Tuesday morning (27th June 2023) we popped ashore to say our goodbyes to William and his family and then upped anchor for a beautiful sail on light southerly winds back over to the Maskalyne Islands, we were able to sail right in through the pass of the southern channel and dropped anchor off the island of Awai. This is a super protected anchorage with Malekula on one side and Awai on the other with a reef out to the ocean. We spotted movement ashore so popped the kayak in and paddled over and met the chief, he was super friendly and then he commandeered Andrew and our dinghy for the school run - later..... We didn't really have an idea of his timing and as it was getting late in the day thought maybe he meant tomorrow.
Sailing into the Maskalyne Islands
Our calm Anchorage at Awai Island
Ready for the sunset school run
Just approaching beer o'clock he and his wife paddle over, she's taking the dug out canoe back and the school run is on! Andrew grabbed his phone and off he went over yonder. Hmmm we didn't really think this through, half an hour later its starting to get dark and I am on the boat thinking - I have no idea where Andrew's gone, didn't they eat people in Vanuatu not that long ago, what if they hit the reef in the dark, how long do I wait before I call someone, who do I call and what would I say, etc, etc Phew he finally appears whizzing across the lagoon laughing with the chief and his daughter all neat in her school uniform. It turns out it wasn't that far, however when they got there the kids weren't there, so Andrew was taken across to the other side of the island and through the school grounds barefoot, met the head master, whilst also thinking weird there's no kids and didn't they eat people in Vanuatu not so long ago..... Then they found the kids playing football.... crazy to think the kids usually go from one island to another for school in a dugout canoe - so it was great we could help, next time maybe we should both go on the adventure.
Andrew returning - phew!
Whilst chilling out the next afternoon, after some fun drift snorkelling, we had started making plans for some diving and it turns out to dive the Coolidge (the most famous dive in Vanuatu - more on that) you need a guide and you need to book in advance. We were actually pretty lucky we made enquiries as many other people we know skipped it or waited a long time. We had a booking for 6 & 7 July and a mooring for a week arranged opposite Luganville, as the anchorage is not very nice, so for the second time this season, we had a plan!!
Pretty Hermit Crab at Awai island snorkelling
Clear water and some critters at Awai
Nemo at Awai
Sailing back out through the Maskalyne Islands we saw this cool sand island
So next morning we sadly left the lovely Maskalyne islands and sailed up to Malekula. There's heaps of great anchorages on Malekula but one deserted spot took our fancy. It was called crab bay and with the shape of the reef it actually looked like a crab, although I think it's named for the fiddler crabs there. We had read the reef was pretty healthy, so finding the place deserted we went out to explore.
Old copra shed at Crab Bay
Exploring Crab Bay
Oh my - wow - beautiful gully, sooo many turtles, 3 different kinds of shark and just so many fish. We were super excited and spent the next two days diving on the reef. Our first dives since we were in Raja Ampat for Christmas - probably the longest we've gone without diving for years. Some underwater snaps:
Huge ray
Lion fish at Crab Bay
First outing of our new projector screen for the cockpit - perfect post diving relaxation
The crab at Crab Bay
Then it was time to set sail to Luganville, the second city of Vanuatu. As we lifted the anchor in Crab Bay there was a cute crab on our anchor snubber - how perfect. Then we set off for a perfect downwind sail to Luganville, poled out until we reached the Segond Chanel and then we sailed all the way down to Aore Island, which would be our base for the next week. We were very excited to find that the resort there was so lovely, super friendly and served fabulous food; we made ourselves very at home!
First downwind sail this year
Yes we like it here
Kastom string band for our first night - yes there was dancing
It was really nice to come back to a place we had a bit of a sense of. We were getting a bit low on veg so on Friday morning we took a walk out on the road towards the area where we knew many islanders had their gardens, we spoke to a few ladies who had veg but they were a little shy and maybe I asked the wrong questions….. Then we came across a gathering that turned out to be a funeral, however William was keen to chat and when we said we were looking for veg, he insisted that we come with him to his garden. It turned out that we had met William’s older brother, Willy, on our first visit as he sells food on the airport road. The family all lived in the same strip of land and William’s house was set back and we collected his daughter, Sila and her friend, the machete and headed off up through other family plots to the area where the gardens were. William had worked in New Zealand and was keen to share stories, so we enjoyed a great time learning about his family, his passion for growing veg and a bit of history. Once we had gathered a mountain of capsicums, bok choy, island cabbage, cucumbers, pamplemouse, etc, William made us a bag from a leaf they grow just for this purpose and then we headed down, but not before calling in on his nephew Wilson. They had been out fishing together the previous night and Wilson’s wife was cooking up the catch – so we sat and chatted while sharing some fish – how generous. We headed back but not before inviting William and his family to come out to Askari for lunch on Sunday – it was the least we could do.
Off to William's Garden
Loaded up by the little helpers
Sila and her little friend grew in confidence
Making a bag
Shopping Vanuatu style
Fish for lunch at Wilson's house
Sharing lunch
We had arranged to have dinner that evening at Benny’s. Benny and her husband Kenneth run a small guest house and restaurant just near the beach and we had heard the food was pretty good. Unfortunatly Benny was in Vila but the girls still cooked up a great dinner for us and we had a fire and fairy lights on the beach with Kenneth and the kids.
Beach dinner at Benny's
Cutie having a bath at Keneth & Benny's
The next day was light winds so we headed in the dinghy to explore Leman island in search of Max, who is building a new canoe to take to the Melanesian Art Festival next month. The island is immaculate and has a small school and a church, we met a guy who took us to Max’s house; we found the canoe and met his wife but he was actually at the garden on the mainland – still a cool adventure and we took the opportunity to go snorkleling and check out any potential dive sites.
New Canoe being built by Max
Exploring Lamen Island
Sunday – was lunch for the Jimmy family, Emma sadly didn’t come but William brought Sila and his grandson Wilson, who lives with them. I had cooked a simple meal but did test out some spicy home-made hummus on them, I don’t think they liked it but ate all the beef stir fry and rice. We had chocolate cake too and by the time this was offered, word had got out and two gangs of kids paddled out to Askari – Wilson and Sila showed them around Askari proudly. It turned out to be such a fun afternoon.
Fun for Sila and Wilson on Askari
Lunch served
Lots of kids aboard
A bit busy on the back of Askari
Monday, the ‘rally’ arrived…. We had planned to catch up with Uhuru, Isis and Gecko here for a bit of a bbq. So after enjoying a quiet bay for days we had heaps of company – such fun. Jamie and Jin went off in search of a BBQ spot while we went for a hike. They found the most perfect spot and the family that owned the beach also joined us for such a fun night of fabulous food, drinks and laughter. They were all heading to Pentecost to see the Land Diving so we decided to get back to Malekula as there is so much to see there. We parted from the group again and sailed back to Malekula on 27th June.
Lopevi Volcano island from the East side of Epi
During our hike to Mauna Bay the whole school came to say 'Good morning'
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.
19th 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
20th 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 (22nd 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.
The big day had arrived for the last week we had been making our way to Pentecost Island to attend the 'Nagol', the land diving festival in the Kastom village of Ratap. According to Lonely Planet this is the most remarkable custom festival in all of Melanesia.
We headed into the beach to meet the Chief's spokesman Bartholomew Garae and Lucy & John from Broadsword who were joining us. We piled into the back of a ute and we were off.
I made a video of the pictures and video taken during the amazing day as there was a lot to take in. There were 4 yachts in the bay, each with two people aboard and we were the only foreigners present, people had travelled from other villages and the Chief's son in law had come with us to experience the event from Santo.
The origin of land diving is described in a legend of a woman who was dissatisfied with her husband, Tamalie (or some variation of the name).[6] It is sometimes claimed that the woman was upset that her husband was too vigorous regarding his sexual wants, so she ran away into the forest.[6]Her husband followed her, so she climbed a banyan tree.[6] Tamalie climbed after her, and so she tied lianas to her ankles and jumped and survived.[6] Her husband jumped after her, but did not tie lianas to himself, which caused him to plummet and die.[6] Originally, women did it in respect to the original woman who did it, but husbands were not comfortable with seeing their wives in such positions, so they took the sport for themselves, and it gradually changed from trees to specifically designed wooden towers. The men performed the original land diving so that they would not be tricked again.[7]
The land diving ritual is associated with the annual yamharvest.[6] It is performed annually in the months of April, May, or June.[8] A good dive helps ensure a bountiful yam harvest.[9]
The villagers believe land diving can enhance the health and strength of the divers. A successful dive can remove the illnesses and physical problems associated with the wet season.[9] Furthermore, land diving is considered as an expression of masculinity, as it demonstrates boldness that was associated with the bwahri or warrior.[9] Nevertheless, the men who do not choose to dive or back out of diving are not humiliated as cowards.[9]
The diving only takes place on Saturdays in May and June so we were keen to make sure we got here as soon as possible as the anchorage is an open roadstead and we were advised it could become untenable if the wind was anything other than East or South East
Injuries do occur, however there is only one reported death, and that was when a jump took place for Queen Elizabeth's visit in the 70s and it was out of season and reportedly the vines were not elastic enough. We were a bit anxious about how we'd feel if someone got hurt as we had paid to attend, so would we feel complicit. However it became obvious to us during the day that we were totally ancillary to the whole event, that was attended by about 200 people and just 8 paying foreigners.
The experience at the Kastom village, where there is no school church or healthcare and very basic shelter has stayed with us in the week since and I think we are still processing the experience. It really was one very special day.
