Position           16:31.96 S 167:46.21 E

Date                Tuesday16 June to Saturday 20 June 2015

Monday was our 41^st wedding anniversary but the champagne and fatted calf had to be put on hold as Elizabeth had contracted ‘island flu’ – there is a lot of it about.  It must have been bad as she allowed me to do the cooking.  Nevertheless we made a dawn start on Tuesday in order to take the high water back into the lagoon at Lutes on Uliveo.  Dr E was delivered ashore by 0900 and managed to struggle through the morning and carry out some house visits.

Wednesday was not much better.

Whilst in Uliveo we have been working closely by email and text message with our sponsor, Lynn of the Butterfly Trust, who is currently in Port Vila.  She has been doing a wonderful job liaising with the Vanuatu Central Hospital (VCH) about patient referrals and admissions.  A great success for Elizabeth and Lynn was getting a man with a knee injury, we met him last year just after he had sustained the injury, referred to VCH for surgery in a week’s time.  He has been quite disabled for 6 months and this is the one chance that he has of correcting the problem.

Thursday and Friday were taken up with a visit to do clinics on Avokh and to visit the Health Centre at Lamap.  These are covered in later diary entries.  In the meantime here are some photographs from the week.

This boat goes around the islands collecting copra and dropping off goods and people.  It spent the night in the anchorage

Refurbishing this local boat was a training project.  This early morning drive past was its maiden voyage and was full of happy chaps.  I wonder of the flowers on the deck were to be a votive offering

Some decidedly vicious bits of reef guarding the Lutes anchorage.  Seen at a very low tide