We departed for our 450 nautical mile sail From Musket Cove, Fiji to Port Resolution, Tana, Vanuatu at 11:00 AM on September 2 as planned. Consistent with the forecast, the winds were light, and right on our nose, at the start of our sail but we had just enough wind to be able to sail until late in the day when the winds dipped before regaining strength. And that was largely the tale of this passage. The winds were fairly variable. We had periods of 15 knot winds from the south/southwest (or sometimes south/southeast) allowing us to fly along at 8+ knots on a beautiful beam reach, periods of very light winds (under 10 knots) where we motored or motored sailed and a few periods where the wind pick up to close to 20 knots and we reefed our main and genoa sails. But overall, it was a really nice passage. We sailed without a motor assist 75% of the passage — our new sails performed beautifully — and the seas were relatively calm with just a few periods of confused waves (which always seemed to occur just as Jill was preparing and dinner and we were sitting down to eat).
Of course, we had the usual assortment of joys and tribulations. In the joy department, we were joined on the first day of our passage by a lively group of small dolphins that took great delight in crisscrossing in front of our bow to swim in our wake. We view every dolphin escort as a gift and we never tire of watching them. The experience did cost Jill a self-diagnosed broken pinky toe which occurred when Jill eagerly ran barefoot to the bow of our boat after Zack announced our visitors. When doing deck work we always wear closed toe sandals because it is just too easy to snag a small toe on the various assortment of deck tackle when rushing about to grab/throw lines or secure fenders but Jill had been barefoot in our cockpit when the dolphins graced us with their presence and she didn’t want to miss a moment of their visit by taking time to put on her Keens. Oh well — such is life on a boat! On the tribulation side, our wind speed indicator just stopped working our last evening of the passage while Jill was on watch. We had no apparent or true wind speed or direction. It was non functioning for about 5 hours until after Zack came on watch. Not sure which of the incantations in the Mystics Guide to Sailing (our bible 😀) he used — and he wouldn’t say — but as suddenly as the wind speed indicator seemed to die it miraculously came back to life and continued to work for the remainder of our passage. (Later during our stay in Vanuatu a crew member from one of our fleet mates, Kalli, graciously agreed to go up our mast and he tightened the connection. Still, inspecting our wind speed indicator is one more thing to add to our list or boat repairs for Australia).
We arrived in Port Resolution, Tanna, Vanuatu at about 6:50 AM on September 5. Upon arrival we were tired as we always are after a passage but we got a very nice pick me up. The local villagers, aware that our fleet was coming, paddled out to give us a warm greeting in their dugout canoes with an outrigger on one side. (An outrigger is a lateral support float fastened to one or both sides of the main hull.). They weaved in and around all the boats in the anchorage, blowing their shell horns along the way. Zack joined in the festivities, blowing our own conch horn — thank goodness for those years playing the French horn in high school! — which thrilled the welcoming committee. Seeing some small children among the group we pulled out our spare Che Figata hats and passed them out to our visitors as they rowed past our boat. It was great fun seeing the smiles as they looked at and donned the hats and, of course, it tickled us to see them wearing our hats — with its glorious bee logo — as they paddled away. (We posted pictures of this wonderful greeting on our @sailingchefigata Instagram account.).
A brief note about Vanuatu before we dive into the description of our 16 day visit. Vanuatu is a small, independent island nation with 82 volcanic islands — 12 main islands and 70 smaller ones — extending north to south in a Y shape. Vanuatu gained its independence in 1980 after a period of about 100 years when France and the United Kingdom claimed parts of the archipelago. And unlike neighboring Fiji or, frankly, many of the South pacific islands we visited during our sail west across the South Pacific, the people of Vanuatu managed to preserve their cultures and traditions while being visited by missionaries over the last 100 years. Make no mistake — in these other islands the locals take great pride in and celebrate their rich cultural heritage but this celebration is part of a rebirth process with many older traditions, including many native dances, lost. The people of Vanuatu were able to hold on to their “kastoms” — their unique traditions (be it dances, artistic expression, ceremonies, systems of authority or even approach to farming). In fact, so much so that Vanuatu is reputed to be one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world with 117 different languages and different kastoms on each island and even among the different tribes on a single island. (The official language of Vanuatu is Bislama, a pidgin language, made up of words that mix local dialect with English. For example, nambawan means the best (‘number 1’) and tankyu tumas means thank you very much (‘thank you too much’).) As you might imagine, Vanuatu is very undeveloped with a limited number of resorts so very few tourist come here — it’s mostly yachties like us that visit the archipelago while sailing East or West across the South Pacific. But those who make the trip are richly rewarded by a visit with incredibly welcoming people anxious to share their culture and food while proudly showing off Vanuatu’s treasures, from its small local villages and schools to its coastline and natural wonders.
We wasted no time jumping into Vanuatu life and thoroughly enjoyed our 5 day stay anchored in Port Resolution. On the day of our arrival the organizers of our rally arranged a village tour followed by a visit to the Mount Yasur volcano. We travelled for over an hour in pick up trucks — a few of us in the cab but most of us in the truck bed — across very uneven dirt roads (lots of deep trenches) to reach the “kastom”village. There we were greeted by the villagers dressed in traditional ceremonial outfits of woven grass and treated to a number of the dances unique to their tribe performed by the women and men, separately. After a brief but lovely visit we headed to nearby Mount Yasur. What an amazing treat! Mount Yasur is an active volcano that rises up 1,184 feet above sea level. It has been erupting nearly continuously, generally a few times each hour, for several hundred years. Vanuatu authorities allow people to visit the volcano during sunset and sunrise when the eruptions against the dark sky are most spectacular. Mount Yasur has earned a reputation as the most “accessible” active volcano in the world because there are no viewing platforms — you literally stand at the edge of the crater (no fences) and look down and across to watch the awesome natural pyrotechnic display of exploding red hot lava. There are no obstructions. (The lack of any guardrails or any sort of protective elements to keep visitors from going over the very steep edge was definitely a reminder — if we needed one — that we are not in the USA anymore!) It was truly a mesmerizing experience to hear the loud rumble (it sounded like a freight train and the noise reverberated through your body) and to see the red lava burst with an explosive force up towards the sky in all directions during the eruptions. We could have stayed at the volcano for hours — it was that intoxicating — and probably would have if the tour guide didn’t gently push us along back down the path at about 6:45 PM. We could still see the red hue from the volcanic eruptions during portions of the drive back to our anchorage. Interestingly, the glow of the volcano was apparently what attracted Captain James Cook to the island in 1774.
The next day, September 6, we devoted the morning to boat chores — our post passage cleaning among other odd jobs — but we completed those by 1 PM and were able to go ashore to explore. We were joined on land by fleet mates Kalli, Escapade and North Star and a local villager, Lillian, who agreed to take us on a tour of her village and down to White Beach. Lillian’s village was very typical — many small huts (perhaps 10’ X 10’) with external walls made of flattened bamboo and roofs made of palm or other leaves. Other than a few lights that work on batteries, there is no electricity or running water. After walking through the village Lillian took us to the nearby “Lea’s Restaurant,” owned (of course) by Lea, her aunt. Like many of the restaurants on these remote and undeveloped islands, Lea’s restaurant was little more than a picnic table under a tarp with a small kitchen (similar to what you might construct on a camping trip — no refrigerators). We made arrangements with Lea to return for dinner at 6 PM and then continued on our walk to White Beach passing by a local school. By the time we arrived at White Beach it was time to head back to the boat for a little down time before our 6 PM dinner reservation so it was a very quick visit. After an ever so brief interlude on our boat we were back on shore headed to Lea’s restaurant for dinner. Lea cooked up quite the meal for us — large plates overflowing with taro, sweet potato, cassava, spinach, snake beans, cabbage salad, egg omelettes, and a local saucy chicken dish. Everything was simply prepared (and most of it was naturally vegan) but you don’t need a lot of pomp and circumstance when the ingredients are fresh, right from the ground. We brought along a bottle of red which paired perfectly with our meal — and no corkage fee! 😀. For those curious, the cost of our dinner: the equivalent of $9 usd per person.
We had another busy day on September 7. That was the day the rally organizers and tribal leaders arranged a gift exchange. This has become a much loved tradition when the World ARC fleet visits Vanuatu but this year’s gift exchange had added significance. Vanuatu was hit by 2 category 4 cyclones in 72 hours in early March of this year and, a day after the second cyclone, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake. These disasters caused severe infrastructure destruction across the islands of Vanuatu and the villagers lost many of their belongings. As a result, in addition to the usual gifts you might bring for a gift exchange (e.g., school supplies and small toys for the children), the villagers were in desperate need of many basics: mattresses, pots/pans, utensils, batteries, towels, clothing, etc. Anticipating the gift exchange, we had ordered school supplies (and a bag filled with 50 small foam world globes) before we left the States in November 2022 but upon hearing what the villagers now needed we shopped for pots/pans and utensils while in Fiji and brought a large bagful with us to Tanna. As we presented our gifts to the villagers (from 5 different local villages) they presented their gifts to us — hand crafted items including beautiful woven handbags and baskets made of palm leaves and filled with local fruits and vegetables. It was a very meaningful ceremony preceded and followed by the villagers singing their kastom songs to local string instruments. We also shared our music — Country Road, Brown Eyed Girl and Sweet Caroline — with John from Casamara and Jim from Kalli playing the guitar and Susie from Casamara singing the vocals (and the rest of us joining in on the chorus). Following the gift exchange we were treated to a local feast hosted by the villagers consisting of a variety of fresh vegetables and slow cooked pork served on plates made of palm leaves. We ended the day with a second trip to the volcano. As we said, we were mesmerized by it and wanted to turn the once in a lifetime opportunity to view an active volcano to a twice in a lifetime experience. We were so glad we returned. While our first visit to the volcano was spectacular, the volcano was even more active during our second visit. As we watched what looked like an inferno in the center of the crater the volcano would erupt treating us to a violent and intense fiery display of red hot lava shooting up towards and filling the sky before the falling back down in smaller (but still large) embers in all directions much like fireworks. We posted a few videos that captured some of the better eruptions on Instagram @sailingchefigata.
Most of our fleet departed on September 8 to explore another nearby island but we decided to stick around Tanna for a few more days. Though it is always tempting to go somewhere new — especially when most of the fleet is headed there — we felt that there was more of Tanna to explore. So we spent the next two days checking off items on our Tanna bucket list. That included a long walk along gorgeous White Beach (our first visit was more of a “sighting”), another dinner with Lea (this time we sat with a lovely NZ couple, Holly and Jamie, and their adorable little girls, Indy and Davie) and a complete full day island tour courtesy of Malakai. During our island tour we got to fully experience Tanna roads (which are best described as trenches dug into the earth), drive across a river (who needs a bridge when you drive a 4 wheel drive truck) and through the barren landscape (resembling something out of a Star Wars movie) around the volcano, visit one of the largest Banyan trees in the world (it is the size of a football field and was already enormous when Captain Cook visited the island in 1774) and visit the tribe known as the “Cargo Cult.”
A few words about the Cargo Cult because they have a fascinating history. The short story is that sometime in the 1930s a white man in military uniform, John Frum (which many believe was a misinterpretation of “John from”) visited Tanna and told them to return to their old traditions and customs. He promised them that if they did so America would come and improve their lives. This prophecy appeared to be fulfilled when American troops began to arrive from a World War II base on a neighbouring island bringing (among other things) radios, canned food and telephones (this was the “cargo”). While many question whether John Frum was a real person or merely a vision, the fulfillment of the prophecy sealed the deal and John Frum was declared the Messiah. Unlike the French and British who did not always treat the local people well while they governed the Vanuatu islands, the American soldiers were kind to the locals, treating them with respect, paying them fairly for work performed and giving them surplus items like uniforms. To this day, they cherish their interactions with the Americans and have created a shrine like room (which Chief Mole proudly walked us through) that displays many of the items given to them by the Americans including canvas gun cases, bags of uniforms and flags. Though Malakai had never visited the village of the Cargo Cult before we knew we were in the right place when we saw a tall flag pole with a pristine American flag in the middle of the village. As Americans we felt like honored guests!
Perhaps one of the best parts of our excursion with Malakai though was what we learned about the local culture and traditions just being in his truck. While driving across the island we noticed a lot of people, some wearing traditional clothing and/or headdresses and many carrying sticks over their shoulder with sacks attached, walking down the roads. We asked Malakai where they were all coming from and he told us it was a young boy’s circumcision. Apparently, when a boy is 6 years old he leaves his family to live with male relatives for a month and has a circumcision performed in a local clinic. The boy’s mother is not allowed to see her child for one month after the procedure. After one month though the male relatives blow a conch horn alerting people from surrounding villages that there is to be a “kastom” celebration. Word spreads from village to village and many of the island’s residents show up to celebrate the circumcision through traditional dance and a feast. They travel far over very difficult terrain — Tanna is 25 miles long and 12 miles wide — so the villagers spend the night at the location of the celebration. We asked Malakai how the locals from different tribes and villages know that the gathering is to celebrate a circumcision and he explained that the blow of a conch shell only announces a circumcision. Different sounds signify different celebrations. For example, weddings are announced with bells. Interestingly, we heard both the sound of someone blowing through a shell and bells at different times off in the distance from our boat. Now we knew that those sounds were announcing important milestones and the celebrations to commentate them.
Our tour with Malakai ended at around 4 PM — 7 hours after it started — and we immediately hopped into our dinghy to head back out to Che Figata. We were looking forward to a quiet dinner and evening on the boat in advance of our next day (September 10) departure for Port Villa on the Vanuatu island of Efate where we’d be meeting up with the rest of the remaining World ARC fleet. The sail to Port Villa was ~ 130 nautical miles which meant an overnight sail and we had things to do to prepare. One of those “things” was lifting our dinghy on our davits and then securing it with the safety straps we use during passages. As we motored our dinghy to Che Figata we debated whether to lift our dinghy straight away or wait until the next morning, adding it to our list of other morning pre-departure chores. The reason for the debate was that the bay was a bit choppy and while we can lift the dinghy in those conditions (and have done so many times) when the seas are rolly it gets a little tricky to position the dinghy horizontally across the back of our stern, which requires us to hook two lines on the starboard side of our dinghy to pad eyes on our stern steps. We decided that the waves weren’t rough enough to merit us waiting until the next day. Better to get the dinghy on the davits right then. That way Zack could secure the straps while Jill prepared dinner and it would be one less thing to do in the morning.
Of course, that assumed everything would go according to plan and having now gone 20 days without any noteworthy mishaps we should have known that was an unrealistic expectation. Silly us! What happened next was something right out of a slap stick comedy. Zack was at the back of the dinghy controlling the motor while Jill was in front, ready to grab on to the handrails on our stern and help us pivot the dinghy around to a horizontal position. Zack felt that the dinghy too far forward so he decided to put the engine in reverse. Just before he was able get the dinghy motor into reverse, or even neutral, we got hit by a wave broadside with enough force that Zack was tossed forward away from the engine to the bow of the dinghy with Jill but not before his hand, which had been on the throttle, inadvertently twisted the throttle to high speed as it was being pulled away and the tiller got pushed to the side. This caused the dinghy to lurch forward violently and spin in a fast circle. Unfortunately this created a centrifugal force pushing Jill backwards and into the water fully clothed and with her rain jacket on. Zack got himself to the back of the dinghy as quick as he could and pulled off the safety cord which stops the engine.
Fortunately, Jill did not hit her head on the side of Che Figata as she fell off the dinghy or get cut by the moving propeller once in the water. (That was a real risk and would have been quite unpleasant!) She instinctively swam away from the dinghy toward the stern of Che Figata and was headed there when Zack was able to stop the engine and then safely offer her a hand back into the dinghy. (By the way, it is not easy getting back in a dinghy without flippers on and fully clothed. Imagine pulling yourself out of a swimming pool 25 feet deep with sides made of rounded inflated rubber tubes that protrude out 6 feet into the pool so that your body curls under the edge as you grab the sides and there is no ladder, wall or anything to brace yourself on.) What was even more fortunate for Zack, though, was that Jill’s iPhone was not in the pocket of her rain jacket when she went for a swim. It had been in there all day until Jill took one last picture and tossed it in our canvass boat bag. Zack figured he could survive throwing Jill overboard due to a runaway dinghy but he knew he could never survive Jill’s wrath had her iPhone been drowned. Zack truly has a guardian angel! Following Jill’s unplanned swim we didn’t put the dinghy up on the davits at the moment. Jill headed straight to the shower — pulling off soggy clothing along the way — while Zack rinsed out her clothes and jacket using the fresh water shower at the stern of the boat. After getting into warm, dry, clothing and recovering from the excitement Jill — benevolent as she is (there is not complete agreement within the editorial board on that statement) — cooked a delicious warm meal (black bean chili) and we enjoyed the lovely evening we had planned.
The next morning, September 10, we were off to Port Villa as scheduled. For the first 12 hours we had a fairly unremarkable sail with reasonable winds from a decent direction and with relatively calm seas. This allowed Jill to prepare dinner (creamy miso pasta with caramelized mushrooms) and for us to eat it without being concerned that it might end up in our laps. These benign conditions persisted until about 11 PM when the wind speed and direction began to fluctuate wildly and the seas became very confused. After trying a few different strategies (e.g., sailing with just the mainsail, pulling in the main towards the center of the boat, etc.) we eventually gave up, rolling in both sails and turning on the motor. Our sails were just getting too beat up with all the snapping from the light winds, changing directions and confused seas. While they are new and strong there was no reason to subject them to abuse. We arrive in Port Villa at 9:30 AM on September 11 — jus a few hours shy of 24 hours from our departure.
Our stay in Port Vila is best described as the longest farewell party in history. At this point there were 17 boats left in the rally. Seven of those boats were headed to Mackay, Australia, the official final stop of the World ARC Pacific. We, along with 10 other boats, however, were headed to Brisbane. The reason for our deviation was quite simple. We needed to be outside the Southern Hemisphere’s cyclone zone before the start of cyclone season and Brisbane was just south of the line we needed to cross. It didn’t make sense for any of us to sail to Mackay to then have to sail south down the coast of Australia which would mean a fairly miserable 500 nautical mile sail with the wind right on our nose. So this was our opportunity to say good-bye to the 7 boats heading to Mackay which included some of our favorites. It was a particularly long good-bye because the weather forecast was not favorable for a departure on the passage start date selected by the rally, Thursday, September 14. In the words of our weather router: “You would risk sinking if you leave [Thursday]. You would be heading into the tropical low as it winds up. Your global models smooth out the really severe areas where there will very likely be patches to 50 knots. This sort of system sinks yachts so don’t do it.” Needless to say that the rally organizers changed the departure date and, regardless, we weren’t about to go anywhere. Most of the fleet— including us — ended up staying in Port Vila through Monday, September 18.
Never fear, we kept very busy during our extended visit with passage prep and, as referenced above, various farewell activities. On the passage prep we needed to top up our fuel tanks (this entailed several trips with jerrycans to the fuel dock), provision, pre-prepare some meals (Jill pre-cooked black bean chili, roasted tomato and white bean stew, back bean and chorizo tofu burritos and gochujang eggplant in scallion oil) and secure the boat for a 6/7 day passage. It also included multiple skippers meetings as we continued to watch the weather with the aid of our weather router. On the activity side, the rally organizers hosted a rendezvous dinner with prize giving (we won the closest to the pin prize for guessing, before we left Fiji, that we would arrive in Vanuatu at 7:30 AM Fiji time — we arrived at 7:50 AM Fiji time) as well as a group tour to the Mele Cascades, a stunning waterfall. In addition to these official activities, there were multiple dinners with different groups — ranging from 6 to 19 — at a local Thai restaurant (Exotic Thai) and Indian Restaurant (A Taste of India) as well as a ladies lunch at the marina celebrating a birthday and a large group excursion (30 of us!) to a dinner and fire show.
One of the dinners at Exotic Thai as well as the Fire Show deserve some further detail. Our first dinner at Exotic Thai was on the night of our arrival, Monday, September 11. (We went back for a reprise 3 days later!) We went there with our friends Miguel and Carmen from Aliena. Shortly after we sat down, the owners of our fleet mate, Elsie I (William and Elsie), showed up with a local woman, Ling-Ling, they somehow met at the marina. (We believe she was wandering the dock and started up a conversation.). Being friends we encouraged them to sit down at the next table. Ling-Ling immediately came over to us to introduce herself. It turns out that though she was born in China she moved to Cleveland Ohio at a very early age and lived there her entire childhood. At some point as an adult, she moved to California where it sounds like she worked in real estate (as an investor) which went well for her until the housing bubble burst in 2008 and she lost most of her properties. At that point she was looking for new markets and opportunities and decided to move to Vanuatu and got involved in the nascent power industry in the country. Ling-Ling was about as animated as they come and was a true force of nature. She decided that we needed to try a local lemon beer so she took it upon herself to order each of us one. Then, when it was time to pay our bill and before Zack went up to the cashier, she told him that “God has taken care of your check.” He wasn’t quite sure what that meant but when we went to try and pay our bill the restaurant staff informed him that Ling-Ling had paid for all of our dinners.
The fire show was amazing. We have never seen anything quite like it. A group of performers from the local Wan Smol Bag theatre travel from resort to resort on Efate different days of the week to put on a show set to contemporary music that is part choreographed dance, part circus acts and part gymnastics but all involving the twirling, tossing, and other interactions with kerosene lit torches, most with multiple torch heads. The show is visually stunning as well as exciting and an hour flew by as we observed the performers transform the light from the torches into ropes, circles and fireworks as they moved their bodies ever to gracefully and performed incredible acts including juggling, hand springs and fire stick limbo. We were once again reminded that we are not in the USA when the performers, holding torches on very long sticks (maybe 20 feet in length), waved them over the crowd so that the lit torches passed very close above our heads. We took some great video from the performance that we posted on Instagram @sailingchefigtata.
But that Fire show was so 48 hours ago. Now, as we do our final edits of this blog entry, it is Monday, September 18 and, after a lovely visit by Holly, Jamie, Indy and Davie who are now in Port Vila (Jill got her substitute granddaughter fix!), we are just going through our final check list as we get ready to depart for Brisbane tomorrow morning (Tuesday, September 19). At this point our exact sail plan is a bit up in the air. Based on the weather forecast we will be sailing south and down the eastern coast of New Caledonia and then around the southern tip of the island as we head west to Brisbane. The reason for this route is that it looks like there might be a low pressure front coming out of New Zealand around the day 2 or 3 of our sail. These “lows” are associated with high winds and squalls. By sailing down the East coast of New Caledonia we gave ourselves the opportunity to duck into Noumea on the southern tip of the island where we could wait out the weather in a fairly cosmopolitan port — stocking up on more French wine in the process 😀 — before continuing on to Brisbane. Or, if the low pressure front doesn’t materialize we can simply proceed to Brisbane. We will tell you all about how our sail unfolded in our next blog entry covering our sail to Brisbane as well as our preparations for our long anticipated visit back to the USA in October! We love keeping you on the edge of your seats!
