17.44.820S 168.18.654E  Monday 22nd July – We  arrived at Port Villa, Efate Island of Vanuatu,  (meaning ‘Our Land’) – hands up – who has heard of the Ripablik Blong Vanuatu or knows anything about it?  Well it was the Anglo-French New Hebrides until independence in 1980 and constitutes 82 islands spread out over 12,189 square kilometres of ocean.  Comprised of volcanic ash and coral, these islands are known to be among the ‘youngest’ in the Pacific and sit on the west edge of the Pacific Plate next to the 8,000 meter deep New Hebrides trench.  The Indo-Australian Plate slips under here in a classic demonstration of plate tectonics and the islands are pushed up 10 cm a year.  Accompanying this are earthquakes and volcanoes and most of the Rally have flown to Tanna to witness a live eruption.  Apparently standing on the right side of the prevailing wind keeps the molten lava from killing you, although a tourist recently suffered a fatal accident.  For our part – call me a ninny - we haven’t travelled over 13 thousand miles to be hit by lump of accidental lava!

Lovely as it is looks here, we are anxious to sail to Mackay on the Australian coast but there is a serious cyclonic front coming in over the weekend and Jimmy Connell predicts a tricky passage in any case, so it looks as if we may get delayed.

Yesterday we spent the whole day 8.00am to 4.30pm touring Efate Island in a small crowded mini bus – and we had to laugh – usually these events are well worth the effort, but our hapless driver couldn’t find the ‘chief’ of the village so we all had to stay inside the vehicle clutching our bag of rice donation – the school children never materialised – we whipped past the inviting ‘blue lagoon’ swimming spot – never saw the view from the ‘panoramic view point’ – blinked and missed the waterfall – and the white sands and sea were a distant flash!  We had to get a grip and take control – so eventually we did manage to persuade him to turn back to visit the World War 2 American relic museum, a dubious cave where there is an offer of a kayak trip of a lifetime (going nowhere in the pitch dark and back again) and a pit stop for lunch.

American War Museum – suitably air conditioned as there was no roof or walls – but beautifully kept grounds – the grass cut and flowers tended

The ‘do not touch’ relics – possibly because none of the bombs or bullets ever got decommissioned so could ‘go off’ at any moment!!

Sharpen your (live) bullets!

American soldiers with their Vietnamese friend the baker – stationed here in the first Pacific base - to counteract the Japanese - made all the more poignant as one of the Rally member’s father was also posted somewhere here during the war

Fuselage of a USA Corsair war plane flown by Captain James Vitittoe – he survived after crash landing it during a training exercise which went wrong when he lost his way and ran out of fuel.

Kindergarten play time

With a small child scrumping some coconuts for his mates– puts a whole new meaning to ‘tree climbing’!

Anyhow, today we are internetting, skyping, laundering and shopping before another dose of boat maintenance tomorrow.  We need to re wire the chart plotter and autopilot which ceased mid passage – repair the faulty engine start switch – beef up the ‘battery box’ fixings under the bed which seem to have come adrift – reseal the leaking saloon windows – find an oil filter and install – adapt the outboard propeller until we can buy a new one (we hit a log and damaged the sacrificial rubber donut designed to break before harm is done to the engine) – revisit the shaft seal which is still leaking water (and we should have remembered to fix when we were out on the hard) – check the fuel filters and stem a small diesel leak – check the fuel inspection hatches which also leak – fix new hose pipes for the bilge pump if we can buy them here.  All general maintenance but all vital……