Sailing around the World, ( presently in Port Resolution, Vanuatu . )

A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Wed 7 Jul 2010 01:50
TUESDAY  6th  JULY   2010
 
The sea became very choppy during the night, so sleeping was not great on board.
 
05.oohrs  Skipper joined Scotty on deck, the wind was still blowing at 25knots, on our port beam.
Wow, " Look over there, yes in the distance, " Valcano flames every so often,  shooting into the sky, ohhh what a fantastic sight.
God ! this trip has everything,  but, and as we said many times before, but its after getting cool, and imagine, we have to put on jackets.
of course it's winter down here,
 
06.15hrs  We adjusted the clocks back 1 hour,
We arrived at the finish line outside " Port Resolution" at 05.13hrs  local time, and there in front of us waiting, was " Ocean Jasper"
so we were second to arrive , in a time of  66hrs, 13mins,  averaging 6.8knots for the journey.
Ohhhhh my God ! another  " cock roach "  in the cockpit, however , this time the bugger wes dead.
 
06.00hrs local time, we dropped anchor in the bay, having first motored up the coast a few miles to look at the Volcano doing it buisness.
On first sight, the place looks good, in fact great,
We tidied up and Skipper went to the scratcher for an hour or so , whacked.
 
08.30hrs,  Scotty, Daniel and Skipper attacked the cleaning of the boat with vigour, hosing down the decks, cabin, cockpit, sails and rigging with
our fresh water high pressure pump/hose...we also polished the windows and cleaned out the forward anchor locker and removed
some old ropes and other bits, no longer required. ( its amazing the rubbish that accumulates after a while)
 
12.00hrs  The 3 musketeers went ashore, ( Aileen is still suffering from headaches after her head first dive down the saloon ladder a week ago,
so she remained in the bunk )  Skipper cleared all the paper work, Scotty went for a walk, and Daniel explored the surrounding area.
 
The first noticable thing on the Island, was the earth. dark soft rich soil, and appearently
great for growing veg and fruit. The smell of the freshly dug earth was intoxicating.
The trees, the vegitation in general was lush, but unlike so many of the other Islands, little or no flowers.
On the other hand, the roads were dirt tracks, and more like savaged river beds,
 
14.00hrs, we had a visit from the Quarinteen people, checking we had NO fresh fruit or veg on board, that all went fine
as we had made sure to use everything up before we got here.
So now we were clear to do whatever , whenever.
 
15.00hrs,  The three musketeers went off on an organised trip to the Valcano. which took in a stop at a village on route.
Now , firstly, the roads / dirt tracks were something else, It seems that there was torrential rain a month ago
and it washed huge ravines into the road,s    so driving was a nightmare, even in the 4x4's
 
The Village was so different to other places we have been, very primitive and the Bannion tree's were awsome,
the local men did a welcome dance which included very young boys,
The interesting thing here, All the dancers were naked except for straw wrapping's around their Mickies, which kept them very erect. 
The dancing was fabulous, and real energising.....this lasted about 20 mins,  a great show.....
 
On then to the Volcano,   now this was special,  having survived the road journey, we all had to get out and walk up to the top of the creator
this was a hard pull up the side of the mountain.........phew!
good job we had the runners on, plus the jackets and warm clothes as it was decidedly chilly here, even with the earth on fire in the volcano.
 
OHHHHH  the scene was spell binding, the mountain vomiting up its burning red hot lava and rocks high into the sky every
few minutes,,   WOW... no words would ever describe what we saw..............but we have photo's
Then , our Daniel had to drive a golf ball into the creator,  can you credit that, he brought along a golf club specially from london to
do that stunt........
All wonderfull stuff.  Some days tend to be a small bit boring, and others, like today.......hectic and mind boggling....
and were not finished yet,
 
19.00hrs  back to " A Lady" and collected Aileen and returned to the shore in total darkness, we had to bring torches to light up our route
to " Leah's " restaurant which was on the  beach about a 1/2 mile walk through the forrest. It was pitch black, but we did have a guide
over and back..
This was another new experience, The restaurant only had 15 seats in total, basically 3 bench tables and very rickity at that.
the food was served on big leaves which in turn were placed on woven palm leaf plates.
But the food, grab this ,  was mainly different fruits and vegitables with a " local Chicken Dish " all helpyourself stuff.
 
NO Booze,  crikey , we made a balls of that, we just did not know it was a lime juice joint
The chicken was limited , and was basically all bones, and definatly not chicken bones as we know them....  but , it was a new experience,
and we really enjoyed the whole thing//
 
21.00hrs, the whole event was over and we had the benifit of another guide back to the beach and the rib.
walking through the forest in the pitch dark was great  , listening to all the different sounds around us and getting the occasional
glimpse of " Bats "  in the loom of the torch, flying silently through the trees...
 
Back on board , skipper and Daniel had a night cap before going to the scratchers......................ZZZZZzzzzzzzzZZZZZzzzzzz s
 
Thats all for now.
 
 Signed  :-    Stephen Hyde,    ( Skipper )