungle/forest had many new birds for us and the reefs/coral were full of fish. Because this part of Santo Island is raised ancient coral, the runoff from the rain is filtered by the coral and coral sand so that the water is crystal clear. We hung out with the flying foxes (fruit bats) watching their daily routine. Just Barry and I in this little corner of paradise walking on pristine beaches and out in the dinghy exploring all the nooks and crannies in the coral cliffs and circumnavigating a little island with jungle and a tree which the fruit bats favored.
Time to leave Barry said so off we went to Gaua, another island farther north in the Banks Group, a whole other world where people see only 1 or 2 yachts a year on average. We went to Lanova Bay which had 2 small villages. There we learned that a village is really just a big extended family. We could tell we were on the West Coast (left coast) of Gaua because a woman! came out to greet us in her dugout outrigger - how progressive! She showed us where to anchor and invited us ashore. In exchange for her services she wanted a bailer (scoop) for her dugout which we gave her. She was accompanied by a teenage girl who did the paddling. A few minutes after she was paddled away another outrigger dugout appeared with a man. He showed us a better place to anchor. He brought produce from his garden to us and in exchange had lots of requests for supplies which he was pretty sure we would have.
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Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Up the River
We awoke to another dawn chorus, sunshine and a rainbow. Our depth here is 20 feet and we can clearly see every detail on the bottom - squid, fish, coral, sea cucumbers, crabs, and baby lobster/crayfish on the hull. How lucky can we be? We have a date with Chief Solomon to go up the Jordan River this morning
Barry went speeding down to the river mouth with his newly put together big motor. He is so proud of his children who could find another motor like his, test it out, disassemble it, take pictures of the disassembly, find and print diagrams, buy new parts and ship the whole lot successfully all the way to Vanuatu. And feels pretty good about himself that he could get it all re-assembled into a perfectly and smoothly running whole. I think he is amazing!! The chief was wary of taking the dinghy up the Jordan River. It is the biggest river in Vanuatu, wide and very fast flowing. The smaller entrance was blocked by a sand bar and the chief wanted to beach the dinghy and walk up the river. But on Barry went like a true American knowing that he could do it. The chief turned out to be a pretty fun companion and put up with the intrepid Barry. We joked about finding hippopotamus and crocodiles in the river and I feigned fear. He thought that was so funny. Barry said it was like being on the jungle boat ride at Disneyland but Chief Solomon had never heard of Disneyland. Eventually, the river split into 3 fast moving, shallow sections and we could no longer make progress against the current while the motor was hitting rocks on the bottom. And so we turned around and floated back to the ocean.
We saw many Pacific Black Ducks, white and dark morph reef-herons, Great Crested Terns and Glossy Swiftlets galore. Oh, and someone crossing the river mouth (where it was wider and slower) on a horse then galloping off down the beach. On the way back we stopped at a monument to Quiros, a Spaniard who "discovered" Vanuatu just over 400 years ago. The chief said he killed the niVanuatu with guns and the niVans only had bows and arrows and spears for fighting back. Bad.
People always ask us where we are from. They almost always think we are from Australia. Then I ask where they are from and they laugh and say, "Right here" or Malekula or some other island of Vanuatu. I ask do they like living here and they grow rhapsodic telling about how good life is here. I have given this some thought and have decided it is because there is no electricity here and thus no television which means no television telling them to buy this or that to be happy or seeing all the stuff some people have. They have sun for warmth, food from the garden, water in rivers and food from the sea. They know how beautiful it is here and how healthy, good and beautiful their life is.
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Barry went speeding down to the river mouth with his newly put together big motor. He is so proud of his children who could find another motor like his, test it out, disassemble it, take pictures of the disassembly, find and print diagrams, buy new parts and ship the whole lot successfully all the way to Vanuatu. And feels pretty good about himself that he could get it all re-assembled into a perfectly and smoothly running whole. I think he is amazing!! The chief was wary of taking the dinghy up the Jordan River. It is the biggest river in Vanuatu, wide and very fast flowing. The smaller entrance was blocked by a sand bar and the chief wanted to beach the dinghy and walk up the river. But on Barry went like a true American knowing that he could do it. The chief turned out to be a pretty fun companion and put up with the intrepid Barry. We joked about finding hippopotamus and crocodiles in the river and I feigned fear. He thought that was so funny. Barry said it was like being on the jungle boat ride at Disneyland but Chief Solomon had never heard of Disneyland. Eventually, the river split into 3 fast moving, shallow sections and we could no longer make progress against the current while the motor was hitting rocks on the bottom. And so we turned around and floated back to the ocean.
We saw many Pacific Black Ducks, white and dark morph reef-herons, Great Crested Terns and Glossy Swiftlets galore. Oh, and someone crossing the river mouth (where it was wider and slower) on a horse then galloping off down the beach. On the way back we stopped at a monument to Quiros, a Spaniard who "discovered" Vanuatu just over 400 years ago. The chief said he killed the niVanuatu with guns and the niVans only had bows and arrows and spears for fighting back. Bad.
People always ask us where we are from. They almost always think we are from Australia. Then I ask where they are from and they laugh and say, "Right here" or Malekula or some other island of Vanuatu. I ask do they like living here and they grow rhapsodic telling about how good life is here. I have given this some thought and have decided it is because there is no electricity here and thus no television which means no television telling them to buy this or that to be happy or seeing all the stuff some people have. They have sun for warmth, food from the garden, water in rivers and food from the sea. They know how beautiful it is here and how healthy, good and beautiful their life is.
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The Real Scoop
July 16 The Real Scoop
I must say we have not in all Vanuatu heard so many birds as we did at dawn this morning.
9 am we were off to shore to meet Chief Solomon and his wife Purity. After Purity told us all about the Vatthe Conservation Area, its history and current status, the chief took us on a forest trek to see birds. I asked him about the dirt road we were walking on to get to the forest. There is a dispute as to whose road it is so it's not properly cared
for. It goes to Luganville. Barry asked about the chief who had many tusker pigs. Ho, boy! That chief lived over there where the Adventists are. When the chief died all the pigs got loose because Adventists won't eat pigs so no one cared for the pigs. Oh, my! You have to understand how important pigs are to get the impact of this. First in importance is land, then pigs, then women. Chief Solomon is AOG (Assembly of God). This is starting to sound familiar. Remember Marama and Epi in Daku where the chief was AOG and the village was divided along religious lines? So, actually, the two parts of the village are not getting along as well as they did when the conservation area first was set up. And, the conservation area is being diminished because the rapidly expanding population of villagers needs more land for their gardens and there is no suitable land left outside the conservation area. So, they are starting to eat into the forest to plant more gardens. Eventually, we headed off into the forest and was it full of birds! Solomon would hear the bird, mimic its voice, and then point to it in my bird book with his machete. He explained the plants and trees and vines and told their use. You are not hearing from us about seeing any mammals because there are none here except the fruit bats. (There are dogs, cats and rats in the populated areas.) We saw giant spiders and a millipede which he said would burn like fire if it touched you. We told him about the uprising of flying foxes/fruit bats and he said they were probably being hunted. How? With a shotgun, 12 or 16 gauge. At night there is phosphorescence in the bay. So many things alive in the sea making lights as they swim.
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I must say we have not in all Vanuatu heard so many birds as we did at dawn this morning.
9 am we were off to shore to meet Chief Solomon and his wife Purity. After Purity told us all about the Vatthe Conservation Area, its history and current status, the chief took us on a forest trek to see birds. I asked him about the dirt road we were walking on to get to the forest. There is a dispute as to whose road it is so it's not properly cared
for. It goes to Luganville. Barry asked about the chief who had many tusker pigs. Ho, boy! That chief lived over there where the Adventists are. When the chief died all the pigs got loose because Adventists won't eat pigs so no one cared for the pigs. Oh, my! You have to understand how important pigs are to get the impact of this. First in importance is land, then pigs, then women. Chief Solomon is AOG (Assembly of God). This is starting to sound familiar. Remember Marama and Epi in Daku where the chief was AOG and the village was divided along religious lines? So, actually, the two parts of the village are not getting along as well as they did when the conservation area first was set up. And, the conservation area is being diminished because the rapidly expanding population of villagers needs more land for their gardens and there is no suitable land left outside the conservation area. So, they are starting to eat into the forest to plant more gardens. Eventually, we headed off into the forest and was it full of birds! Solomon would hear the bird, mimic its voice, and then point to it in my bird book with his machete. He explained the plants and trees and vines and told their use. You are not hearing from us about seeing any mammals because there are none here except the fruit bats. (There are dogs, cats and rats in the populated areas.) We saw giant spiders and a millipede which he said would burn like fire if it touched you. We told him about the uprising of flying foxes/fruit bats and he said they were probably being hunted. How? With a shotgun, 12 or 16 gauge. At night there is phosphorescence in the bay. So many things alive in the sea making lights as they swim.
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Monday, July 15, 2013
2 Glorious Days in the Whop-whops
July 14 and 15 - two glorious days in the whop-whops. (Whop-whop is Kiwi for boonies or boondocks.)
We spent Saturday afternoon through Monday morning anchored at beautiful Port Olry. We were greeted by Samba, a kid boat that we met at our first stop in Aneityum and have seen all along our travels in Vanuatu including Port Vila . Sunday we took a dinghy ride all around the islets, islands, coves and bays of magnificent Port Olry with white sand beaches, brilliant turquoise waters and vibrant coral and reef life. The water was so crystal clear that just by looking over the side of the boat was like SCUBA diving. We asked about dugongs, called fis cow (fish cow) in Bislama or sea cow. Yes, two live here in the bay by the jetty but, alas, they didn't come say hi. It seems Sunday morning must be bath day because as we dinghied along people would shriek, run out of the water, grab a towel and disappear into the forest. We explored the jungle up a river which ended at a blue hole spring which was far as we could go. We saw Collared Kingfisher, Swamp Harrier, of course the ubiquitous and numerous Glossy and White-Rumped Swiftlets, Grey Fantail, Coconut/Rainbow Lorikeets, heard Gerygone, and saw Melanesian Cuckooshrike and Mackinlay's Cuckoo-dove. The river went under the canopy of trees and vines putting us in a dark green and quiet world. Heavenly.
The weather forecast was for SE wind of 20 knots. We decided we needed a more protected anchorage so we headed north and around the east finger of Santo into Big Bay. We sailed back south to get deep into Big Bay where we would have no swell and little wind. A brilliant plan and a brilliant motor/sail along a coast which reminded us of cruising along the shoreline of Santa Cruz in the Channel Islands of California. Along the way there was an uprising of fruit bats with 50 to 100 flying foxes in the air at a time, disturbed by something - what? We also saw a reef heron being chased and harassed by a fruit bat - just like song birds chasing and harassing a raven or hawk. There were fish which ran upright along the surface of the water using their tail to propel themselves we guess. Wonder what they are. Terns and herons and another one of those Cuckooshrikes. At our new anchorage the women were out on the rocks by a small river beating their laundry. Barry went ashore, as is the courteous thing to do here, to see the chief and ask permission to anchor in their bay and to walk on their land. The answer is always yes, but because every scrap of land and every drop of water, every reef, rock, beach, and every river is owned by someone or some clan, there is no "public access" like we have. Visitors like us are not a threat to this system but the neighboring village might be. They used to have wars and even cannibalism over territorial claims but now they are hostile in ways other than out and out warfare. This village of Matantas used to be split by religion and politics but now they have come together to create a conservation area with visitor services like guides, meals and very basic bungalows. The Forest and Bird Society of New Zealand was the driving force in creating this conservation area, mostly to avoid having Asian loggers log the forests. Birders come here now and we hope the area flourishes. Miraculous.
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We spent Saturday afternoon through Monday morning anchored at beautiful Port Olry. We were greeted by Samba, a kid boat that we met at our first stop in Aneityum and have seen all along our travels in Vanuatu including Port Vila . Sunday we took a dinghy ride all around the islets, islands, coves and bays of magnificent Port Olry with white sand beaches, brilliant turquoise waters and vibrant coral and reef life. The water was so crystal clear that just by looking over the side of the boat was like SCUBA diving. We asked about dugongs, called fis cow (fish cow) in Bislama or sea cow. Yes, two live here in the bay by the jetty but, alas, they didn't come say hi. It seems Sunday morning must be bath day because as we dinghied along people would shriek, run out of the water, grab a towel and disappear into the forest. We explored the jungle up a river which ended at a blue hole spring which was far as we could go. We saw Collared Kingfisher, Swamp Harrier, of course the ubiquitous and numerous Glossy and White-Rumped Swiftlets, Grey Fantail, Coconut/Rainbow Lorikeets, heard Gerygone, and saw Melanesian Cuckooshrike and Mackinlay's Cuckoo-dove. The river went under the canopy of trees and vines putting us in a dark green and quiet world. Heavenly.
The weather forecast was for SE wind of 20 knots. We decided we needed a more protected anchorage so we headed north and around the east finger of Santo into Big Bay. We sailed back south to get deep into Big Bay where we would have no swell and little wind. A brilliant plan and a brilliant motor/sail along a coast which reminded us of cruising along the shoreline of Santa Cruz in the Channel Islands of California. Along the way there was an uprising of fruit bats with 50 to 100 flying foxes in the air at a time, disturbed by something - what? We also saw a reef heron being chased and harassed by a fruit bat - just like song birds chasing and harassing a raven or hawk. There were fish which ran upright along the surface of the water using their tail to propel themselves we guess. Wonder what they are. Terns and herons and another one of those Cuckooshrikes. At our new anchorage the women were out on the rocks by a small river beating their laundry. Barry went ashore, as is the courteous thing to do here, to see the chief and ask permission to anchor in their bay and to walk on their land. The answer is always yes, but because every scrap of land and every drop of water, every reef, rock, beach, and every river is owned by someone or some clan, there is no "public access" like we have. Visitors like us are not a threat to this system but the neighboring village might be. They used to have wars and even cannibalism over territorial claims but now they are hostile in ways other than out and out warfare. This village of Matantas used to be split by religion and politics but now they have come together to create a conservation area with visitor services like guides, meals and very basic bungalows. The Forest and Bird Society of New Zealand was the driving force in creating this conservation area, mostly to avoid having Asian loggers log the forests. Birders come here now and we hope the area flourishes. Miraculous.
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Monday, July 8, 2013
Beauty and Waiting
Sunday
This Sunday we went to the Anglican Church. Boy, can those people sing!!! One of many things we could learn from other
cultures. The sermon was in
Bislama. It’s a good thing Chantal sends
the readings because the sermon was based on those scriptures and we had half a
chance of picking up the gist of the sermon.
All the rest was in English and just like home. Lovely. It looked like
most of Luganville was in that church.
After, the priest asked us to be in the receiving line to shake everyone’s
hand. There must have been 300 or 400
people there! That is a lot of hand
shaking. I wore my flip flops and took them off as soon
as I sat down so that I would fit in with the dress code. ( I knew you were
worried about my being properly dressed. )
As an aside, last week we went to the Seventh Day Adventist Church but
they were long on lessons (in Bislama) and short on worship. In their favor, they don’t eat turtles, fruit bats, endemic pigeons
or coconut crabs! No photos of the
church but what you would see is a huge concrete building with corrugated metal
roof and the altar area beautifully
adorned with local flowers, wood and altar cloths. The crude building somehow made the adornments
seem even more beautiful! There were
huge numbers of children outside the church attending Sunday School. I loved it when they sang “Father Abraham”
just like our kids (but louder and with more gusto). Altogether a heartwarming morning.
Monday and Tuesday
So here we sit waiting for our replacement motor parts to
be released from customs. Getting it
here from California and getting it out of customs are two different
things. This is to fix the big motor for
Rubber Ducky (dinghy). The parts for the
little motor arrived from NZ in a short week.
Go figure. At least I have time
to work on our blog. Usually I am too
busy having fun.
Sheryl rinsing off in fresh water coming out of beach
Children and Grandsons Fun
July 3, 2013
It is a total joy to see our grandsons so comfortable in
the wild and in the water. We saw many
turtles, hammerhead shark, reef sharks, rays, myriad fish, eels, Nemo many
times, anemones, urchins, sea stars, nudibranchs, sea slugs/cucumbers, cowry,
conch and inhabited shells and spinner dolphins leaping and spinning. Built
more hermit crab cities. Swung from ropes into Blue Holes fed from
springs. I, Lynne, was rowed in the
dinghy like I was the Queen of Sheba with one grandson rowing and one kicking
at the transom. Caught fish, had
sashimi, hiked, explored, climbed trees, swung from vines and investigated all
kinds of critters. We swam to an island,
snorkeled, climbed coconut trees to get coconuts, and when Boden wanted to trek
but had no shoes, he made himself a pair!
Colby worked on Scout badges doing knots, rowing and learning
sailing. Learns fast! Beautiful diving from Sunrise. Vince, Noelle and Barry SCUBAed and the kids
and I snorkeled the over same spots. Good.
Blue Hole Which Refreshed American Troops in WW II
Fierce Warriors in Kastom Village
 |
| Nemo |
Market
The town market - open 24 hrs/day daily except Sunday
What a joy to see all those hours-old fruits and veggies carried, displayed and bundled up in leaves and branches, organic and plastic free. They come complete with dirt and, with no pesticides, bugs.
Part of the adventure is learning what the new fruits and veggies are and learning to cook with them.
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