Big Fish! Big Waves!

What a passage this was! The trip from New Caledonia to New Zealand normally takes 7-8 days; it took us 14.

High points were catching the biggest mahimahi we've ever seen, and watching the night sky evolve (favorite image this time: an infant moon appearing faintly on the horizon, then slipping into the sea).

Low points were having the V-drive break not long into the trip. No V-drive = no transmission = no motorsailing in light winds = ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time. We spent a couple days wallowing in the waves with no wind, gradually drifting away from our destination (not unlike "the olden days" of sailing) and others going slowly forward--though not fast enough to make landfall before a storm front hit us.

track of Second Wind while drifting

It started with hard rain and 35-45 knot winds whipping up the sea into a frenzy, for which Second Wind and we were well prepared. There's not much that can be done to protect a boat from lightning, however, so we were relieved there was none...until, "Oh look! Lightning!": a fireworks display appeared overhead. (Since you're reading this, obviously we did not get hit.) The storm lasted for several hours, but it was the following two days of continued strong winds and tumultuous seas that were the real obstacles. We had to heave to twice (arrange the sails so we intentionally didn't go anywhere, giving us a chance for some desperately needed rest). Once underway again, the waves made progress excruciatingly slow. By the time we arrived in Opua for Customs check-in, almost a week after expected, we had to completely rework logistics and leave Second Wind near Opua for our long absence, rather than in our home base of Whangarei. Ah, the best laid plans...

The staff photographer was otherwise occupied during the storm,
so this photo of  post-gale water over the bow will have to suffice.
(Just add darkness, rain, lightning, and 16-18' waves to this picture.)

Boisterous waves next to small boat; these are only about 12'

It was a stressful voyage but never a fearsome one. We learned a lot, especially about the strengths of our boat and ourselves, and ended up with quite an adventure under our belts (or lifejackets!).

But home never sounded so good. Where are those ruby slippers when you need them?

Friends and family, thank you for sharing this journey with us so far. I'll probably post a few photos of our time on US soil, but we know you're primarily interested in tales from the South Pacific. Those will resume approximately next March--stay tuned!

Standing by,

Vagabond Art

Sea Gypsy Nancie

New Caledonia

Our passage from Vanuatu to New Caledonia was one of our best ever, with glorious sailing the entire route. New Cal itself looked different than we expected: the tall columnar pines made famous by the "Isle of Pines" (which we did not visit) are actually found throughout the islands, and red earth predominates on and around Grande Terre, the huge main island. It possesses a strikingly different kind of beauty, more reminiscent of Mexico's Sea of Cortez than the South Pacific.

A cluster of tall pines on the island of Mare'

Red earth on Grande Terre

There's not much to share about New Cal since we were there for such a short time and had little opportunity to explore. Like French Polynesia, New Caledonia is administered by France, and we did appreciate some croissants and a lovely market. Most enjoyable was the Museum of New Caledonia, with its marvelous displays of Kanak culture--particularly wood carvings and their unique style of huts.

Which is scariest?

Beautiful carvings and symbolism

Having quoted Paul Simon in the last post, it's appropriate to do so again, starting with

"I get all the news I need on the weather report".

We joined the other cruisers at Port Moselle Marina's wifi area, obsessing about passage weather: when to make the leap to Australia/New Zealand. We're headed to New Zealand, our home away from home, then on the United States, home for the holidays.

As Paul sang, "Homeward Bound..."

Vanuatu: Port Vila, Efate Island

Translate this label:

                                                   Nambawan Wota

                                                   Blong Vanuatu

                                                   Gud Wota Gud Laef

Congratulations! You can read Vanuatu's national language.

Bislama is like pidgin English; it's not hard to decipher visually (though less easy when it's spoken). Vanuatuans may lack basics like electricity and advanced education, but even the most rural villagers are multilingual: they speak English, French, Bislama, their own local dialect, and at least one other dialect from a nearby area. We were impressed, grateful (for their fluency in English) and a bit abashed (for only speaking 1 1/2 languages--or 2 1/2, counting music).

At one time Vanuatu (then called New Hebrides) was jointly administered by both England and France. Port Vila, the capital, benefits from a lingering European influence; tourism supports a surprising number of duty-free shops and good restaurants. We were there for the necessary Customs formalities, the beautiful protected harbor, and local color.

The harbor wasn't protected enough to withstand cyclone Pam;
most other destruction has been cleared, but boats are still washed ashore
(and supposedly there are some sailboats, with their crews,
sunken on the deep bottom below the mooring buoys)

Men in South Pacific island nations all wear the same thing--
t shirts or island shirts, shorts and flip flops.
Women's clothing, however, varies; in Vanuatu, most women wear brightly colored dresses
and look very festive!

The women--with their children--stay in the market all week,
sleeping on the floor between tables of produce

Multiple vendors in the market area serve heaping plates of rice, meat & vegetables
for 400 vatu ($4 US)--a "don't miss" lunch. The local paper guided us to a major annual
music festival (and can you decipher a bit more Bislama on the poster?)

On three consecutive nights we heard local string bands, reggae and Vanuatu-style rap;
with food booths, families sitting on the grass and young people dancing in front of the stage,
it was infectious fun

The Vanuatu Cultural Museum was jam-packed with fascinating displays of exotic headdresses, slit drums as tall as totem poles, body decorations and musical instruments--most of which are still used on outlying islands today. We were captivated by the sand drawing, which tells an entire story in a picture created without ever lifting the finger from the sand.

Edgar is telling the story while he draws

One of the final drawings;
they are breathtakingly beautiful, then swept away in an instant by shaking the 'sandbox'

Edgar also played a haunting melody on a long bamboo flute
and the Vanuatu national anthem on a type of marimba.
He wanted to learn an American song,
so we taught him "America the Beautiful".

Kava in Vanuatu is stronger than kava in Fiji, and we were curious about it. Rather than go to a downtown kava bar, we ended up making our way to a very tiny local nakamal up in the hills past the city--not a place that travelers would normally ever find. Neighborhood kava bars have a blue light on in the evening to indicate their business, but everything else is dark (to encourage maximum relaxation)--so unfortunately I don't have a photo. But it sure was a unique experience, being welcomed into their world and given more kava than we arranged for! (Once again a Paul Simon lyric came to mind: Still crazy after all these years...)

But the clock is ticking. It's a long way to New Zealand--where Second Wind will again spend the cyclone season--and the safe sailing time is drawing to a close; we must move on. We will head to New Caledonia, unfortunately not for exploration--not enough time for that--but for staging the tough passage to New Zealand from a place that's a little closer and offers a better wind angle than departing from Vanuatu. New Cal is reputedly very beautiful, though, so I hope to at least post a few photos from there! 

Vanuatu: Tanna Island

AWESOME!!!

Since we'd lost almost a month waiting for a part and then for weather, we considered skipping Vanuatu. The chance to get to the edge of one of the world's most accessible active volcanoes reeled us in, though--and we were glad it did!

"Is this really a good idea?"
We couldn't help but wonder, approaching Tanna Island
and watching the volcano belch smoke and steam

Anchored in a nearby bay,
we could watch spontaneous steam vents
and geysers erupt...

...and both see & hear explosions from our boat

Mt. Yasur is considered a spiritual place, and visitors are welcomed by a ceremony that includes asking for and being granted permission to ascend.

This beautiful woman placed leis on every visitor...

...followed by traditional dancing and singing

After being packed into 4WD trucks and jostling almost to the rim, we hiked the rest of the way to the top and sat near the edge as the sun set and Yasur's eruptions became increasingly brilliant in the growing darkness. Spectacular explosions, deafening roars, rumbling earth--sight, sound, sensation: a peak experience in every way.

The other main reason to explore Vanuatu is its array of fascinating cultural customs. One of these is the John Frum movement, of which Tanna is the focal point. After seeing large quantities of cargo accompanied by black American soldiers in WWII, a 'cargo cult' formed that believed  John "From" America would return and bring material wealth to his followers. During the day multiple American flags fly in the main John Frum village, but we visited on a Friday night so we could attend the weekly religious ceremony. Devotions consisted of rotating clusters of worshippers--men in the center with guitars, women around the periphery clapping--singing songs about God. It was more subdued than we expected, but with some people wearing grass skirts swaying on the sidelines and the volcano frequently rumbling nearby, it was suitably intriguing.

(not a good photo, but a flash would have been inappropriate)

A day in Ireupuow, the village nearest the anchorage, proved to be especially meaningful. The village was a loose association of several smaller enclaves; all the homes were of woven bamboo and coconut fronds, and none had electricity.

Carved fern tree figure

Miriam, our guide, earns $10 US/month
as a kindergarten teacher, yet her daughter's
middle school education costs $370 US/year.
To make up the difference, she relies on
contributions from her relatives and other villagers.

Tanna coffee is famous in Vanuatu;
even a tea gal like me thought it was delicions

Inside the coffee house

Everyone loves music, and sharing ours along the way has been great fun. We played in each enclave in Ireupuow, and the interaction was charming: people laughed and talked and clapped whenever they saw or heard something they particularly liked (similar to a jazz performance, but more exuberant). In all of our hundreds of  professional concerts, nothing has ever felt more joyful than their overt enthusiasm!

A few lingering listeners, many of whom brought us fresh papaya as we were leaving

Another pleasure was watching people ply the small bay in their dugout canoes. There was always someone paddling somewhere,

either men fishing

or children coming by to trade vegetables for treats.

From the magnificent volcano to the welcoming villagers, Tanna was a better stop than we could have imagined...

Sailing past Yasur on our way to the next island

The Plans, They Are A-Changin'...

...or, Curses! Foiled again!!

Q: Why are we under way with the instruments covered up?
A: Because they aren't working

As would be expected, things weren't always idyllic; weather prevented us from doing some activities we'd looked forward to, and delays meant we had to skip some planned destinations in Fiji. In addition, we had a major equipment failure: our chartplotter--fundamentally a navigation computer--stopped working. Art can usually fix anything, but the unit is several years old and nothing he tried brought it to life. Though we have two backup systems--a laptop program and a hand-held GPS--that was our primary system and by far the safest. Ironic that it would fail in a remote place in the Lau Group--no internet, no phone--in reef-filled Fiji! Not that sailors didn't navigate successfully long before the advent of this technology, but they didn't generally choose to come to places like this, either; and the unit is also our screen to display radar and depth readings.

I won't bore you with all the contortions we went through to get a replacement, though we do want to publicly thank my sister Cheryl in Kansas and our friends Mary & Dave in New Zealand, each of whom spent a great deal of time trying to work directly with marine and shipping companies when we were unable to do so.

But nothing in Boat World is simple, especially not getting parts into a foreign country. Some cruisers in Vuda Marina had been waiting 2 weeks for a part that should have arrived in 2 days, but that was nothing; others had been waiting 2 months for a part they expected to receive in 2 weeks.

Ironically, as soon as the chartplotter was glowing again, the wind died. We couldn't drive 500 miles to our next destination, so we lost another week waiting for the trade winds to resume. A month in Vanuatu is now pared down to no more than 2 weeks; disappointing, but flexibility is part of the game. Obstacles are part of cruising life, and we all learn to be imaginative about creating new plans. Sailing itineraries are, as the saying goes, "written in sand at low tide".

Cruising is not cruising. Translation: being a vagabond is not the laid-back lifestyle it can appear to be. Discomforts, frustrations and anxieties accumulate--then there are times of such exhilaration that the downsides get swept away. So we're finally off to Vanuatu, where we will hike up a volcano--and hope not to get swept away!

Fiji Finale

Viti Levu 

Viti Levu, Fiji's largest island, is referred to as 'the mainland'. It has a thriving capital city, a significant international airport, and plenty of resorts. Our destination was Vuda Marina on the southwest coast--a prime place for cruisers to work on their boats and provision for passages to the next country on their itinerary.

Boats are squeezed into a tiny shallow basin;
awkward, but it works

                                                                                                

Taking an open-air bus to nearby Lautoka for provisioning 

Sign in one of the buses we took
(we thought the transmission on this one might fail before we made it to our destination,
 but it ended up picking up passengers from another bus stranded along the road)

This is sugar cane country, and we both rode and hiked through it:

Rows of plants ready for harvest

Fields are burned to clear them enough to be harvested manually
(the EPA would not approve)

Cane is stacked in carts on small trains that run much of the day
(the sides of the carts are just wooden tree trunks)

We didn't want to leave Fiji without seeing Suva, the largest city in the tropical South Pacific, so we took a side trip by bus (an air-conditioned express bus this time). The 5-hour journey took us along the southern Coral Coast from the dry western side, past huge sand dunes, through many small villages, and into the lush rainforest of the eastern half of the island.

Suva itself was much nicer than we expected: large enough to have many attractions yet compact enough to get around easily, and remarkably well-kept.

Waterway through the city out to the large commercial harbor

The Grand Pacific Hotel was indeed grand
(no, we did not stay there)

Though we did stay here, at the South Seas Private Hotel

...with a classic veranda and nice garden 

As always, I was most enthralled by the central market, full of color and action:

This woman is stringing live black crabs for sale
(the straw in the upper left is a Fiji-style broom)

We always try things to eat that we've never seen before.
The results are mixed, but it's always interesting

We also enjoyed the excellent Fiji Museum and celebrated my birthday at a nice Indian restaurant. Nearly half of Fiji's population has Indian roots, so there were plenty to choose from!

 In addition to food, Indian influence is evident in the many mosques and Hindu shrines:

Individual Hindu shrines dot the countryside;
taken from a bus, this photo shows a pair of them in two consecutive yards

This splendid and famous temple is in Nadi:

Visitors are loaned wraps to cover the legs
(yes, that's Art)

No photos were allowed inside--but given this exterior,
you can imagine how ornate
the indoor paintings and sculptures are 

In keeping with our being in the right place at the right time, we were anchored at Saweni Bay (near Vuda) when a large and colorful festival materialized on shore. It turned out to be honoring Lord Ganesh; clay idols of the elephant-headed god of wisdom and prosperity were given to the sea, along with much enthusiastic chanting. How fortunate were we that many different temples chose to celebrate in the bay right next to our boat!

Everyone in Vuda Marina is waiting. Some are waiting for a weather window to sail to the next country; all the other cruisers are waiting for parts or repairs.

Waiting isn't fun, but it's a chance to get around to B List Projects like oil changes and deep cleaning
(Or: How a short person reaches the bottom of the fridge)

We did both, but we decided to leave the marina for a while and check out a couple of the Yasawa Islands on Fiji's western perimeter. It was an unexpected opportunity to visit that area, and meant we now had visited all of Fiji's major cruising grounds.

The Yasawa Group

The Yasawas gave us a very different view of Fiji, both geographically and culturally. Western Fiji is quite dry; we soaked up the sunshine and swam often. It's also much more developed. The climate and profuse reefs have attracted tourists for decades, and now there are resorts clustered on almost every beach.

Though it's green, the foliage is much more sparse here
(the pass is just out of view to the left)

Our first stop was at Drawaqa Island, near a place dubbed Manta Ray Pass. It turned out to be an amazingly serendipitous stop! It was a beautiful anchorage; we had to choose between looking at a cliff on one side, or a reef and expanse of ocean on the other. Sigh...And yes, there were mantas! We had the best show on the first day, when there were at least six of them feeding in the pass, oval mouths wide open as they scooped up plankton. Four of them turned slow somersaults over and over, just beneath us--a truly stunning sight.

Manta Ray Resort, just past the anchorage, is a backpacker destination--i.e. casual and welcoming to sea gypsies like us. We took advantage of the happy hour + pizza one evening, feeling very pampered compared to the boat!

A cruising mantra is that what we do is not a vacation--
but sometimes we get lucky and it feels like one for a while!
(the non-vacation part: this photo does not show Art hauling up 160' of chain by hand the day before
because the windlass broke, or show him spending the next two days
engineering a repair)

Another gift from this anchorage was getting to see the legendary Green Flash. It is difficult for cruisers to witness, requiring a clear horizon at sunset (sailing weather almost always means horizons at sea have low clouds); some veterans have never seen it at all. Conditions were perfect, though, and we got to see it twice! Who needs a pot of gold?

Our final island visit was to Wayasewa, where we enjoyed mingling in the village for a few days. We shared music with the school (we played instruments for them, they sang for us), participated in a BBQ fundraiser for the school, drank kava and danced with the women, and played with the kids. Hearing "Bula, Nancie!" when we came for subsequent visits--welcomed as friends--was definitely heartwarming.

Presenting our gift of kava
(informally, since the mayor was away from the village)

Kids washing dishes after the fundraiser

Dancing at the kava party

They used a split fishing float for a kava bowl.
This girl was enamored of our music & instruments!
Her mom tried my violin,
and the daughter learned some chords on Art's ukulele

Saying farewell to Rachael, our village host

All the children wanted to hold hands, touch my long hair and play with us,
but Rachael's grandchildren usually got to us first

From there it was back to Vuda Marina--to wait again (this time for a weather window).

But now we must leave for good; it's unlikely we will ever return to Fiji. From the gorgeous islands to the friendly people, this is a magnificent place to have lingered. Our hearts will swell as we are serenaded with one final Isa Lei and head out the channel to the open ocean...