More Kastom fun at Ambrym and onto Malekula

With our kastom dancers

18^th June 2023 

After our big day at Pentecost, we shared a chilled evening and a few wines with Lucy and John from Broadsword. The day actually took several more days to process as we had seen and experienced such an authentic crazy event as well as simple living on such an extreme level and such warmth and kindness. 

Beautiful Sailing in Vanuatu 

 

However, we had arranged with Jessie at Ambryn to make a tour so back to Ambryn we went the next morning. We had a lovely lazy sail all afternoon and dropped anchor at Jessie’s beach late afternoon to a big welcome wave from the beach. We had checked out the anchorage a few days before….. We didn’t really know what Jessie had planned for us but we were looking forward to another interesting day. 

19^th June 2023

Askari anchored off west Ambryn

 

We met Jessie on the beach for our ‘tour’ all geared up for exploring however it turned out he had brought the Kastom elders to his place for us and they were setting up a kind of demonstration for us. It was all a bit confusing as Jessie thought Broadsword were coming too but that can sometimes happen with the language barrier. Anyhow, we explored the beach and met the chief of Olal village who was passing and wanted to invite us to his sand drawing festival. Meanwhile Jessie’s son Jimmy returned from fishing with our lunch, his English was actually really good so we enjoyed chatting with him and playing with his daughter who lives at Jessie’s place. 

Beautiful Lake Lonwolwol

Kastom Welcome Dance

 

Ive seen so many bums this week....

Off to the main house

After a bit of a confusing start to the day we had a lovely welcome dance by the men in their nambas and a black magic trick that involved a sea snake and a leaf. I wanted to check the sea snake was okay, but the men were really serious that it was magic and therefore it was taboo. So we will just have to assume no harm came to it.

Fish for lunch

 

We spent the rest of the morning at Jessie’s place and nearby Lake Lonwolwol. The lake was created by the eruption of the volcano 1913, before that it was the site of the first hospital in Vanuatu, that was built by missionaries in 1910. It was an impressive hospital and then totally destroyed. The lake is brackish and really beautiful; Jimmy had built a jetty and was making a swing and expanding their small guest house. Jessie is really proud that some ornithologists came and studied the birdlife at the lake and found over 30 different species. He was also really proud of his garden; so we had a full tour and came away with more vegetables than we could ever eat as well as some for our lunch. By the time we got back lunch had been prepared for us and the men. We didn’t get the ‘tour’ we expected but nonetheless had a great day and have suggested to Jessie that maybe a hike to the kastom village would be nice or maybe an event that involved lots of yacht visitors as it’s a great anchorage in South or South East wind and the family are keen to get some small scale tourism going and yachties are an obvious choice.

Off to see the garden

Garden inspiration

Lunch - inc watermelon salad

There were tears when we left and she'd learned new English words - lovely little mimic x

 

Time to say goodbye to this lovely family

20^th June 2023 – onto Malekula

 

We had planned to anchor at Craig’s Cove on the south west of Ambryn today and got there to find the anchorage really quite swelly, we tried to tuck in but the first anchor drop pulled up part of a metal roof and the second was just rock – we both looked at each other – outta here! Pulled up the sails and headed across the straight to Malekula. We thought we would go to Port Sandwich, but when Askari gets in the groove up wind she was flying and we were able to lay the Maskelyne Islands. After a fabulous sail we pulled into the calm channel and sailed along to the first anchorage off a beautiful white beach on Sanko Island. A few canoes went by but otherwise we were totally alone. Most of the anchorages since we left Efate have had some swell so to be in the really calm lagoon here was just amazing. 

Beautiful calm anchorage

Exploring Sanko island

Sanko Island at low tide

We explored the beach the next morning and found the remains of an old resort and the beach was a bit muddy but we snorkelled the bay and it had plenty of fish, if not the best coral. We had read that dugongs might be found in Gaspard bay so we moved over there. Another totally protected anchorage in the mangroves with incredible rainforest all around, we blew up the kayak and went looking for dugongs! No luck so we opted to check out the outer reef – wow spectacular coral in the shallows in what is a now a marine reserve. I was really impressed by how well the corals were coming back and was having a lovely float around, meanwhile Andrew was further out looking for dive sites and following a school of bump head parrot fish, when a dugong swam right to him to check him out! It then came to me – totally amazing creature that apparently is more closely related to an elephant than other underwater mammals. Its tail is like a dolphin and it has a long nose for foraging in the seagrass. I was happy I decided to get my camera wet when it came right to me in clear water – a once in a lifetime experience.

Yay Dugong!

Lovely to see coral coming back amongst the storm damage

 

Quite nice snorkelling with colours

The next day (22^nd June 2023) we checked the weather and it was a lovely light wind day so we decided to go sailing and hope to meet up with friends back over at Epi. We had such a lovely day tacking in 8-10 knots of east wind and sunshine. It’s one of the things we are really lovely about Vanuatu and that’s the small distances and lots of opportunity for different sailing, much of it in the mostly protected waters; as there’s so many islands. We hadn’t expected to find our friends on Basyc anchored at Epi – so that was a treat and as soon as we anchored Yves was over inviting us for drinks, Francoise had only just returned to the boat and it was so wonderful to see her, we had a lovely evening.

Wonderful upwind sailing in central Vanuatu

Back at Epi in the sunshine

So happy with my friend Francoise