Enroute to Bundy Day 2

23*22S 161*47E Noon to noon run 118nm Distance to go 530nm

It really take a lot of patience to sail offshore doing 3kts. We have been bouncing between motoring at 6-6.5kts and sailing between 3-5kts for the last 24 hours. The sailing usually lasts for 3 to 9 hours before the light winds just get lighter. There's really no sign of the winds filling in ahead of us, so its slow and easy for now. At least the seas are really small, making life onboard comfortable. It was hot shower night last night -- taking full advantage of our on-demand diesel hot water heater.
The turn out of Trick or Treaters was really low. But I guess that is to be expected when you are a few hundred miles off of a French island and an Australian island.
Paul


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Enroute to Bundy Day 2

Noon to noon run was 140 miles. 648 miles to go.
Boring. We got in decent sail yesterday afternoon. By midnight we were down to 3 or 4 kts. Turned the motor on at sunrise and its been on since then except for a brief hour of wind head fake. Its now noon on Halloween day. We're a day ahead of the slow pokes back home. So far preparations for costumes have not preceded much. We will be giving out mostly low-sugar treats to the Trick or Treaters that come by, with the exception of some Skittles to the best costume.

The weather goddess is offerring up more of the same for the next few days.

Boo
Paul


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Enroute to Bundy or The Coral Sea Adventure

We had a good week in Ille des Pins and the Southern Lagoon of New Caledonia. Ille des Pins probably deserved a blog with some photos, but I guess I was too lazy when we had connectivity. We left Isle of Pines and motored 36 miles west, ie closer to Australia, to Illot Kouare. Got in a good snorkel with some decent coral and another beach walk where we got skunked again for shells.
We are leaving this morning to cross the Coral Sea to Bundaberg, Australia. For those that are geographically insecure, the Coral Sea is bounded by Papua New Guinea in the north, New Cal in the east and Australia's Queensland state on the west. It is considered part of the South Pacific Ocean. It's not the Koro Sea that is in Fiji.
The passage is about 800 miles and should be a slow one. The winds are scheduled to be light most all of the way. We'd wait for more wind, but there doesn't seem like it gets much better over the next week and its getting to time to move on. Cyclone season officially starts Nov. 1st, plus Chris will be doing some work in Nepal mid-Nov.

The plan is to leave the S. Lagoon and head somewhat North of the rumb line (direct course), then sail in the light winds as best we can with maybe a day plus of motoring on the eastern end of the passage. It'll probably take about a week. We'll see.

Paul


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New Caledonia

We’ve spent the last few weeks playing in New Caledonia. We’ve gotten to visit a few of the small islands in the South Lagoon plus visited the “Paris of the South Pacific”, Noumea. OK, that Paris thing was in the tourist brochure. Noumea is the capital of New Cal. It is certainly a French city, you can tell that by the ease of obtaining baguettes. The fuel dock in the marina has fresh baguettes for sale next to the cash register. Noumea isn’t as impressive a city as Papeete in French Polynesia. It has a little more of a working town feel.
New Cal itself is interesting because of its less than stellar colonial history. Most of the colonial powers have some ugly historical treatment of the indigenous folks in their history books. The thing that stands out for New Cal is that the local white French settlers, now locals, were killing Kanaks (the indigenous New Caledonians) as recently as the 1980’s. New Cal is an Overseas Territory of France. A twenty year treaty stopped the 1980’s killings. It leads to a scheduled independence vote that is to take place November 2018. Apparently the money is flowing.

New Cal’s original attraction to the French was as a prison colony, al la the Brits in Australia. The reason that New Cal got so much attention from the French in later years was due to the nickel deposits on the island. It currently has 11% of the worlds nickel reserves, the second largest reserve on the planet. This is a picture of a large nickel smelter taken from the anchorage in Noumea. That brown smoke coming from the stacks is not as bad as it could be, as it is being blown downwind by the trades away from the nice part of the city onto the poor part. No wonder asthma is a big deal here.

Back to a lighter note. The picture at the top of this blog is the 1865 cast iron lighthouse shipped from France that stands 184 feet and still operates today on Ille Amedee. If anyone cares, it shines two white flashes every 15 seconds out to ships as far as 20 miles away.
Ameede is a tourist island about 2 hours sail south of Noumea. In the early morning and late afternoon before the tourist ferries arrive it is empty, except for the yachts that hang on the free moorings. The moorings are in place so that the boats anchors don’t destroy the turtle grass. The island is home to dozens of turtles who clearly know that this is a protected sanctuary, as they are not skittish at all. This green turtle was grazing right next to our boat for hours. What looks like an ill-fitted tail is a remora fish that was hanging out to do some grooming for her. These green turtles breed and lay eggs on the Australian beaches 800 miles to the west.

Amedde also has an excess of sea snakes. You see these highly poisonous, but reportedly unable to bite humnas, snakes crawling among the tourist lounge chairs after hours. Strange.

A view of the central park in Noumea from the colonial style history museum porch.

I took Chris to the botanical gardens in Noumea for a treat. But first she had to be schooled in the basic rules of bird watching.

This is why you need to be checked out on the rules before you enter. The young man chest pumping on the left is named Kim Jong-un, the old guy to the right is D. Trump. Just think what plucking tail feathers might precipitate…


The top picture is a live ‘eggshell’ cowrie we saw on the reef in Lifou island. When alive they have a black membrane that comes out of the shell and surrounds most of the top. The lower pic is what they look like when they have gone to cowrie heaven.

After we cleared customs and immigration in Noumea, we stopped at a number of the small, pretty much deserted islands in the South Lagoon in a valiant effort to stalk some shells. We basically got skunked – even on the islands that looked so promising from sea.

We did see this large bird of pray, I believe a goshawk, noisily protecting it’s large, stick nest in the mid-day heat.
We are currently at the Ile des Pins (Isle of Pines) about 50 miles SE of Noumea. We plan to stay here till we see a decent weather window to make Bundaberg, Australia or until we get tired of looking at weather GRIBs and decide to go anyway.
Paul

Enroute New Caledonia

AFter a nice snorkel in the cold waters of Baie de Doking (or Baie de Joking) - the water was 81*F - we got a little rest for the afternoon. Then picked up and motor sailed down the leeward side of the Lifou island at around 6pm. We headed far enough south in the dark until we figured to could sail hard on the wind to Grand Terre, the main island of New Caledonia. It was boisterous sail till just before dawn when the winds laid down. We took a mooring at Ile Casy, Baie De Prony right next to our old friends Art and Nancie on Secondwind (out of Ashland, OR). They came over bearing duty-free Gin and Tonics. The duty free stuff definitely tastes better. We need to sit tight for the weekend so we can head in the next 25 miles to Noumea on Monday morning to clear customs.



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Enroute to New Caledonia

We left Havannah Harbour in Vanautu at about 7am after spending the last of our Vatu at the Wahoo restaurant the night before. It was an uncomfortable, but fast 26 hour close reach down to Baie de Doking, Lifou Island. Lifou is in the Loyalties group, the most eastern islands of New Caledonia. We did a nice snorkel and plan to get some rest for the rest of the day. Then we'll head out again around mid-night to sail the 115 miles to Baie de Prony o our way to Noumea. We plan to clear into New Cal on Monday in Noumea.

Baie de Doking anchorage at 20* 42.31S 167*09.66E on a small sand patch in 50feet.



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A Little Bislama

After Erromongo we sailed up to Efate island and into the capital of Vanuatu, Port Vila. It’s an easy town to get around and reprovision. I’ve spoke a couple of times in the blog about the Bislama language spoken in Vanuatu. It is a fairly sophisticated pidgin English. You can often understand what is written and sometimes understand a small amount when you hear it spoken.
One of the most endearing expressions is tenk yu tumas. Thank you very much. If you look at these papayas in the market, you’ll notice that the sign says  No Prestem Po Po. Don’t squeeze paw paws!

Emergency instructions for Etkwek (earthquake) and Tsunami posted in the village.

Here’s a more complicated message letting every parent know about the fees that are due for school.

The National Museum of Vanuatu – pretty easy to translate.

The museum has a good collection of artifacts from early Vanuatu populations and some good discussions on the culture. Vanuatu is known for the tradition of sand painting. The sand is smoothed out and then a picture is drawn with one finger without lifting it while a story, related to the picture, is told. These stylized pictures represent events from Vanuatu’s history, ancient and more modern. This one was done by a young lady during a demonstration in the museum. It tells the sotry of one village’s experience with the Blackbirding ships that came to the islands and essentially press-ganged local men to go work in the Australian cane fields. An estimated 40,000 ni-Vanuatu were ‘recruited’ between 1863 and 1904. Some islands, like Erromongo, were hit very hard and the population is still recovering.

We sailed around to the NW corner of Efate to the area called Havannah Harbour. It was the location of the original colonial settlements. They were moved to Port Vila after a drought (the west sides of the islands are typically dryer due to the prevailing SE Tradewinds). During World War II this was an American naval and air base in support of the attack on Guadalcanal.
Going up the bay we saw this two masted boat on the reef. From a distance it looks like a normal sized cruising ketch. But up close it is really a mega-yacht. The catamaran that is in the picture above to the right of the ketch is 45 feet long. The yacht is named Blue Gold and it went on the reef during Cyclone Pam in 2015. The owner was arrested in Switzerland and charged in the Netherlands over various financial issues apparently not related to the yacht.

Blue Gold is being watched by one of the islanders living close by and has not been stripped. Up close the steel hull looks in good shape and ready for salvage. The water off its stern is deep, so salvage should be fairly straight forward. Just when the salvage will occur is an open question.

This is the bay that Blue Gold was in when it broke free during the cyclone. We anchored just off to the left. If you look closely there are a couple of yellow mooring balls in the picture. When we anchored there were four large yellow moorings arraigned in a square. These were installed, after Pam, as cyclone moorings for larger ships. When we woke in the morning, one of the yellow moorings had drifted off to another location?????????

Not ones to miss out on a world class museum, we took the dinghy for a long ride in to find the WW II Museum. It took asking three different people to actually locate it, but of course it was well worth it. With a motto like Rust In Peace how could you not like it?

Once inside you find out that the focus of the museum seems to be old bottles, with Coca Cola bottles leading the way. Here Chris is looking at some of the latest Coke finds. The guy in the red shirt is the grandson of the museum founder and the current operator. If you are old enough you probably remember that Coke bottles had the bottling company city and state embossed in the glass on the bottom of each bottle. I remember working in a welding shop as a kid. At break time we would through in a few quarters to a pot and who ever got the break-time Coke bottle from the furthest away bottling plant was the winner. Since all the bottles had a nickel deposit and were re-used in those days, bottles ended up getting distributed all over the country and world. Chris is looking at a bottle marked from Albuquerque NM, her old home town.

The museum also has some serious art work and some unexploded ordinance as well.

Flowers for sale in the market.

We cleared out of Vanuatu today in Port Vila. A quick trip to Immigration and then Customs stopped by our boat. We will hang out for a few days until we see a good weather window, then we are off to Noumea, New Caledonia. The passage should take 2 to 3 days.
Gut naet (good night)
Paul

William’s Bay (aka Dillon’s Bay)Erromongo, Vanuatu

We got up early in Port Resolution Bay and picked up our stern anchor that we had set out previously, to keep the bow pointing into the small swell and not rocking the boat, then grabbed the bow anchor and headed north for Erromongo. Mount Yasur was still smoking as we passed offshore in the early morning.

When we got to the north end of Tanna we were briefly visited by some large dolphins. They seemed to not be all that interested in playing with our bow wake like the dolphins we’ve encountered in other places… just coming by to say hello.

We arrived at William’s Bay late in the afternoon. There were two cruising boats in the anchorage, both boats we had met in Port Resolution. Chief Jacob quickly paddled up in his outrigger and introduced himself. We invited him onboard for a late coffee and some cookies. A very interesting and friendly man. He told us a lot about the village and island.
He is a great football fan (soccer for you Yanks), so we gave him one of our soccer balls. These are really high quality balls that we got from brother-in-law Juli Vee and the chief was suitably impressed. He invited us to come in tomorrow to see his houses and garden.

This is Chief Jacob’s wife and children. Notice that the little girl is playing with a large, sharp knife. This is not unusual here and you never see the parents hovering over the kid saying Be careful. I’m assuming there is some genetic transfer of knowledge that keeps them safe from slicing off body parts.

The bay we are anchored in is named Dillon’s Bay on most charts. Peter Dillon came to Erromongo from Australia in the early 1800’s to harvest sandalwood trees. The locals pretty much sent him trucking on his way without a load of sandalwood. Latter King Kamehaeha of Hawaii sent two ships full of Polynesian Hawaiians to take over the island to gather sandalwood. This also didn’t go over well with the locals and only 20 of the 479 Hawaiians made it back to Hawaii.
With this general distrust, or perhaps disgust, of foreigners did not bode well for the early missionaries. John Williams of the London Missionary Society showed up in 1839 and was promptly killed and eaten by the Erromangans. About 170 years after his death his descendants arrived on the island for a reconciliation ceremony. The islanders are now very religious and have multiple churches in the small village. The bay was renamed William’s Bay in honor of the eaten missionary.
The plants you see in the center of the picture above are part of a sandalwood nursery. Many of the locals plant them on their land and are able to harvest them in 15 to 17 years. A decent sized tree will pay for a year or more of schooling.

The walls of the homes are typically woven of bamboo and the roofs are palm fronds. This is Jacobs’s house here, recently rebuilt after being flattened by Cyclone Pam. The family stayed in a large cave on their property during the storm.
It turns out that we are not the only country to have bewildering politics. William’s Bay has two chiefs. This picture is Chief Jason. He appears to us to be the administrative chief of the main village. Chief Jacob owns a large portion of land right on the bay and up the hillside (this is land that he has recently gotten title to by applying to the Vanuatu Supreme Court) and Chief Jason owns land on either side of this. After we met Chief Jason we asked him if we could get permission to visit the Caves. He told us to come back at 2pm and he would guide us. At two we all jumped in the dingy and headed to a beach about a mile north of the village.
Jacob walked us on a short trail to this cave entrance while telling us about the island and its people. At the cave entrance he stopped and asked ceremoniously to the cave inhabitants if we could have permission to visit.

Chief Jason and Chris inside the cave. You can tell that it was really interesting because Chris has not yet melted down from her claustrophobia.

Buried in the cave are Jason’s ancestors. The island has been inhabited for two or three thousand years. These remains looked a lot more recent.

Those are pretty healthy looking teeth.

There is an old belt buckle lying next to these bones.

When we left the cave Chief Jason solemnly thanked the inhabitants for allowing our visit and then put on a nice smile for the photo. Chris is just smiling because she is no longer in a cave.

The kids in the village were all interested in us and friendly, except for this girl in the red stripes. She seemed scared to be around us. The school teaches in both French and English. The village speaks its own Erromangan language as well as the national language, Bislama. The Erromangan language is related to the languages in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

We were invited to stop by for a snack that turned out to be lunch at Donald and Lotties house. She is putting together a private kindergarten for the local kids. Chris brought some school supplies plus our last small child’s soccer ball.
Donald and Lottie in front of the kindergarten building they built on their property.

While we were there an Australian aid group brought in a new tractor and some supplies to aid in local farming. The whole village came out to hellp with loading and unloading.

Just prior to the ship arriving some of the locals went off to harvest some rose wood. These planks will be sent up to Port Vila on the cargo ship to be sold. The proceeds are to pay for school for the tree’s owner’s kids.

We saw this collection of stones on the beach and had to ask what they were all about. They are also going to Port Vila, to be used in making the national dish “laplap” which looks a bit like Mexican tamales.

The village is located beside a clear river that flows through an idyllic looking valley.

The size of the tropical trees here never ceases to amaze me. That’s Chris with the red shirt walking up toward the trunk of this medium sized banyan tree, mid-left of the picture.

William’s Bay was a really interesting stop. We wish we had a little more time to explore Vanuatu.
Paul