TANNA ISLAND, 3RD AUGUST, 2010

We have had an incredible couple of days.   We flew down to Tanna island on a local flight to visit their active volcano.  It is the only volcano in the world where you can walk up to the rim of the core and look into it.  It is dangerous but there are no health and safety rules here, the locals know the volcano well and asses it's activity.  The activity the day we visited was no 2 if it goes to no 4 then they close it.  We were lucky as it was quite active but there was no wind so the chance of being hit by molten rocks was less, although a hot one was found on the path around the rim which had landed a couple of hours before we arrived.  It exploded quite a lot whilst we were standing there enough to make your ears pop and to push us back a little, like a bomb.  Molton rocks flew up into the air and great gusts of sulphuric dust shot out.  Our guides assessed how safe it was to go to the top of the other side of the core and we stood there with a very good view of both the cores as it rumbled away below our feet.  It was completely awe inspiring and the strength of nature has no bounds.

We visited tribal villages and with the permission of their chiefs were able to visit the hot springs or boiling springs in this case.  The land is divided up amongst villages and their chiefs have to be approached before you wonder around, usually they allow you to in exchange for some money or a gift.  There is no electricity unless they are lucky enough to have a generator, no television, they live in villages in the jungle, hunt wild pig, chickens and shoot flying foxes with arrows made from the tap roots of the Banyan tree to eat, they grow yam and Taro and live off wild fruit and other vegetation.  They are exceedingly happy people who want for nothing on the whole, they will never starve they will always be clothed, the only down side is that they now want their children to have schooling and that has to be paid for so western influence has caused this to be a problem for them as the children used to just learn how to run their villages and grow and hunt for food.  I think in another 20 years what we saw will have disappeared as tourism is taking over and there will be demands made for tarmacked roads and more money will be involved.  So we feel very lucky to have seen this before it changes.

We plan to set sail for Epi later today to watch a dug out canoe race tomorrow.  Only problem the riggers have not turned up yet to reinstate the clevis pin between the cross trees and mast it is manyana time is not the essence, Jonathan is becoming miffed as we want to get going.  

Jonathan could always get a second job as a plumber and electrician, he knows the yacht inside out and when our new hot water cylinder arrived last week he did a very good job of fitting it in.

I may not be able to down load more photos until we get to Mackay around the 20th August as we are off to remoter islands up north and then on to Mackay which will take about 8 days at sea.

Very difficult to believe that the first half of our adventure at sea is nearly over.