Port Resolution, Vanuatu

This pic was taken as we arrived in the early morning hours to Port Resolution on Tanna Island. The cloud you see drifting toward the north is volcano dust and steam being ejected by Mt. Yasur. I suspect it looked similar to this when Capt. Cook arrived in 1774 and named the bay after his ship, HMS Resolution. With a name like Port Resolution you’d figure it was a port town. Nope. Over the years the bay has gotten shallower. It is has a few very small subsistence villages around it, no stores or docks or really anything.

Now you don’t have to feel uneducated or non-worldly just because you have less than a vague clue as to where Vanuatu might be. Prior to getting to the South Pacific I wasn’t sure if it was a country in the SP or an imaginary location from a Michener story. (You can click on the maps to biggerate). Vanuatu was previously known in its colonial days as the New Hebrides islands. The French and English took joint control of the islands from the local Melanesian population and ran it as a Condominium form of gov’t. Not sure what a government Condo really is but they setup duplicate ministries and officers for all government posts and jointly governed in that remarkably inefficient way that only Colonial gentlemen can govern. They made some historic decisions while presiding over the islands, such as what side of the road to drive on. The Brits were driving on the left and the French on the right. Even with almost no traffic in the early 1900’s this situation couldn’t last long. They met and discussed. And met again and discussed again, resolving the issue in a Solomonesque bureaucratic way. The next vehicle to be imported into the country would decide which side of the road all would drive on. A new carriage came in on a ship from French controlled New Caledonia and the country drives on the right side of the road ever since.
The closest village to the bay has a Yacht Club, an open air structure on the cliff overlooking the bay. They offer this as a service to cruisers – who then use the villagers to get rides into town, setup tours, etc.  The village is very possessive of the ‘rights’ to do business with the cruisers and don’t like it when cruisers deal with the other smaller village at the head of the bay. Customs and Immigration came over from Lenakel, the main town and official port of entry, to clear us in. Lenakel is on the east side of the island and has what I would describe as an anchor eating, rolly, barely protected anchorage. Much better to come into Port Resolution than to try and anchor on the Lenakel side. Clearing in costs about $120(US) including a $50 fee for a biosecurity check. No actual Bio-security agent or on-board inspection. It also included the checking in fuel charge for C&I to drive across the island, shared among cruisers.
The village houses are pretty basic and you can see how the cyclones can wipe them out pretty easily. The good news is that they rebuild quickly.

The kids seem happy and healthy, love the beach and are always playing with each other somewhere.

We joined a group of cruisers (all Ozzies) who needed to go into Lenakel to exchange money, get a SIM cards for their phones and checkout the market. The road trip across the island takes about two hours- one way. The first half or 2/3 is rough dirt road. The next third is graded dirt road with about 0.1% concrete or asphalt. We picked up locals on the way. If you were one of the unlucky cruisers who got space in the back of truck it was one dusty ride. Being old and whiny about my sore back I got to sit in the cab.

On the way we stopped at the side of the road to pickup some fresh bread at the Bread and Benzine stop. Benzine being what they call gasoline or petrol. (Masui is diesel in the local language). The Ozzie, Mike, in the blue shirt facing Chris in this pic, promptly pulled out his little plastic bag with butter and, of course, Vegemite to put on his fresh rolls!

After exchanging cash at the bank, where there are no ATMs that accept international cards, we headed off to the nicely stocked vegetable market. The couple of general grocery stores around the market had very little unless you needed packaged Asian noodles (think Top Ramen) or breakfast sweet biscuits (think saltines with more body, much less salt and a dash of sugar).

While the store doesn’t have a lot inside it it did have this remnant huge Giant Clam shell outside, unfortunaely it had been painted.

Speaking of shells, it was overcast the other day and we did a short shell hunting adventure. Pretty good haul, including these pristine cowrie shells.

There are giant banyan trees all over Tanna. Apparently they use the roots of female banyan trees for construction. The male trees are reserved for sitting around and drinking kava. This tree is in town and the spot to stop when you need to get some kava to take home on a Friday night. Our taxi driver pulled over here so some of the excess passengers could get their liter water bottles filled with the mud-colored liquid kava. By the time we got back to the village the taxi, a Toyota 4-door cab pickup Hylux, had 14 people in it (or on it). I, fortunately, was sitting in the front seat and had the single seat belt.

The scale doesn’t show too well in this picture. This is the backside of the Mt. Yasur volcano showing its acres of volcanic dust that we drove across.

We went to the village in Sulphur Bay on Friday night to see the Jon Frum Friday night ritual. The Jon Frum culture was a response to repressive European missionary practices (msome of those guys were eaten). It is part of the Cargo Cult religion that believes all needs will be provided to them as cargo showing up on their shores. The name Jon Frum derives from the phrase “John, from America”, as in, “Hi, I’m…”. During WWII the US brought previously unknown and almost unlimited material stuff to these shores, along with black American soldiers. Priests, known as messengers, now prophesize the return of ships laden with cargo to Tanna escorted by Jon Frum, the reincarnation of an ancient deity. The movement declares money must be thrown away, pigs killed and gardens left uncared for as all material wealth will be provided in the end by Jon Frum. Hmmm…
Tanna is the main island for Jon Frum practices. In WW II about 1,000 men from Tanna went to the island of Efate (where the capital of Vanuatu Port Vila is located) and worked on US military bases. The village that we went to see the celebration raises an American flag each day on a flagpole.
The evening is oriented around ‘bands’ of maybe 8-15 people who belt out spiritual songs that came to the band leader while dreaming.

The men sing and play guitars and makeshift percussion instruments with the women singing backup. This little guy could be heard above the others as he enthusiastically and at high volume sang on. When his little brother got tired of strumming his small guitar and eventually fell asleep in Mom’s arms, he got to take over the guitar to add to his singing duties. Chief Isaac explained that the singing and dancing goes on from about 7-8pm to sunrise each Friday and that they sleep a lot on Saturdays. As typical for cruisers, we didn’t make it anywhere near the close of ceremonies.

Housing with a covered porch.

A little boy and Mom on the side of the road.

The side of the volcano works its way down to the waters edge of the bay we are anchored in. Just to remind us how close the volcano is, this is a steam vent at the edge of the bay, just next to our boat.

The Ni-Vanuatua grow up comfortable in the sea. A young man harpoon gig fishing

Paul