Bye Bye Fiji - Hello Vanuatu

Who says tomorrow never comes?  We were minding our own business, sailing along quite nicely and all of a sudden, in a second, it was tomorrow.  We went from 11:30 Tuesday morning to 11:30 Thursday morning in a heartbeat.  Wednesday never came but tomorrow was there for an instant as we crossed the international date line.  Another give away, experienced by at least a third of the boats in the WARC fleet was our chart plotters did all kind of crazy things.  Our chart plotter is part of Alice’s, our auto pilots, home.  It is where all of the charts for places we have been, places we are going and places we will, never visit reside – in great detail.  It is where our navigator, Eilo, plugs in courses we will travel from to the next harbor.  It tells how far we must travel, how far we have travelled, the exact course we have taken, how long it will take to get to our next destination, how far we are off course and exactly where we are on the planet (to name a few of its features).  Without it we would need to pack it in, jump overboard mid-ocean, or just give up… so when the chart plotter started acting up Captain Ken was visibly concerned; aside from uncontrollable shaking, soaring blood pressure, the need to consume a massive quantity of alcohol in a very short time (not under sail!), red faced, etc . he was thinking – of all the things which could die on board AURORA the chart plotter is one of the most critical systems.  So when islands started disappearing from the plotter, parts of our course stated disappearing randomly, the extreme digital detail started randomly disappearing into pixilation, parts of the screen flashing, some of the screen going blank – Captain Ken was thinking this would be a good time to shoot himself.  We crossed the date line and with-in another 20 miles the whole thing was over and Mr. chart plotter was back on his game and so were we.  We have never heard of this phenomena before and neither had the other sailors; as I found out over drinks at the Paradise Resort, discussing this phenomena with the other skippers – who had chart plotter issues, and were contemplating various easy ways out of this thing called life.   None of us know why it happened but in my opinion the Chart Plotter Manufacturers should issue a warning with their instruction manuals that one should be wary as one approaches the date line – but have no fear – your fear will be short lived.

Another funny thing about the date line.  On Taveuni some genius decided, a good while back, that the date line should run right trough the island of Taveuni.  A local entrepreneur has built a shrine to the date line so tourists can stand with one part of their body in today and the other half in tomorrow.  Here is Eilo doing just that:

But the practical side of that geographic over lay is that line runs through a village.  Let’s look at Sunday.  On the west side of the line all shops and businesses are closed (In Fiji it is illegal for businesses of any kind to be open on Sunday) – everyone is at church or at home with their family having a Sunday feast – nothing is happening – it’s a day of rest and relaxation; but on the east side of the line all the kids and teachers are at school, businesses and shops are open, you can buy gasoline, you can take money out of the bank, you can go fishing, or hang out and watch tourists stand on the date line.  The village is completely out of sync with itself.  Villagers from the east side of the line who go and frequent shops, on the west side of the date line, with the intention of buying stuff would need to be carted off to jail as it is illegal to buy stuff on Sunday and that’s just the tip of that iceberg if you are in yesterday – hopefully you get the point… So the actual current date line location was finally moved off shore.

Remember the TV series “Ironside” starring Raymond Burr?  Was he really paralyzed from the waist down?  Regardless, he was very fond of orchids and decided to locate his orchid collection on the big island called  Viti Levu.  So Eilo and the Captain got up early one morning and got a cab to Burr’s “Sleeping Giant” garden.  We were the only ones walking the extensive and impressive gardens. 

Burr bought a valley and installed his collection there.  It goes on and on.

We walked it fast and it took about and hour and we did not walk all the trails:

Burr  decided that one should relax as one contemplates the gardens so numerous hammocks in shelters are provided.  It’s a nice touch; this slight departure from our faster paced western civilization.

He mixed it up nicely with what existed in the valley before his collection was installed:

The odd sculptures hidden around the gardens added to the magic of this hidden gem:

A bus load of Japanese arrived just as we were completing our walk – perfect timing in our opinion.  So we went to their pagoda for a complementary drink.  It was by far the best fresh fruit juice I have ever tasted.  A mix of fresh Guava, Mango and Passion Fruit – yummy:

Our driver was waiting and suggested we go a bit further up the beaten track we  were on, but in the same neighborhood, to thermal mud baths.  Up to your eyeballs in hot mud – nice and very relaxing.  First you smear hot mud all over – then let it dry:

After that mud has sucked all the toxins out of your body (we were there for forty five days- haha!) you jump into this pool of hot mud up to your eyeballs – wow:

Then there is a series of 3 pools to rinse off in – the last being a huge swimming pool, filled with crystal clear spring water heated by nature to the temperature of a perfectly heated hot tub.  It’s been a while since we did any tub time so this soak was a real treat.  Then back to the Vuda Marina for another Sunday afternoon of live light rock which was equally as brilliant as the first.  It’s hard to believe we have been in Vuda for over a week.  We got everything fixed which was broken on AURORA so it was time to leave and catch up with the rest of the fleet in Musket Cove for the start of  WARC leg  #6 to Vanuatu.  Musket Cove was the original resort in Fiji and is quite up market now with a marina.  A couple of the less lazy boats (including AURORA) dressed them and that always adds to the ambiance of any place where the fleet parks.

We started Leg 6 amongst the coral reefs just outside Musket Cove and then threaded about ten miles of a Minotaur’s Maze of reefs to get out to the ocean.  Boy – was the Captain relieved when we hit the open water of the Western Pacific or this short leg (3 days) to Vanuatu (ex New Hebrides):

And on to Tanna:  the first of the islands we would visit in Vanuatu.  We sailed into Resolution Bay (yes - named after Captain Cook’s boat  RESOLUTION which did hard time here a few centuries ago).  We cleared into Vanuatu with the rest of the fleet and then had a few beers at the Resolution Bay Yacht Club – Eilo must have put her beer down for this shot:

The folks of Vanuatu don’t have much compared to the western world but they are very happy to have what they have – lots of fish, wild boar,  fresh water, (including hot springs and hot baths), chickens (since Cook visited), natural fibers, exotic woods, fruit, and strange vegetables  and other natural stuff all providing for them nicely.  They were so welcoming and friendly as cannibalism has not been practiced there since 1839.  It was fun to walk to walk their village:

The woven walls of their houses seems as art to us – they do a lot with a little:

Their roads seldom see a vehicle but are park like for walks about:

Eilo was reminded her of her Irish home – see how happy she looks standing in front of the AVOCA restaurant –in town:

… and their beaches are pristine:

As their village and most other villages in Vanuatu were wiped out by hurricane Pam 2 years ago the ARC organized collecting gifts from the fleet boats for their school and village.  A ceremony was held at the school and the kids turned out to be a very talented choir.  We gave them lap tops, wheel barrows, axes, machetes, clothes, school supplies, flip flops, tents, solar lights and all other kinds of stuff they needed and they were very grateful:

They reciprocated with gifts for us.  Vegetables and fruit from their gardens and hand woven items. 

Well – why does anyone go to Tanna anyway?  Is it because of the recently released movie, “Tanna” shot here with locals - no actors – which was up for an Academy award (check it out as it will give you a feel for what the place is and how they are and live).  Perhaps it is the live volcano which is the draw.  You can see it when sailing in at night – it lights up the under side of the clouds with a powerful red glow.  So we go to check out the Mount Yasur volcano.  First things first – you have to have a ceremony and a volcano dance where the volcano gods are hopefully appeased to the point that the tourists who visit will have their lives spared:

Then one of the tourists is selected to present CAVA (yup that comes into all aspects of life in these western pacific islands) to the chief, who seemed to have already done a bunch of cava ceremonies that day.  He gets more cavaed up and asks permission, from a higher authority, for safe passage for this latest batch of idiots to visit Yasur.  Then we have a safety briefing which has 4 parts.  1. Don’t push your friend into the crater. 2. Don’t run when you hear an explosion. 3 Watch for falling lava and don’t let it hit you and… 4. Watch the safety officer.  If the safety officer takes off like a rocket ignore rule 2.  We were told that Yasur was at level 2 that day because at level 3 you don’t go up but watch the action from the relative safety of the village below. I looked around for all their volcano sensing equipment and saw less than none so Ken is thinking how do they know Yasur is at level 2?  Has someone read the tea leaves recently?  Has someone gone to the crater and cast their finger to the wind and judged it to be safe?  Has the numb Cava Chief got a message from above – all is good – have fun!  Anyway we hope they are right and off we go in our 4 wheel drive pickups up the side of the volcano.  Yasur burps on the way up:

I’m thinking – is that atomic looking cloud, just issued from the crater, a greeting of friendship or a warning?   So we arrive and put on our jackets (as it is quite high, windy and cold)  and other anti volcano paraphernalia:

As we walked over the top of the crater we noticed some graves scattered a few meters off the trail.  Later we found out about half a dozen people die each year – cooked or crushed by angry volcano gods – the latest being 2 Japanese tourists videoing falling lava only to find it fell a little too close, a few months before.  Also there was a scary lack of birds, insects or any other wild life on the volcano making us think who is smarter?…   There were a couple of up wind lookout points on top of the crater – so you ‘skinny’ up to an edge of the cone and first thing activated is your hearing sense transmitting the sound of bubbling lava – then the first explosion and gas cloud intermixed with flying lava. Thoughts starts rushing thru your mind – are we going to die?:

Here’s Ken trying not to look terrified:

As the sun sets it gets more specular.  The lava bursts are almost climbing to eye level as the cone must be 1500 deep:

Ken was taking a GoPro video and a huge and very load explosion echoed and the shock wave followed by the heat wave knocked him back – the video is good and gives a great feeling for what it looks like and sounds like so hopefully you can see it some day.  We were getting cold and tired and were anxious to cut our losses and get off Yasur before things changed and then there is a huge burst and lava flies up everywhere – at least 300 to 400 feet in the air above us - upping the game - bringing us all into play.  Ken was near the Safety Officer and looked over to see his eyes bugging out of his head. Luckily he did not take off like a rocket.  He and everyone else was watching the falling lava and getting out of the way as necessary.  We were all lucky. There were 2 large chunks of red hot lava (I’d say one weighed 10 pounds and the other maybe 300) laying in the path way we walked to get to the second lookout point.  The volcano was now at level 3.  After the lava settled we were rapidly ushered off the cone.  All that can be said is wow!

A lot of the boats took off the next day heading a day’s sail away to Dillion’s Bay, which is about half way to Port Villa – the Capital of Vanuatu and the start of the next ARC leg to Australia.  Wind was blowing from 18 to 30 knots right on our beam.  That made for a fast 60 mile passage.  A highlight of Dillon’s Bay, after meeting the chief and gaining permission for the boat crews to explore their village, was a visit to a series of Skull caves.  Their ancestors were buried in local caves until the missionaries showed up in 1839 and started the Christian burial practice.  So a bunch of us got permission and a guide to visit a nearby set of these so called skull caves.  It was a 3 mile dinghy ride to get to the access beach:

We climbed about 20 minutes through the jungle to the sacred caves:

Here’s our friend Louise slithering into one of the 2 caves:

And here is one view of the reward for our efforts:

… And here is another.  This set of bones is obviously a lot older:

Nights and the ocean temperature are both getting cooler and why wouldn’t they?   We are in the middle of winter in the southern hemisphere.  It’s great sleeping weather – around 70F at night.  Port Villa was about 80 miles distant and as we needed to get into port between 8:00 and 16:00, so “the guys” would be standing by to help get AURORA onto the sea wall.   So we, like most other boats, planned a night passage.  We left at sunset and had 6 to 8 knots of dead downwind breeze.  We did 3 knots for 4 hours until we got out of the wind shadow of the island.  Then we heard, over the VHF, one of the boats ahead of us by 4 miles call out the wind had picked up to 20 knots so we waited and they were almost right.  About an hour later the wind started picking up.  Once that happened it never dropped below 20 knots.  Lucky we chose not to fly the main and started sucking in the genoa to slow the boat down to 6 knots.  With about 90% of the genoa sucked in (that’s about 7 feet of the genoa out) we were able to slow AURORA down to 6 to 7 knots as she was blowing up to 34 knots on the beam.  We were flying and the seas were building.  While Ken was resting Eileen reefed the Genoa again and again!  A couple times captain Ken thought we would be swamped by huge stern waves but AURORA just rode up and over them with no bother.  About 4:00 in the morning captain Ken was still nice and dry and noticed a large wave just about to break coming at our windward beam, and she broke, and we shipped about 100 gallons into the cockpit with a little overflow down into the cabin.  Captain Ken was no longer dry.  We got to Port Villa a little after day break and we still made that passage too fast, so we putted around the harbor for about an hour waiting for our turn for assistance from “the guys”.  The guys were brilliant and stuck us on the wall in front of a wonderful, palm thatched restaurant… so we popped on shore for what else?  Of course Bloody Marys and a nice cholesterol packed breakfast.  The land was moving fore and aft – much like the boat had done for the past 10 hours – which is a funny feeling you sometimes get after being at sea for awhile and then stepping ashore – before you loose your sea legs.

We are off on leg 7 across the coral sea (we still hate coral while sailing) to Australia in 2 days - see you there!

Leaving Tonga and Sailing to Fiji

Back to town the next day to hang out, score a kilo of ground up Kava root (which is a mild narcotic needed to present to island chiefs in Fiji – and you then have a ceremony a “Sevysevu”, at each island you visit,  and then drink Kava juice as part of the Sevusevu and then you are typically allowed entry to their island for exploring, beaching, snorkeling, etc..), and clear out to Fiji.  We sailed for the first half hour and then it started to rain and visibility dropped to about 5 boat lengths.  We motored through the soup for about an hour.  There was plenty of traffic so the crew was on full alert.  We cleared the final pass between islands and headed out to sea, the clouds parted, wind picked up and we set sail for the Lau Group, 3 days distant.  A couple of amazing sunsets later

we arrived early morning shooting the main reef (I hate sailing in around reefs – they are everywhere – even behind Eilo)

and then dodging coral heads all the way to Lomaloma.   

Most of Fiji was trashed 2 years ago by Cyclone (hurricane) Winston which packed 320 mile per hour winds – that would make Sandy (remember Sandy?) seem like a Sunday afternoon breeze.  The Lau group islanders are very traditional Fijian -  family and community oriented with a Chief heading each village.  Sorry ladies we did not run into nor hear of any female chiefs.  It seems everyone in each community helps with everything.  They lead very simple lives. We were struck by how friendly everyone and I mean everyone is.   Tonga raised the bar for the most friendly place on earth since Nevis… but then we sailed to Fiji.  Fiji has seriously raised the bar to the most friendly place on earth.  We met a few cruisers here, one couple who have been cruising (living on their sailboat) since 1976  and they have sailed the world several times.  We asked them where their favorite place was on the planet earth.  Their answer was very simple.  It’s Fiji. And it’s not because of the fabulous places to visit or the great anchorages  excellent fishing, fabulous diving etc… it’s the friendliness of ALL the Fijian people.  We’ll never forget it.  We headed up the coast of Vanua Balavu to a little bay called Mbavatu with very high cliff walls – by far the most protected anchorage we have ever been in.  Ken as seen in that bay suffering a EXIT STRATEGY sundowner hangover.

Hung out for the night and all 6 boats we were sailing with were invited over to Chuck and Annie’s large cat “Exit Strategy” for sundowners which turned into a massive session.   Here are 2 willing participants during that session.

For those who do not know a “sundowner” is a sailing tradition… after a hard day sailing you reward yourself with A (that would be one) cocktail of your choice (depending on libations in the ships stores) usually consumed at sunset.  As sundowners are seen by this year’s WARC as a great thing the tradition has expanded to many many cocktails stretching way past sunset.  The next morning we hiked to a high cliff overlooking the Bay of Islands.  Here is a large guy we spotted hanging out as we hiked the trail:

Eilo is stading next to the 300 foot high vertical cliff edge lookout – note the hint of fear on her face… and that’s not because I asked her to take just one more step backwards.

This Bay of Islands is a unique grouping of several hundred islands and lots of attendant reefs all ready to give your boat a bite and there are lots of wrecks attesting to that issue.

Most of the islands are like mushrooms in that the sea has eroded the bottom 6  feet so their base is far smaller than the island.  We raised Anchor the next day and headed to the other side of the island to  Daliconi village for a traditional Sevusevu ceremony (a Kava fest):

and a Fijian feast (roast suckling pig cooked in a pit, huge lobsters, raw seafood salad in coconut milk, stuffed crab, baked wahoo, fried fish, taro and breadfruit and various local salads – all excellent) (OK…note from  Eilo…I do not like Taro or Breadfruit) and traditional dancing. 

The local village erected a big shelter just for this ARC event.  The ARC participants brought a good collection of all kinds of school supplies (as their school was destroyed by Winston and is in the process of being rebuilt) and the village was very grateful.  The following day after visiting the school and village 

we sailed to the Bay of Islands and anchored there for a few relaxing days.  I heard a loud splash one afternoon and turned around to see a few crazies.  They had anchored their catamaran near a 60 foot high cliff and had run a zip line from the cat to the tree at the left on top of the cliff and were zip lining – note the guy half way down the cliff zipping along on the left side of the photo. 

Of course they had their full safety gear on  - NOT.  We took the dinghy out for a ride around this strange sea scape…

A day later we took off with “ATLA” and “SANDVITA”, the 2 Swedish boats in the fleet and headed a days sail away to one of the larger islands Qamea.  We anchored in a quiet bay on the NW corner and hunkered down for a nice rest.  Still drying out  from the last round of parties we did not have the energy to drop the dinghy in an go ashore but there seemed to be nothing going on, on shore anyway.  The next morning, as there was not a lot to hold our attention, we set sail early for the next larger island to the west known as Taveuni and sailed down the ocean side of her.  We must have seen at least 30 large water falls some of which fell directly into the sea.  Just around the bottom of Taveuni on the west side is the Paradise Resort which has a few mooring balls so we picked one up and stayed there for a wonderful and relaxing 3 days.  Within hours we knew most of the staff and they knew us by name – again friendliness was pouring out of their Fijian staff.  Here is a piece of Paradise.

We spread the good word about Paradise to other ARC Heads and by our second day there were 14 fleet boats there – so no more rest and lots of drinking and general consumption.  Paradise threw a Fijian feast for us with more traditional and not so traditional Fijian dancing and closed down shop with a Kava ceremony for all which was a giggle.  There was a lot to see on Taveuni so Paradise organized a bus (with air conditioning – aka no windows) for us and sent us off for a day with some of their staff.  En route we passed many small villages.  Here’s one during cloths washing day – the village girls having some river fun. 

The rivers are crystal clear.  Ken drank out of one and pronounced the water sweet – almost as good as Lebanon Township water.  Fiji is blessed with lots of clean water – anyone ever buy the brand of drinking water called “Fiji” (guess where it comes from?).  Highlights of the trip included a hike up to 3 water falls.  Here is Eilo at #1:

Ken at #2:

Ken  behind #3:

Ken and Sonny (who is an excellent guitar player and singer - and climber who entertained us each night at the resort) climbing up #3 heading for the rock in the upper right:

And Sony flying off #3 rock (and of course Ken followed – much to Eilo’s chagrin):

Then we hiked back down to the bus.  The 2 mile path we hiked up to the falls was maintained by 3 villages and was like walking trough a garden the whole way – amazing.

Back on the bus

We headed to another highlight, another water feature.  This time a natural water slide.  It looked fairly dangerous but Sonny showed us how to ride it.  Here is Peter from “ATLA” heading into the final S turn of the safer part of the slide.  Again – check out all his safety gear (NOT):

Here’s what it looked like when Ken tried it out,… as Peter had survived his ride!  

It was a fabulous slide and not as dangerous as it looks because the water is deep and runs fast – you really don’t hit bottom.  Even if you did hit your head on the rocks and died at least you would go out in a blaze of excitement.  We didn’t see many graves at the bottom.

We departed Paradise before our livers gave out and sailed  over to the second largest Fijian island and picked up a mooring at the Copra Shed Marina in a little port town Savu Savu.  It was good to be back in civilization allowing us to do some provisioning  and enjoy and few good meals  and some port side bars on shore.  2 days later we headed out with the Scottish boat “TULLA MHOR” early to an old Leper Colony on Makogai island about 80 miles to the south.  We arrived, anchored and Ken and Dugal from TULLA MHOR dinghyied into shore and met the chief who was the head of the only family who lived on that island.  Imagine having a 1000 acre tropical  island all to your self.  He made his living seeding and raising clams and was rebuilding his operation which was wiped out by Winston along with what was left of the buildings of the former Leper colony.  We went to raise anchor early the next morning in the rain and the windlass died with the anchor just out of the water so Ken pulled the last little bit of chain up by hand and we then decided to sail overnight to the Vuda Marina on the west side of the “Big Island”.  We were going to head there anyway (for antifouling bottom painting and some other repairs) in a few days but without a functioning anchor system we said farewell to TULLA MHOR and headed off early to the Vuda Marina – an overnight sail to a place where we would not need the anchor.  The wind picked up to 25 to 30 knots and the rain did not let up for the first 7 hours  Then the wind died and we motored for the Bequ pass, which is a short cut to the west side of Vitu Levu – “The Big Island”.  You are warned not to go through that pass at night due to numerous coral reefs and coral heads – some not shown on our charts but going through the pass was the only way we could get tot the Vuda marina in daylight the next day so we decided to take the risk.  Eilo plotted out course carefully through the pass and I checked it out on the chart plotter and it seemed good and doable.  We sailed by Suva (the Capital) just as the sun set and were in the mouth of the pass, still motoring, by 10:00 PM.  We slowed down and started checking any way points we could reference on our chart plotter which were few as it was a moonless night, and all seemed well.  We sucked in hard for the next 3 hours and came out of the west side of the pass physically undamaged but emotionally drained.  About half an hour out of the pass and the wind picked up to 18 to 20 knots and we set the genoa and turned off the engine.  We had a great sail for the next 100 miles to Vuda.  The entrance to the Vuda marina is carved out of coral and was short but scary to navigate.  The marina is a small circular hole about 200 meters in diameter and about 2.2 meters deep at low tide.  All the boats pull into the wall as there are no pontoons or docks and then you get someone on shore to run a scaffold plank to your boat so you can get to ashore… walking the plank each time you head ashore.  There is a great restaurant and Bar at Vuda and once again we found everyone to be seriously friendly.  Well – What better way to murder a Sunday afternoon, in Vuda Marina on the big island in Fiji, then to head down to the bar/restaurant and listen to a live band playing great light rock and reggae.  The band

was surprising better than outstanding and stand in musicians were encouraged and they were only exceptional – a 5 hour session -  even Tom Bleck would have enjoyed standing in (they were that good).

We’ll be heading to Musket Cove to meet up with the other fleet boats on July 5^th and with luck, if our windlass is fixed, will depart Fiji with the WARC fleet for Vanuatu on July 8^th .