Vanuatu is an archipelago of 83 islands located 1400 miles east of Australia and 400 miles west of Fiji.

The Vanuatu people speak Bislama, a unique local language although English is very widely spoken along with some French.

We are staying in the largest town in the group, Port Villa on the island of Efate.

Port Villa is a fascinating place with an abundance of French restaurants and coffee shops, a colourful craft market and a large produce market where whole families seem to live, sleeping on the market floor overnight.

There is also a Spar and a Bon Marche supermarket where we bought a few treats that we hadn’t seen in quite a while !

There are a number of live volcanoes in Vanuatu including Yasar on the island of Tanna, the world’s most accessible volcano, so we decided a visit was in order. We flew from Port Villa to White Grass airport on the island of Tanna where we were taken by four wheel drive to our ‘jungle huts’ which were to be our overnight accommodation. As you can see Mark had a few hang ups about the room (Mark’s joke).

We took a stroll around with Jaime and Carmen (Bionic) taking in the views of the coral reefs, the colourful tropical flowers, authentic local villages and we met endless smiling children who were delighted to greet us.

The ancient culture in Tanna remains largely unchanged and lots of traditional customs and primitive ceremonies continue to this day.

For example all young boys are circumcised at the age of 5-6, a ceremony carried out using ‘natural’ anesthetising herbs. There is a local ‘expert’ who does the procedure using an instrument made of bamboo and the boys are then kept hidden away for two months while they recover – ouch !

There is a population of 23,000 in Tanna (all indigenous) and during our trip across the island to the volcano we saw people everywhere, all on foot and mainly without shoes. Everyone was happy and smiling collecting vegetables or firewood, walking to church or just sitting on the ground whilst the children played around them.

Some youths had caught a pig, another ancient ceremony, and they were walking back to the village with it trussed and hanging from a branch of wood.

The ‘roads’ were dark volcanic mud, very bouncy and rutted and we drove across volcanic ash plains and even down the bank of a lake, across the lake and up the other side before we reached mount Yasar.

You can just see one of our vehicles in the middle photo, and in the right hand photo Mark stands on the volcanic ash mountain.

It was then a ten minute walk up to the rim of the volcano where we were met with a stunning site.

An outstanding natural firework display !

Every few minutes a deep rumbling would cause the ground to vibrate then a huge eruption of fire and molten rock would spit high into the air. The escaping gases boomed out a noise like a steam train and the huge plumes of sulphur smoke swirled all around us.

Simply breathtaking !

Well, we wish we could stay longer, a dive to the underwater post box where the post master wears full scuba gear would have been nice, as would a trip to the island of Pentecost to see the land diving rituals, where young men jump 20-30 metres from a man made tower with just a vine attached to their legs, to prove their manhood, whilst the village dance and stomp their feet waiting for the diver to jump safely to ground.

BUT Australia is calling !

We have just arrived back at the boat and are thrilled to see that the rigging repair is all done. We were not able to get the part but the local boatyard has fabricated a new part out of stainless steel and fitted it to the spreader to resurrect our shroud. We then plan to have a more permanent repair in Mackay, Australia, where we hope the right parts will be waiting for us.